Table of Contents

There are 15 chapters in this issue

About BlackCommentator.com

Cover Story: Supreme Court Throws Voting Rights Act Under the Bus - Color of Law By David A. Love, JD

Marching for the Right to Vote

Quote to Ponder: "The Court makes no genuine attempt to engage with the massive legislative record that Congress assembled." - Justice Ruth Ginsburg dissenting opinion on the Supreme Court Voting Rights Act Ruling

Privacy - What Privacy? - Big Brother is Not the Only One Collecting Information on Us - A View from the Battlefield By Jamala Rogers, BC Editorial Board

With Exodus International Closing, What Next? - Inclusion - By The Reverend Irene Monroe - BC Editorial Board

Romanticizing Mandela - The Other Side of the Tracks - By Perry Redd - BC Columnist

FISA: Now Hiring! - Animated Political Cartoon By Mark Fiore, San Francisco CA

Stirrings of Resistance Amid Nuclear Danger - Solidarity America - By John Funiciello - BC Columnist

In the Name of Your Children: Women and Tyranny - Represent Our Resistance - By Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD - BC Editorial Board

Domestic Spying - Political Cartoon By Eric Garcia, Chicago IL

Hillary’s Next Run: It’s a Race for the Masses - Between The Lines - By Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, PhD - BC Columnist

Preparing for NBUF’s 34th Annual National Convention - Worrill’s World - By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD -BC Columnist

'Blackula' Obama, Whistleblowers, & Betrayal by the Media - Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney, BC Editorial Board

Reparations - BC Political Cartoon By Chuck Siler

This is an eBook version of BlackCommentator.com - An independent weekly internet magazine dedicated to the movement for economic justice, social justice and peace.

BC Provides commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans and the African world.

BC was established April 5, 2002 and is published weekly on Thursday.

This is Issue 522 which was published Jun 27, 2013.

Executive Editor: David A. Love, JD - Managing Editor: Nancy Littlefield, MBA - Publisher: Peter Gamble

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

Members of the BC Editorial Board represent African Americans and the African world. They are dedicated activists, thinkers and writers. The BC Editorial Board includes the following in alphabetical order by last name:

Lola Adesioye, Carl Bloice, Julian Bond, Rose Brewer PhD, Horace Campbell PhD, Imani Countess, Lenore Jean Daniels PhD, Bill Fletcher Jr., James Jennings PhD, Badili Jones, Martin Kilson PhD, Sharon Kyle JD, David A. Love JD, Julianne Malveaux PhD, Manning Marable PhD, Syreeta McFadden, The Reverend Irene Monroe, Leith Mullings PhD, Jacqui Patterson, Larry Pinkney, Steven Pitts PhD, Barbara Ransby PhD, Jamala Rogers, Ethel Long-Scott, Amy V. Simmons, William L. (Bill) Strickland, Chuck Turner, Nathaniel Turner, Ron Walters PhD, Emira Woods, Jeanne Woods JD.

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

It is no understatement to say that the U.S. Supreme Court committed a crime of the highest proportion when it decided to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a few days ago. The victory for gay marriage and against DOMA was bittersweet, given a disappointing voting rights decision in the same week.

The lesson learned from the high court’s opinion in Shelby County v. Holder is clear: Don’t look to the federal government to protect your voting rights, which you no longer have, in any case. The extreme majority on the Supreme Court cares little to nothing about you. And as for the states, it’s Jim Crow all over again. States, do what you will. Disenfranchise black voters if that suits you. Give them literacy tests and block their votes. Make them tell you how many bubbles are in a bar of soap in order to register. This was a clear victory for states’ rights and for the Old Confederacy and those who waved and continue to wave the Stars and Bars with prideful glee.

And this was a victory for Bull Connor and the domestic terrorists who killed Medgar Evers and those four little girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. And it was a big win for the murderers of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Cheney in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and those who killed and maimed countless others for the right to vote.

Essentially, the Supreme Court eliminated Section 4 of the Act, which determines which states fall under the preclearance requirement of Section 5. I suppose none of this matters anymore, but under Section 5, certain jurisdictions with a history of voter disenfranchisement against African Americans were required to seek permission from the federal government or a federal court before making changes to their election laws. In recent years, the Voting Rights Act was invoked to put the brakes on voter suppression efforts in South Carolina and Texas. Now, with no more Voting Rights Act, these states are free to pursue their Voter ID schemes with reckless abandon. That goes for other states as well. No need to ask the feds for permission.

The Voting Rights Act covered nine states - Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia - and numerous other counties and localities across the nation.

It is clear that when you look at map of places covered by the Voting Rights Act, you’re essentially looking at the South. Law professors Christopher Elmendorf and Douglas Spencer at the University of California, Davis and the University of Connecticut, respectively, conducted a study on which states exhibit the most anti-black prejudice. Under their study, the professors asked nonblacks to rate blacks and their own racial group concerning work ethic, intelligence and trustworthiness. The professors found that the states requiring preclearance under the Voting Rights Act closely mirror the most racist states under their research. In other words, welcome to Dixie. There’s a little Alabama in places such as Pennsylvania and other “Up South” states, but this is a South-dominated phenomenon.

Known for its culture of violence and dehumanization of people through slavery and segregation, the South is also home for much of the so-called Bible Belt, as well as the Death Belt, where the lion’s share of America’s executions take place. But that’s the subject for another story.

Nevertheless, despite the abundance of evidence pointing to the continued need for the Voting Rights Act - including the protracted nature of racism in this country, and the prolonged threat to the franchise in the land of the free - the Tea Party justices would have you believe that we live in a colorblind society where racism no longer exists. And their evidence is because they said it is so.

Writing for the five justices in the majority - including himself and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito - Chief Justice John Roberts proclaimed that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional because Congress did not revise the formula subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance. And after all, things have changed, right? Look at all the black people who are voting!

“Nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically,” wrote Roberts. “In the covered jurisdictions, “[v]oter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels…. The tests and devices that blocked access to the ballot have been forbidden nationwide for over 40 years.”

Roberts continued, “There is no denying, however, that the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions. By 2009, ‘the racial gap in voter registration and turnout [was] lower in the States originally covered by section 5 than it [was] nationwide.’”

“Since that time, Census Bureau data indicate that African-American voter turnout has come to exceed white voter turnout in five of the six States originally covered by section 5,with a gap in the sixth State of less than one half of one percent,” he added.

Meanwhile, for proof that voter suppression of people of color and others still exists, just remember all of the states which have enacted or tried to enact voter ID laws. Certainly the Voting Rights Act has protected voters from discrimination at the ballot box, an argument for protecting the law itself. “The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent on behalf of Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. “The Court appears to believe that the VRA’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclearance is no longer needed.”

Clarence Thomas, that cruel joke of a gift from Poppy Bush that just keeps on giving, wrote in his own concurring opinion that section 5 of the VRA is unconstitutional as well. “As the Court aptly notes:’[N]o one can fairly say that [the record] shows anything approaching the ‘pervasive,’ ‘flagrant,’ ‘widespread,’ and ‘rampant’ discrimination that faced Congress in 1965, and that clearly distinguished the covered jurisdictions from the rest of the Nation at that time.’” Thomas wrote. “Indeed, circumstances in the covered jurisdictions can no longer be characterized as ‘exceptional’ or ‘unique.’ The extensive pattern of discrimination that led the Court to previously uphold section 5 as enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment no longer exists.”

Thomas plays a particularly shameful role in this case and on the Supreme Court in general, as the descendant of slaves who believes that no African American is a victim unless their name is Clarence Thomas, and the venue is a high-tech lynching before the U.S. Senate.

Thomas has shown nothing but contempt for the civil rights establishment and black people in general, and yet he owes so much to the movement that paved the way for him. He is one of the most powerful people in America, selected by the President and confirmed by the Senate, yet he accuses Obama of elitism. He depended on the patronage of white Republicans who took a liking to him, yet he demands that everyone else pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Justice Thomas was a beneficiary of affirmative action, yet in his concurring opinion in the recent Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action case, he condemned programs of inclusion. “Slaveholders argued that slavery was a ‘positive good’ that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life,” Thomas wrote. “A century later, segregationists similarly asserted that segregation was not only benign, but good for black students.”

Most of all, Clarence Thomas is a key player of the destruction of the civil rights legacy of Thurgood Marshall and others. And this small, bitter, wayward man takes glee in gutting a law that came from the blood of peaceful civil rights protestors beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and through the lynching of Viola Liuzzo by the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. His court is in league with the Dred Scott and Plessy courts, and for this he can never be forgiven.

Let’s make it clear: Republicans have been jonesing for a repeal of the VRA for awhile, as they have suppressed the votes of Democratic constituents and redistricted themselves into perpetual rule, despite the demographic browning and blackening of America. They don’t want black and Latino votes and couldn’t win them if they wanted to, so why not change the electorate from the one you cannot win with to the one you can?

Since an African American came to the presidency, conservatives have decided to give this whole voting thing a critical eye.

The pathway to restoring the VRA is leadership from President Obama and action from Congress. However, don’t expect anything from this partisan Tea Party Congress, which in collaboration with SCOTUS have brought us to the end of voting rights in America. And so the crooks have changed the law to justify their own theft.

Ultimately, our only hope is in next year’s midterm election. Vote.

BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor and Columnist, David A. Love, JD, is the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty. He is, is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. and a contributor to The Huffington Post, the Grio, The Progressive Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, In These Times and Philadelphia Independent Media Center. He also blogs at davidalove.com, NewsOne, Daily Kos, and Open Salon. Click here to contact Mr. Love.

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

More about Justice Ginsburg's dissent

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the erosion of civil liberties has been ratcheted up by the government under the guise of protecting national security. Before citizens could blink an eye, the Patriot Act was thrown together and hastily passed by the Congress. The latest exposé by whistleblower Edward Snowden has forced an overdue discussion about the balance between civil liberties and national security.

bEd Snowden is said to have released classified documents that unveil the covert cooperation of communication giants like Verizon and Google with NSA through a top secret program called Prism. Snowden claims that the phone information of millions of Americans is being collected and surveilled without warrant - and according to many civil liberties advocates - without cause. The release of the metadata is being called one of the most explosive security leaks in U.S. history.

Long before 9/11 and long before Snowden, the government and other entities with varying agendas were collecting data on civilians.

The infamous snooping by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on people’s personal lives helped him to keep six presidents in check, to destroy leaders and organizations of the Black Liberation Movement., and to establish job security. (He kept his job until his death.) President Harry S. Truman once accused Hoover of transforming the FBI into his private secret police force.

This has become much bigger than the Orwellian Big Brother in “1984.”

Codes on clothing and other products track our spending habits. Internet cookies store information on us. Any communication created, sent or received on a computer is pretty much on a server in perpetuity. Surveillance cameras capture our every move.

Employees in companies and the government have access to our financial, medical, education, employment and even police records. Just like the government, these employees can abuse their positions of trust. They may not be jeopardizing national security but a person with harmful intentions can do a lot of damage to your personal and emotional security.

Recently, The Civitas Institute published detailed information about the Moral Monday protestors at the North Carolina state legislature. The database included the name, address, party affiliation, employer, and other details of those arrested at the protests and also included their mug shot. This is not a new tactic by southern opponents of civil rights. The names of NAACP members and supporters were published in newspapers to encourage retaliation back in the 1950s and 1960s. That retaliation came in different forms from physical attacks to being denied bank loans to being fired from jobs.

The government, think tanks like The Civitas, social media moguls like Facebook, etc. aren’t the only ones who can access data about us. Jilted spouses and lovers, disgruntled employees and a sordid array of folks have gotten ahold of information that they used for manipulation, blackmail and character assassination of the supposed foe. One stalker found his victim’s home through Google Maps and that is where he murdered her. The loss of personal security to the individual is just as real as the leaks of Snowden and Julian Assange are to the alleged compromise of national security.

Not everyone is tuned into the global saga of Snowden. Most working class people are locked into survival mode, trying to make it from paycheck to paycheck. The current security leaks and the privacy issues it has spawned seem like material for a suspense movie script, not anything that could affect their lives. After all, they have nothing to hide.

However, we must all be engaged in the conversation about privacy concerns by starting with the checks and balances necessary to minimize abuse at all levels. There are many places that collect information on us. Without our knowledge or consent, they share and sell that information to others. This country is in a current tug-of-war between civil liberties and national security. You may not care who the Big Family is watching today but tomorrow, they may be watching you with different motives in mind that you will care about.

Today is the day for an informed debate on transparency and accountability that will protect our civil liberties tomorrow - and our democracy for generations to come.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Jamala Rogers, founder and Chair Emeritus of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis. She is an organizer, trainer and speaker. She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It – A Chronicle of Struggle. Click here to contact Ms. Rogers.

Jun 27, 2013 -Issue 522

To my surprise, I didn’t know - especially when the Supreme Court rules DOMA unconstitutional - my sexual orientation was still up for debate.

But in certain religious conservative circles, it is.

What might have appeared as a seismic shift or a chapter closed in the harmful history of ex-gay ministries when Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, announced its closing, I suggest we all listen to the coded language and read the fine print.

Chambers, a married man with two adopted children, and a purported ex-gay convert himself, has something up his sleeve.

In a public mea culpa titled, “ I Am Sorry” published on Exodus International website Chambers wrote:

“For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical...God is calling us to … welcome everyone, to love unhindered....Please know that I am deeply sorry.”

For some of us, however, in the LGBTQ community, Chambers’ apology is more than a day late and a dollar short- it’s suspect.

Chambers act of contrition is suspect not only because of huge cultural and legislative changes made in support of our civil rights, but also because Chambers also knows from his own first hand experience of same-sex attraction that one’s gay sexual orientation is never a choice and can never be “cured.”

At last year’s Exodus International annual conference Chambers stated, “I do not believe that cure is a word that is applicable to really any struggle, homosexuality included.... For someone to put out a shingle and say, ‘I can cure homosexuality’ - that to me is as bizarre as someone saying they can cure any other common temptation or struggle that anyone faces on Planet Earth.”

And at last year’s Gay Christian Network (GCN) conference, Chambers told the audience, “The majority of [ex-gay people] that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them, have not experienced a change in their orientation…The vast majority of people that I know do still experience some level of same-sex attraction.”

Just five years ago, the American Psychological Association put out an official position paper stating, “The longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality per se is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation.”

The negative health outcomes, both emotional and psychological, these “conversion” programs exact are untold and include depression, anxiety, self-destructive behavior, sexual dysfunction, avoidance of intimacy, loss of faith and spirituality, and the reinforcement of internalized homophobia and self-hatred, to name a few. However, there are still groups, usually motivated by religion-based homophobic therapies and ministries like Bachman’s, who are hell-bent on the idea that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Americans can and should be made straight.

These groups proselytize ex-gay rhetoric as both their Christian and patriotic duty.

For example, “Pray the Gay Away?,” an episode of the television series “Our America with Lisa Ling,” that aired on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network on March 2011, Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, an ex-gay organization, spoke about his sure-fire remedy for us LGBTQ “prodigal” children, and how his organization can help us reconcile our faith, mend our sinful lives ,and finally walk away from our supposedly wrong-headed “lifestyle” choice.

There are hordes of supposedly ex-gay “converts” who’ll be poster children for these conversion therapies. But truth be told, their conversions from being “homosexual” to “heterosexual” don’t “cure” their homosexual predilections, but rather, these therapies attempt to put LGBTQ people on the road to outwardly live a straight life.

Case in point: John Paulk, “ex-gay” poster boy, who appeared in HRC’s 2000 photo album with a one-word caption: “Gotcha!”

Wayne Besen, Executive Director of “Truth Wins Out,” an organization that counters “ex-gay” myths and reparative therapy, was then the associate director of communications of the Human Rights Campaign, captured that Kodak moment as he snapped a picture of the then-37-year-old Paulk in a Washington D.C. gay bar. In the moment, pandemonium broke out in the bar, as the series of flashes from Besen’s camera were assumed by some to be those of a homophobe harassing a patron. But as Paulk hunched down trying to conceal his face, he learned that he could neither run nor hide. Paulk says he went into the bar just to use the bathroom - an unlikely story, as 40 minutes after entering the bar, he was still there, keeping company with both a drink and a fellow patron.

Paulk, a former drag queen known as Candi and a one-time first runner-up in the Miss Ingenue pageant, is presently married, but seeking a divorce refuting “ex-gay” propaganda to a self-proclaimed former lesbian, Anne Paulk, who also underwent counseling in an “ex-gay” ministry run by Exodus International. Today, they both no longer don the drag of being happily heterosexually married. They prominently graced the cover of Newsweek in August 1998, appeared on “60 Minutes” and Oprah, and wrote the book that gave Focus on the Family its name for its “ex-gay” conferences: Love Won Out, a memoir depicting the Paulks’ flight from gayhood.

In his public apology for spewing the lies of Exodus International, Paulk has decided to finally stay out of the closet, hoping the LGBTQ community will not only forgive him, but will also allow him to make restitution to the community.

“I no longer support the ex-gay movement or efforts to attempt to change individuals - especially teens who already feel insecure and alienated. I feel great sorrow over the pain that has been caused when my words were misconstrued. I have worked at giving generously to the gay community in Portland where I work and live. I am working hard to be authentic and genuine in all of my relationships,” Paulk stated in the April/May issue of Proud Queer (PQ) Monthly.

“Conversion” therapies are acts of rhetorical violence aimed squarely at LGBTQ people. They are also a tool used by right-wing religious organizations to raise money and advocate against LGBTQ civil rights. And with this money these organizations are able to produce politically and religiously Biased Agenda-Driven (aptly abbreviated as “B.A.D.”) science like “reparative therapies,” attempting to justify them by presenting LGBTQ people as genetically flawed - a charge eerily reminiscent of the scientific racism and sexism that once undergirded treatment of blacks and women morally inferior due to supposed genetic flaws.

With more and more ex-gay ministries not only losing potential clients and political leverage, but also losing monies reparative therapies generate, there is a gradually shift from “curing” one’s LGBTQ sexual orientation to abstinence from it. In other words, the theological message that homosexuality is an abomination to God and is a sin remains intact, but more emphasis will be place on celibacy.

An emphasis on a discipleship to celibacy is equally as harmful and damaging as ex-gay ministries This message suggest we’re incurable and should execute control over our ungodly desires.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC’s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is irenemonroe.com. Click here to contact the Rev. Monroe.

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

The watch is on as former South African President Nelson Mandela reaches his twilight. Mandela is now in critical condition and the end is near. Mandela’s condition worsened in the past 24 hours. We know what time it is.

Humanly, we prepare for mourning. It’s not easy admitting the end of a life so significant to human progress, but it is what it is. What bothers me, though, is the seemingly endless efforts of many to romanticize Mandela’s darkest years. When Mandela did what others wanted to do - and few did - there were millions more standing on the sidelines waiting to see what shook out.

In 1962, he was arrested, convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government - the very apartheid government that America supported - and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison, first on Robben Island. His conviction, of course, was politically targeted and eventually, worked against the white-run South African government. Now, I see documentaries, plays and dramatizations of Mandela’s “struggle” against apartheid. That’s as it should be, yet what’s missing is the significance of the wrongs committed by the whites that thought the apartheid form of governance was acceptable.

I attended a play at DC’s Folger Shakespeare Theater where the on-stage performers read words written by Robben Island prisoners who were held in captivity alongside Mandela. In The Robben Island Bible, a play written and directed by Matthew Hahn, the prisoners’ survival was in part due to their encoding Shakespeare into their protests against their imprisonment. Compelling to say the least...yet the play fails to leave the audience appalled at the inhumanity of colonialism, thus leaving the audience with nothing to apologize for. I would have listed myself along with the captivated, except that I couldn’t hear the atrocities of the whites who held him.

Telling the story is necessary, but romanticizing imprisonment is unacceptable. What I deem appropriate is mentioning in the same breath the conditions that brought Mandela’s imprisonment to be. It is true and accurate that Nelson Mandela survived a horrendous injustice - for 27 years, no less. But it is disingenuous to frame his imprisonment in the context of a welcomed martyrdom. No man embraces bondage.

Mandela was definitely a hero, yet an unwilling one. We must make grand note of the monstrous colonization by the Dutch descendants that brought racial domination to reality. Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under Dutch and British rule. However, apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. I wonder who voted “yes” on that? This concept of segregation in Mandela’s homeland is not relegated to centuries-old history!

This new legislation classified inhabitants into four racial groups (“native”, “white”, “colored“, and “Asian”), and residential areas were segregated, sometimes by means of forced removals. Non-white political representation was completely abolished in 1970, and starting in that year, Black people were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands called bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, and provided Black people with services inferior to those of white people.

This relatively recent phenomenon - apartheid, that is - is far too often side-stepped when telling the stories of “the overcoming Black man.” No, I don’t believe in sharing the hero’s storyline with the villians’ devilish deeds; there is too much deference given to justification. Yet, one must not whitewash the facts of the matter.

I feel compelled to open this eventuality of missing the condition that gave rise to Mandela’s triumph: white oppression, not only in South Africa, but in the “civilized” Western world. I can’t let white people get away with softening their roles in Mandela’s saga. To this day, Blacks are not healed, nor have they been made whole from the legacy of apartheid; much the same in the U.S. with its history of Jim Crow racism. Whites will “de-color” Mandela and make him “every man.” I see it coming.

Beware of the tendency of racial dominators to lean toward reconciliation without unclenching the fist of socio-economic inequality. To make you feel good about Mandela’s triumph is to forget the racist system that placed him in the position of having to overcome. Don’t get caught up in the romanticizing of Nelson Mandela.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, longtime activist & organizer, is the Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the soon-to-be-released on-line book, “As A Condition of Your Freedom”. He is also the host of the internet-based talk radio show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.

Jun 27, 2013 -Issue 522

View Animation

More about the Secret Surveillance Court

Pulitzer Prize-winner, Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal has called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons in San Francisco, where his work has been featured on the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site, SFGate.com, for over ten years. His work also appears on Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com and NPR’s web site. Fiore’s political animation has appeared on CNN, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe.

Click here to contact Mark

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

We are still in a time in history when humans are capable of blowing up Earth and, from the actions of the several nuclear nations and politicians of every stripe in many nations, they seem bound to die trying.

They seem oblivious to the dangers of the very existence of nuclear weapons and, despite the treaties that years ago promised to reduce the nuclear arsenals of all the countries, especially those that have the most, the same nations continue to seek new and more effective nuclear weapons “systems.”

In our own country, just the act of tending our little garden of nuclear weapons costs the taxpayers about $17.6 billion a year, enough money to rebuild the schools and fully fund Head Start and health care for every child who needs these basic social services. We have seen so many politicians aim to keep children from having the benefits of any of these vital programs, many observers believe, because, in the end, the only reason for the cruelty is to increase the profits and the power of the rich and of Corporate America.

But, the existence of nuclear weapons, many of which are on a hair trigger in places like the U.S., Russia, and China, could easily end the world, as we know it. Many across the globe have been worried about such a happenstance since World War II, at the end of which the U.S. used an atomic bomb, the first and only nation to do so.

In the course of our global worrying, there have been many organized groups in many countries formed to stop the manufacture and use of nuclear warheads and the systems that would carry them to their targets. It is thought by at least one historian, Lawrence Wittner of the State University at Albany (N.Y.), that these citizens’ groups and their movements have been instrumental in preventing the use of such weapons. And, there has been for many years the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which at this time has been signed by about 189 nations.

There are nine nations that are known to possess nuclear weapons, including the U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and the former South Africa. Israel is said to be “suspected” of having anywhere from 80-400 nuclear warheads, having begun to develop the weapons in 1968. For reasons known to Israel and probably many U.S. officials, that nation has tried to keep its nuclear arsenal secret. That’s where Mordechai Vanunu’s release of details of the nuclear program and photos of Israel’s nuclear facilities comes in and it would seem to be difficult to continue to deny the existence of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Deny it, Israel did, however, and it has to this day. Vanunu originally fled the country after his disclosure to the British press in 1986, but the Mossad, Israel’s secret police, acting as if in a James Bond movie, lured him to Italy with a woman as bait, drugged the whistleblower, and spirited him away, back to Israel. He was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for 18 years, 11 of them in solitary confinement. Still, however, he remains a prisoner in his own country, not allowed to leave even for a visit to other countries in the Middle East or Europe, or, in fact, anywhere. He has said that they tried to break his spirit with the years of solitary. They were unable to do that.

It would be easy to believe that the reason for his harsh treatment was that his disclosures embarrassed the powers that be in Israel, but there seems to be another, more practical, reason for continuing the denial. If Israel were to disclose the existence of its nuclear arsenal, it would risk losing its continual money stream from the U.S., which, by law, is prohibited from funding countries, which manufacture and maintain nuclear weapons. Israel is not a signatory nation of the NPT. The country would risk losing the U.S. funds that keep its formidable military among the top few in the world. The other nuclear powers that are not NPT signatories are India, North Korea, and Pakistan.

Embarrassing the hierarchy may be an important reason to punish someone like Vanunu and for trying to break him, but the money part is very important, too. That’s why President Obama, when he was questioned a few years ago at a press conference about his knowledge of the existence of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, it was, to say the least, disingenuous for him (probably, it even rose to dissembling) to say something about his not wanting to “speculate” on such things. Any U.S. president who does not know of the existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons probably should be sent back for a remedial education, concentrating on recent world history.

Bradley Manning, a soldier with a top security clearance, embarrassed both the military and civilian elite with his disclosures to Wikileaks about the conduct of the wars in the Middle East, as well as thousands of other documents. Many in the U.S. hailed him as a whistleblower in the tradition of Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers four decades ago, about the conduct of another war, Vietnam, covering the period 1945-1967. In the secret report, ordered by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, it was shown that there were lies leading up to the full-fledged war and lies told to Congress to keep escalating the war, which as we know now, ended tragically as one of the most destructive wars that left devastation in its wake, mostly to a civilian population.

If that sounds familiar, the lessons learned through publication in the popular press of the Pentagon Papers did not last very long in the national mind. The Bush-Cheney Administration lied its way into invading and occupying Iraq, in violation of international law and leaving that country devastated and in a chaotic state, in which it remains. Frustrated by an inability to bring sovereign nations to heel, some in the U.S. military have called for the use of tactical nuclear weapons, and it would seem to be just a short step for them to call for the use of larger nuclear bombs to subdue (kill) a nation’s people.

When nations have vast arsenals, some of the generals and many unthinking politicians have a tendency to try to use them. So far, the citizens have maintained enough sense that they have kept the crazier leaders from doing such a thing. Worries like that (and the dread of the consequences of such acts) appear to be the reasons for much whistle blowing like that of Ellsberg, Manning, and now, Edward Snowden.

The deep concerns of millions of Americans over our nuclear weapons systems have prompted people like Sister Megan Rice, an 82-year-old nun, and two other peace activists, Michael Walli and Gregory Boertje-Obed, both veterans and all part of Transform Now Plowshares, to take non-violent action to stop any further development and, especially, to prevent any use of any nuclear weapons, however small or “safe” they are professed to be by the military and their politicians. They face maximum sentences of 16 years and await September sentencing after being found guilty of entering the U.S. facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which holds enough enriched weapons-grade uranium to make another 10,000 nuclear weapons.

Carrying just flashlights, bolt cutters, bread, flowers, a Bible and simple household hammers they used to pound on walls to symbolize the disarming and abolition of nuclear weapons, they approached the site. They cut through layers of fencing to get to a structure and were praying quietly when security people finally got to the site. They were charged, convicted, and await sentencing. During their trial, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark described the Oak Ridge facility as unconstitutional. To say the authorities were embarrassed over their easy entrance to such a place is a gross understatement.

Now, the authorities want to add other charges, ones that would treat their non-violent witness as acts of terrorism, which would add many years to the sentences. For her, it would likely be a death sentence, as it could for her two companion peacemakers. In this short period, they are not so much addressing the existence of the nuclear material itself, but they and the defense team point out that it was “an act of nonviolent civil disobedience intended to awaken the conscience of the nation, and no evidence was presented that it was an act of terrorism meant to harm anyone…”

Recent administrations have refused to recognize civil disobedience and free speech as inalienable rights of citizens, but in recent years, illegitimate laws have been neglectfully passed by Congress and signed by presidents that negate those rights and make it easier to cast citizens as terrorists and to deal with them through the courts as such. Thus, we have draconian sentences imposed on people who are acting in traditionally American ways to warn the citizenry of danger or impending catastrophe. In the past five years, it has become more dangerous for citizens to speak out against governmental and corporate activities (many of which are indistinguishable, one from the other).

The U.S. has morphed from a democratic-republic to an empire before our very eyes and we have learned in the past decade that it is not wise to embarrass the Empire. Because part of the protocol of the new regime is tight control, as in national security state, we are expected to obey the new laws and the new rules and new programs, without complaint. Forget the rights of citizens as defined in the Bill of Rights. We have scrubbed those when they are inconvenient, as we have scrubbed parts of the U.S. Constitution, when it is inconvenient for the rulers. The behavior they demand from citizens is un-American.

Rather, it is our right and the duty to protest and demand that they function for the good of all of the people, at home and around the world. The nation cannot function in complete secrecy and it will not function that way, even though the politicians and Corporate America would keep the people in the dark about virtually everything. It’s difficult, but Americans must to learn to reject the fear mongering and live life as a free people.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a long-time former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

- Plato

I am just as much concerned with the poor victims on the rubber plantations of Putumayo, the Blacks in Africa with whose corpses the Europeans play catch...so many cries of anguish have faded away unheard, they resound within me so strongly that I have no special place in my heart for the [Jewish] ghetto. I feel at home in the entire world, wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears.

- Rosa Luxemburg, Letter to Mathilde Wurm, February 16, 1917, The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg

Were would the world be it had missed experiencing the “power” of the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, or the “mushroom cloud” warnings of Condi Rice or the “necessary measures”-in-Lybia and pro-sanctions advocacy of Susan Rice, and President Obama’s newly appointed National Security Advisor (NSA)?

It has been said by many historians and commentators that of all the political movements of the 1960s and early 1970s the women’s movement has had the longest-lasting impact on American society, on the world. More are in positions, as they say, of power.

Those with “power” are in power because the of most admired category on their “qualifying papers.” For a good number of women in the upper echelons of government, their “status” is that of “married,” whether not they have a partner in the household, because these women are married to power. Their status is in relation to their partnership with government. A Susan Rice, President Obama’s National Security Adviser (NSA), or a Samantha Power, Obama’s pick for UN Ambassadorship, are held as examples of the success of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 60s and 70s.

It is no wonder that few commentators, including feminists, reflect not just on these individuals as women joined at the hip with a patriarchal and a tyrannical partner, but few have analyzed the contributions of women to the proliferation of tyranny.

And that may be the reason we are not seeing a general outrage from the American public, specifically from women as a collective, after the reports on US military abuses in Iraq or at Guantanamo, or after the recent revelations on the NSA spy program.

You do not have outrage from a nation of “free” women!

Protest in the streets is good for “poor” women in Iraq or Afghanistan, women whose faces are often concealed behind a veil. Protest is good for women in Africa or Haiti surrounded by ashen and big-bellied children. It is good for women confronting the brutality of brutish men in some “Third-world” nation. In the US, women are “free,” and as members of “the free world”, in this “democratic” society, women will continue to watch their collective fortunes rise on the backs of those “Third-world” women and their children.

There are lots of Lady Macbeths in the West - all married to the government’s patriarchal domestic and foreign policies - for the sake of the future - that is, specifically, the future of their children.
And these women are not only the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world, former opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, now advocating a return to the tyranny of McCarthism, because, according to her, Senator Joe McCarthy “was a hero” (RightWingWatch.org, 2012).

No, there are plenty of American women for whom patriarchy is God’s order, the government is might and right. They help fatten their family’s bank accounts while other women, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, in their communities, other women in places where US drones fall, where US soldiers patrol, where big oil corporations control the puppet government, are forced to endure hardships for the sake of the safety and future of American children.

For God and country, women demand the right to go to war, to fight “the terrorism,” to destroy “the enemy” - and this is called progress!

The dehumanization of other human beings is becoming women’s specialty too. The suffering and daily deaths of other women’s children cannot warrant concern when the acquisition of a new car, a new lawn, a new wardrobe, and, above all else, an education at private institutions and eastern colleges and universities for the offspring. There is a need to stay ahead. Protect the future.
There are plenty of the liberal-minded women - sad about the poor, the drones, the US/corporate policies, sad about the tyranny - but would they dare speak of any other “power” but that of Master. Mostly “wrong,” certainly violent, Master is still Master, and for the sake of the children, these women follow the rules. They facilitate the bidding of the Master and pretend to be victims. Only as victims, reluctant participants, can these women justify themselves and young women remaining in such an abusive, tyrannical relationship.

For the future of the US Empire, contradictions among women are quite beneficial.

Women concede defeat. What other result could be expected once the Women’s Liberation Movement in the US capitulated to the ideology of US Empire? Women have accepted the Master’s dictates as to what consist of a “successful” life, and, at the same time, they talk hauntingly of what they have labeled the “Black Tradition,” for it seems more about submission and looking the other way rather than resistance and confrontation.

Jesus, the figure who gave up a life in submission to the Roman Empire, gave up family life, gave up the potential to pursue a trade in carpentry in order to work toward freedom for all, worries over women reaching the next rung on the ladder within the US Empire so that only children of the elite and leadership class are surrounded by the material resources produced in China, India or Bangladesh?

These are women willing to sacrifice nothing - but expect everything for their children and their children along.

This is “liberation”: enslavement to power. It is the good old American ideology: “democracy” for all, that is, freedom for none!

For the most part, the women bureaucrats, the academics, the experts and elites of patriarchal institutions, of corporate ranks, of the higher echelons of government, keep tally on the statistics, their numbers, their ranks - their movement toward the Master while those statistics, the tally of women and their children among the Master’s “the enemies” is ignored. Look, there’s Susan Rice and Samantha Power! Hope for our girl children!

You wonder what these women must think of a Medea Benjamin of Code Pink? They certainly do not rise from their seats of “power” to join her - against Master, against her children, against the continuation of the US as Empire.

At the feel-good women’s fundraisers for the “poor” children of Iraq or Palestine, you will hear little talk of work to end the source of misery and deprivation those poor children experience because that source is capitalism. How many fund-raising events will free these children?

You cannot be in two places at once! You cannot be against patriarchal wars and the continuing expansion of capitalism while also standing on the right hand side of Empire - except as a co-protector of a murderous regime.

What would become of your children and their future if the capitalist/corporate in control of the US government continue finalizing a police state - in the name of your children?

Because Master has been keeping secrets!

A young son (Edward Snowden) has exposed a trove of secrets.

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it” (Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.).

What will the “liberated” woman in the US do now? An army of women. Unwilling. If there is a crisis of conscience, of morals, then it remains hidden behind well made up faces, dressed in “professional” suits, with the all-important insignia, and those clicking heels so crucial to effect the “power” walk.
Sieg Heil - now, we know what comes next!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has a Doctorate in Modern American Literature/Cultural Theory. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels.

Jun 27, 2013 -Issue 522

BlackCommentator.com cartoonist/artist Eric Garcia produces "historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about contemporary issues”. That’s how Garcia describes his artwork. A versatile artist working in an assortment of media, from paintings, to hand-printed posters, to sculpture installations, Garcia’s art has a common goal of educating and challenging. Click here to contact brother Eric. His website is southvalleyart.com.

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

The race for the 2016 Presidential Elections hasn’t “officially” begun yet. Nobody has “officially” announced. But unofficially, the race has begun. How do you know? Well, besides the names being floated, mainlyVice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Governor Jeb Bush, is the increased television presence and speaking engagements, the book tours and the constant mentions of the “possibilities” of how the parties need to position themselves on the policy agenda (namely around global security, immigration reform and election reform).

Who can vote, and who will vote, will become more intense than in 2012. Beyond the identity politics that showed America how much “the worldhas changed” is that reality that we now live in a populist culture. Populism, which came about as a result of the anti-intellectualism “fatigue” that the nation suffered from eight years of the Bush II presidency, was driven by the ability to move around the media “gatekeepers” to reach the American public. Those who have historically controlled politics and the political processes have lost control ofthose processes to social networks and alternative outlets such as latenight television, faux journalism and a new generation of popularpundits who reach the public with more frequency and appeal than“traditional” news outlets.

An appearance on The View, Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel, Late Nightwith Jimmy Fallon or Real Time with Bill Maher can get a candidate moretr action than a segment on the evening news or the Sunday morning public affairs shows. Non-traditional mediums tend to be less scripted, more honest and more in touch with reality of real world discussion. The candor is what makes it popular. Ties to non-traditional endorsers,who are popular in the culture, make the public pay attention to anyone who is not a politician. “Pop culture” figures also drive this new populism. Everybody can’t get with the program and they run to the traditional leaders - the politicians, the preachers, the businessmen that have exploited many in the culture. They turn off from these voices and tune in to voices they relate to. This is the paradigm shift of the past five years that have produced a new generation of political voices on the national scene.

Traditional politicians have tried to conform to this new populist environment. Many haven’t been able to do it. Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton are two who can attest, firsthand, what it means to be “out-popularized.” President Barack Obama ran circles around both of them, though one was clearly the favorite (Clinton) and the other had more faith in traditional politics than populism (Romney). Both walked away broke faced and broken-hearted. It is the new politics of the nation that is now playing at the state and local levels. You now get more emails, texts, tweets and Facebook notifications from people you never heard of before than at any time in American politics. Your followers now mean as much as the money you raise. It’s no longer “who you know” in American politics, but “who knows you,” and who follows what you do.

So the 2016 Presidential race is on…to capture followers. Populism will dictate the next winner of the Presidency. The above mentioned “favorites” have two years to catch this tiger by the tail. Time will tell who grabs the tail in time. Coming late is just like not coming at all.

Nobody knows this better than Hilary Clinton. The “odds-on” favorite in 2016 was the odds on favorite in 2008. She was the highest profile candidate in the race, for either party. She had more resources at her disposal from the outset, and the most popular politician in the world (outside of Nelson Mandela) as her spouse. The race was hers to lose. She was out maneuvered for the Presidency in 2008. Hillary Clinton lost because she was disconnected from the masses.

Mass appeal is a funny thing. The first thing one should know about the masses is they walk to a different beat. They don’t follow traditional leaders. Many tend to be anti-establishment and cynical of traditional leaders. They view politics as an elitist engagement. Elites tend to want to control the masses. They do so by playing on mass ignorance. Elites never go against the masses. They simply try to convince the masses to go with them (and their interest). Most times, they succeedby simply tricking the masses. That’s why the masses call politics, poli-tricks. Populist movements occur when there is a total rejectionof elite politics. Clinton was an elite politician in 2008. Romney was the elite’s choice in 2012. Neither attracted enough mass appeal to win the Presidency. Elitism is out. Populism is in.

Elites fueled Obama’s campaign in 2004 largely because he retained his mass appeal. The masses fueled his campaign in 2008. The elites came on only after the masses made their choice evident. Those who missed the ship in 2008, were the first onboard in 2016. They weren’t about to get caught going against mass appeal again. The lesson of 2008 was that elites follow the masses - the masses don’t follow elites. And masses can win national (and local) elections when the anti-establishment choice becomes popular. That was the BIG take-away from the Clinton loss in 2008. In 2012, identity politics became more of a factor as both the President and the challenger (Romney) went after the masses in an effort to out-popular each other. Romney tried to use traditional media to suggest that Obama wasn’t as popular as he once was.

He found out different because his polling only polled traditional voters. The masses generally aren’t frequent voters, or part of the attentive public that tends to watch government and express theiropinions in polls. However, the day in which you can dismiss the non-traditional view is over. Those seeking to position Hillary Clinton, and others, now know this.

Senator Claire McCaskill became the first member of Congress to endorse a political candidate for the 2016 Presidential race. She endorsed Clinton even though Clinton has yet to announce that she is, in fact, running. There’s an interesting take-away in McCaskill’s endorsement however. An endorser of Obama in 2008, she realized what beat Hillary in 2008.

It was Obama’s “boots on the ground” grassroots movement. She said in her endorsement statement that Hillary will have to start early, build a grassroots movement and effectively use all the tools of the internet- all the things Obama did successfully - to win in 2016. She waseffectively putting Clinton on notice that the campaign she ran in 2008 will not get her elected in 2016. Being popular doesn’t amount to being a populist. Hillary is popular. She is not a populist.

The candidates for 2016 will have to run to the masses as hard as they run to the elites - the money folk, the high profile endorsements, the celebrities. They will have to become “rock stars” themselves like Obama did in 2008. Rock stars are held to different standards. Their foibles are embraced and their views are anti-cultural (unpopular), but people like the human side of them and like to see them where they are (on the show they watch, the venues they frequent and the mediums they use). McCaskill wanted to help Hillary understand that just “being popular” among singular segments is not enough. She will have to be populist in appeal.

They all will have to attract populist appeal. Hopefully, Hillary is listening.

And the run for the masses begins...

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of REAL EYEZ: Race, Reality and Politics In 21st Century Popular Culture and Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Twitter @dranthonysamad. Click here to contact Dr. Samad.

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

The National Black United Front (NBUF) is preparing for its Thirty-fourth Annual National NBUF Convention that will be held in Dallas, Texas at the Dallas Convention Center Theater Complex, 650 South Griffin Street from July 11-14, 2013.

Time has a way of moving forward and it is hard to believe that NBUF has been in existence for thirty-four-years. It is a remarkable achievement that a Black Movement organization, made up of committed volunteers, with limited resources, has survived and continues to grow and develop.

NBUF grew out of the spirit of the 1960s and 70s when African people in this country were aggressively organizing around numerous issues. The activism of the Civil Rights Movement and its challenges against legal segregation was the spark that set off the mass motion of African people in America.

The mobilization and organizing of the Civil Rights Movement transitioned into the Black Power Phase of our movement in the late 1960s, igniting the renewed call for Pan Africanism and Black Nationalism.

Through the disruptive tactics of the United States Government and its counterintelligence programs (COINTEL PRO), the Black Liberation Movement in America suffered serious setbacks. Many leading activists and organizers were arrested and convicted on false charges, and continue to remain incarcerated as political prisoners. Others were assassinated, such as Malcolm X, Dr. King, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark.

By the late 1970s, the Black Liberation Movement was in serious disarray. This stimulated numerous leading Black activists, organizers, and leaders to convene a series of meetings. Twice during the latter years of the 1970s (1976-1977) in Brooklyn, New York, several organizations attempted to bridge the gap of ideological disunity among the various forces in the Black Movement by attempting to formulate a United Front.

Many of the members of NBUF can remember the all-day meetings held in the East in an attempt at national unity. But the commitment, positions, and images of most forces were fixed. The mistrust and apprehensions of the past years lingered in the memories of most participants.

However, a core group of participants in these meetings from various parts of the country agreed it was urgent that a call be made to convene the founding convention of the National Black United Front / NBUF.

The founding convention was held in Brooklyn, New York at the Old Armory in June 1980. More than 1,000 activists from thirty-four states and five foreign countries participated in this four day convention. Reverend Herbert Daughtry was elected interim National Chairman and we approved a draft of the Constitution and By Laws.

At the second national convention, once again, held in Brooklyn in July 1981, NBUF ratified a permanent Constitution, By Laws, and leadership structure. NBUF Chapters emerged across the country in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, Greensboro, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, St. Louis, Portland, Seattle, the Bay Area, Muskegon, Lansing, Detroit, New York, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Memphis, and Chicago.

In 1985, I was elected as the National Chairman and served in that position until 2009 when the mantle was passed to the younger generation (current National Chairman Kofi Taharka and National Vice Chairman Salim Adolfo). Most of the chapters in the aforementioned cities continue to function today - thirty-four years later.

Over this thirty-four-year period, NBUF has organized around the following principles:

* To struggle for self-determination, liberation, an power for Black People in the United States.

* To work in common struggle with African Liberation Movements and African people throughout the world.

* To build a politically conscious, unified, committed, and effective Black Mass Movement.

* To struggle to eliminate racism (including Zionism and Apartheid), sexism (the oppression, exploitation, and inequality of women), monopoly capitalism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, and national oppression.

* To maintain strict political and financial independence of the National Black United Front.

* To build unity and common struggle with oppressed peoples in the United States and throughout the world, as long as the best interests of people of African descent are not contradicted or compromised.

* To continue to struggle to maximize the unity of the Black Liberation Movement and of people of African descent; to eliminate internal violence, character assassination, and self-destruction; to establish a viable process to arbitrate all major conflicts within the Black Liberation Movement and the African community.

* To continue the political/cultural revolution to create a new vision and value system and a new man, woman, and child based on the common struggle around the needs of the African majority.

NBUF takes the position that only through our own economic self-sufficiency and self-help will we truly liberate ourselves from the continued devastation of racism and white supremacy in this country.

NBUF believes that in order for Black people in America to become free, liberated, and, Independent, we must be organized. Therefore, we believe all Black people should join an organization that is working in the interest of our people.

We believe that the National Black United Front is such an organization and we urge you to join us and participate in our Thirty-fourth Annual National NBUF Convention, July 11-14, 2013 in Dallas, Texas, This year’s convention theme is: “Africans Must Unite at Home and Abroad: Revisiting Principles of Pan Africanism.” Hope to see you there.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman Emeritus of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.

Jun 27, 2013 - Issue 522

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

- Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

“I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president – which means, in our time, a dangerous president - unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”

- Howard Zinn

Laws without justice represent nothing more than a legally codified dictatorship.

The national and global power elite's corporate-stream media engages in the incessant and insipid strategy of 'killing the messenger' while deliberately distracting, diverting from and ignoring the message itself. As such, the corporate-stream media keeps a vast amount of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in a comatose state of confusion and manipulation. This of course serves the insidious objectives of the corporate owned Barack Obama and his Democrat and Republican party cohorts.

Whether one agrees or not with the actions of 'whistleblowers' such as Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, or Edward Snowden, et al – the fact is that what has been revealed by them [i.e. their message] shows that the supposed enshrined liberties, and civil and human rights of many millions of ordinary people is an utter farce - made null and void by their governments - and the U.S. government in particular. This should be of enormous concern to all justice-loving people – especially critically thinking people. Some of the constant lies by the Obama / Biden regime have now been exposed. Thus, the pathetic so-called 'news' media seeks to distract attention from the government's lies and abuses that have been revealed, and instead, hone in on who revealed this information. This is a cynical and tyrannical strategy that has been repeatedly used by governments, and the 'news' media that shields them, to divide and divert people's attention away from the outrages that are surreptitiously carried out against us, in our own name. Drone man Barack Obama is a master of deception and he represents the very zenith, in this year of 2013, of the deceive and distract strategy.

In the February 14, 2008, article by Donna J. Volatile, titled, 'Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It,' Ms. Volatile wrote, in relevant part, “I think The Black Commentator's Larry Pinkney sums up Obama the best: “It is both sad and horribly fascinating to observe so many euphorically pinning their hopes and dreams on Barack Obama, a chameleon who speaks liberally of “change” but who is, himself, beholden to the very same blood-sucking corporate vampires (including Lockheed and others) who are ravaging the peoples of America, and the entire planet. It seems we have moved euphemistically from Dracula to a corporately repackaged Blackula in the person of Barack Obama. In the very name of “change” Obama is moving America euphorically backwards.”

Of course the above warning from 2008, and my previous warnings from 2007, were scoffed at and/or ignored by many, including certain unprincipled so-called 'progressives' and 'leftists' who urged that Barack Obama be supported. Now, in the year 2013, the whistleblower-prosecuting, Mr. Drone Man, 'Kill List,' NDAA/indefinite detention Barack Obama has, in all but name, ushered in the largest and most perilous de facto police and surveillance state in the history of this nation.

Notwithstanding his non-stop lying and misleading rhetoric, his incessant distractions, his non-transparent regime, and his actual allegiance to the corporate / military power elite; Barack Obama has, as I predicted years ago, moved this nation “backwards.” He is indeed the most “dangerous” president this nation and planet of Mother Earth has yet endured.

Moreover, in pursuit of defending his outrageously repugnant policies and his repressive actions of subterfuge, Mr. 'Kill List' Barack Obama dares to claim that he is merely adhering to the law[s] – which laws he knows full well - have nothing whatsoever to do with justice or with the legitimate needs and desires – of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people. He and his Democrat and Republican accomplices know that laws – without justice – represent nothing more than a legally codified dictatorship. Indeed, any tin pan bloody dictator can seek to rationalize his or her outrages by simply stating that the law is being adhered to. Laws are irrelevant without justice and without a genuine (not fake) everyday ordinary people's democracy.

As the increasing masses of poor are made poorer and the avaricious blood-sucking rich get even richer at the expense of everyday people in this nation and throughout Mother Earth – Barack Obama pursues his policies of deceit, distraction, subterfuge, and economic emaciation, and very real political repression – supported by the corporate-stream 'news' media. Make no mistake about it – Barack Obama's policies are intended to increase so-called 'terrorism,' which in turn, provides Obama (and his minions) with the unacceptable rationale for massively spying on and eradicating civil liberties and human rights in this nation. This is the reality of Obama's 'hope and change.'

Even as unjustly held prisoners are held at Obama's torture chamber at Guantanamo, myriads of U.S. political prisoners continue to languish and/or die inside this nations prison gulag system. This too, is the reality of Barack Obama's so-called 'hope and change.'

NOW is the time for all justice-loving people of conscience – irregardless of color or perceived ideology – to demand Barack Obama's removal from office and to insist upon sweeping, real, and fundamental systemic change. Drone man Obama and his systemic gatekeepers have gone too far.

Barack Obama, his Democrat and Republican party cohorts, and the corporate-stream media must be uncompromisingly rejected. They represent, to the ordinary people of this nation, the people of other nations, and to our precious Mother Earth herself, a calculated death march of economic and political emaciation.

We, the ordinary everyday people of this nation and world, are the only ones who have the power to collectively save ourselves and this planet. The question is: Do we have the will? We MUST have the will – for literally EVERYTHING is at stake and time is running out.

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward...!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to view Larry’s interview of October 26, 2012. Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

Jun 27, 2013 -Issue 522

BlackCommentator.com artist/cartoonist Charles E. "Chuck" Siler's works feature a variety of themes ranging from New Orleans' lively and unique jazz scene to its lively and equally unique political scene. He uses his art and political cartoons to comment on life's complexities, warts and beauty marks.

His creations include fine watercolors and acrylics and pen and ink cartoons. His cartoons are featured on a regular basis in The Louisiana Weekly.

A Katrina evacuee, Siler has spoken on New Orleans history across the USA at universities and culural events.

Click here to contact Mr. Siler