[News] Barack Obama and the New Afrikan National Question
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon May 26 10:29:09 EDT 2008
Free the Land Comrades,
This paper was written for a School of Unity and
Liberation (SOUL) Sunday School session to be
held at the East Side Cultural Arts Center in Oakland on Sunday, May 25th.
I hope it may be of some use theoretically and programmatically.
In Unity and Struggle,
Kali
-------------------------------
Barack Obama and the New Afrikan(1) "National Question".
Are We Free Yet?
Written by Kali Akuno
Saturday, May 24th, 2008
*In Honor of the 83rd Birthday of Malcolm X and
the clarity he brought to the New Afrikan revolutionary movement
Since the stunning Iowa victory of Senator Barack
Obama in January, a great deal has been said and
written about the declining or ongoing
significance of "race" and "racial prejudice" in
US society and the prospect of a person of
Afrikan descent being its President as proof of
its substantive social transformation. While this
discussion must be regarded as an advance over
the conservative moralistic and race-coded
discussions that have dominated political debate
in the US since the 1980's, we must acknowledge its critical limitations.
In the main, these discussions individualize the
issues and only engage the behavioral and
subjective aspects of inequality and oppression.
What is fundamentally missing is a critical
discussion of the structural and systemic nature
of oppression and exploitation within the US and
how the Obama campaign "phenomenon" relates to these structures and dynamics.
This paper seeks to investigate the strategic
relationship of the Obama campaign to the
structural dynamics of oppression and
exploitation within the US. In particular, it
will focus on the question of New Afrikan or
Black national oppression within the US and how
the Obama campaign addresses this oppression. It
also seeks to address certain strategic questions
that progressive forces within the national
liberation and multi-national working class
movements must struggle with over the course of
the next six months in order to ensure that our
demands and interests are advanced – regardless
of whether Obama wins or loses the Presidential election in November.
Some of the strategic questions this paper seeks to address are:
1. What is Obama's organic relationship to the New Afrikan or Black nation?
2. What class position, alignment and program does Obama represent?
3. How does Obama's campaign strategy and
program relate to the historic interests and demands of the Black nation?
What is the "National Question"?
In summary, from a dialectical materialist
framework, the "national question" refers to a)
the unequal structural relationship of colonized
and oppressed peoples to international capital,
oppressor nations, imperialism, and white
supremacy and b) to the historic struggles of
colonized and oppressed peoples to liberate
themselves from these oppressive systems and
forces, either in whole or in part (as not all of
these "peoples" or "national liberation"
struggles have sought to remove themselves from
capitalist relations of production).
The inequalities between peoples produced by
capitalism are historic. They are rooted in the
development of the capitalist world system
through the colonization and/or subjugation of
the globe and its non-European peoples by the
ruling classes of the western European states
(i.e. Portugal, Spain, France, England, the
Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Italy) beginning in the 15th century.
In order to facilitate the process of capital
accumulation they initiated on a world scale, the
ruling classes of Europe developed a social
system and ideology that divided world production
along several lines, some of which predated
capitalism, some of which developed specifically
to suite capitals historic needs. The
pre-capitalist social divisions that were
exploited were religion, ethnicity, nationality
and patriarchy. The new and fundamentally
principal divisions developed by and with
capitalism are race and state-bound nationality.
The purpose of exploiting and/or developing these
inequalities is a) to facilitate the control of
the land, labor, and (material and immaterial)
resources of the subject and oppressed peoples
and b) to foster competition between and amongst
these peoples for the material and social rewards
conferred by this exploitative and alienating system.
In the United States the "national question"
specifically addresses the structural
relationship of colonized, oppressed, and subject
peoples to the European settler-colonial project
and the imperial national-state apparatus that
reinforces it. This project is premised on the
genocide and dispossession of indigenous peoples
(the First Nations); the enslavement and colonial
subjugation of Afrikan peoples and their
descendents; and the dispossession and colonial subjugation of Xicanas/os.
The New Afrikan National Question
Throughout the history of the US settler-colonial
project New Afrikans have fundamentally been
concentrated in the southeastern portion of the
projects possessions. The foundation of this
concentration was historically premised on the
utilization of enslaved Afrikan labor to produce
cash-crops like tobacco, cotton, rice, dyes, and
sugar, for international consumption. During the
early mercantile stages of capitalist development
the climatic conditions, soil quality, and
strategic location of these possessions
facilitated them being incorporated into the
world-capitalist system as a zone of mono-crop
commodity production. This population
concentration and the relations of production
exercised in this zone facilitated the formation
of the New Afrikan people as a colonized
diasporic Afrikan nation subject to will of the
European settler-colonial project and its
capitalist-imperialist regime between 1619 and 1865.
The mechanization of agriculture in the
Southeastern portion of the settler-colonial
state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
combined with an intense program of labor control
and repression during this period, displaced
millions of New Afrikans. In the search for
refuge and jobs, displaced New Afrikans
re-concentrated in the urban industrial centers
of the East Coast, Mid-West, and West Coast
between the 1910's – 1960's. In the process of
this resettlement, millions of New Afrikans
joined the ranks of the industrial working class.
However, they did so fundamentally on an unequal
structural basis. Exploiting the subject status
of New Afrikan people, capital, the labor
bureaucracy, and the various European settler
communities relegated New Afrikans to the lowest
strata's of the working class, where they were
concentrated in the lowest paid and most
hazardous occupations that restricted their
ability to earn and accumulate. This process of
development established the social and economic
terms of New Afrikan national oppression
throughout the entire expanse of the US settler-colonial project.
Simultaneously, the vast majority of New Afrikans
who remained in the New Afrikan national
territory (i.e. the Southeastern portion of the
settler-colonial project) became subject to a new
regime of accumulation and distorted national
development. Reacting to the gains made in the
industrial "north" by the multi-national working
class movement between the 1930's – 50's,
industrial capital "outsourced" production to New
Afrika to exploit the subjugated status of the
New Afrikan working class. Although the New
Afrikan working class was kept from effectively
organizing itself into labor unions, this
development did expand the overall circuit of
capital within the New Afrikan nation, which
helped stimulate the rise of the civil rights
movement and its petit bourgeois program of civil
inclusion within the legalistic confines of the settler-colonial project.
The limited social and economic gains of the
Civil Rights and Black Power movements set the
present terms of national development for the New
Afrikan nation. New Afrika, like all nations and
nationalities, is a class stratified social
formation. Like all the peoples and nations
subjugated and colonized by the European colonial
powers, capital and capitalist social relations
have articulated New Afrika's social
development. Throughout it's nearly 400 years of
development, the overwhelming majority of New
Afrikans have been and are members of the working
classes (either as chattel slaves, peasants, or
proletarians). However, a very limited New
Afrikan bourgeoisie has existed since at least
the mid-19th century. Throughout much of New
Afrikan history, this extremely small, typically
service based petit-bourgeoisie has tended
politically to be more progressive than
reactionary in its political outlook and program.
In the main this bourgeois class has provided
leadership to and support for the primary
historical demands of the New Afrikan national
liberation movement. In summary these demands have been and are:
1. Land for self-determining or autonomous development and accumulation.
2. Equal treatment before the law of the settler-colonial state.
3. Equitable distribution of the social
surplus distributed throughout the settler-colonial state.
4. Self-determining political power.
5. Self-reliant and self-sustaining economic development.
6. Reparations.
However, the accumulation gains (meager as they
were) of the Civil Rights and Black Power
movements combined with major shifts in the
relations of production on a worldwide scale,
transformed the relationship of the New Afrikan
bourgeoisie to the whole of the New Afrikan
nation from the 1970's to the present. The two
dominant features of this process of
transformation are a) the phenomenal rise of the
comprador bourgeoisie in the 1970's and 80's, and
b) the rapid transformation of this comprador
bourgeoisie into a trans-national bourgeoisie
from the 1980's to the present. As will be
argued throughout this paper, this transformation
not only changed the overall structural
composition of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie, it
has forever altered its political worldview and program.
Part 1 – The Interrogations
Interrogating the "National" Question
Barack Obama has asserted on several occasions a)
that race doesn't matter and b) that there is only "one" America.
The implication of these statements, even if only
stated for strategic affect, is that the national
contradictions within the US settler-colonial
project have been negated and resolved. Even a
cursory glance at the socio-economic inequalities
between the various nationalities in the US
reveals that these assertions are blatantly
false. However, the unprecedented success of
Obama's campaign and the ground it has broke as
it relates to a "Black" candidate appealing to
white voters on a national level revels that
something qualitative has changed in this country. The question is what is it?
I argue that the source of the qualitative change
lies in the changing composition of class
throughout the US settler-colonial project. The
advance of global capital and its transformation
of production and accumulation throughout the
capitalist world-system generated this
compositional shift. I posit that the process of
transformation popularly called "globalization"
has created a trans-national bourgeoisie and
growing multi-national or "cosmopolitan"
trans-national service and working classes. It is
my position that Barack Obama is a member of and
represents the political and economic interests
of the trans-national bourgeoisie and the social
interests of the growing trans-national classes.
More specifically, Barack Obama is a product of
the New Afrikan trans-national bourgeoisie, which
emerged in the main from the comprador or
neo-colonial sector of the New Afrikan bourgeois
class between the 1970's to the present.
The fundamental question regarding this new class
composition for progressive and revolutionary
forces within the New Afrikan national liberation
movement is how to strategically relate to Barack
Obama and this trans-national bourgeois class? Is
this class (or class fraction) a friend or a foe
of the New Afrikan national liberation movement? I argue three things:
1. That the material basis for the traditional
class collaboration theory of the united and/or
national liberation front strategy of oppressed
peoples and nations in general, and of its
historic application to the New Afrikan national
liberation movement in particular, no longer applies.
2. That the left has not developed a general
or particular theory of how to strategically relate to these new class forces.
3. As a result, we are presently ill equipped
theoretically and programmatically to address the
Obama phenomenon and seize the historic
opportunities it presents to advance the
interests of the national liberation and
multi-national working class movements.
How does the trans-national bourgeoisie differ
from other bourgeoisie classes, particularly
amongst oppressed nations like the New Afrikan
nation? The general theory of national liberation
maintains that there are two primary fractions of
the capitalist or bourgeois class (that is the
class that owns and controls the means of
production). These are 1) the national,
progressive, or "anti-imperialist" bourgeoisie
and 2) the comprador or "sell-out", "Uncle Tom", or neo-colonial bourgeoisie.
The national or anti-imperialist bourgeoisie is
theoretically a progressive force drawn from the
organic, inner driven life of the oppressed
nation that is materially compelled to promote
the development of the productive forces of the
nation for its own self-interests and to resist
the incursion of imperialism and its suppression
of this autonomous national development for these self-same interests.
The comprador or sell-out bourgeoisie is
theoretically a reactionary force also drawn from
the organic, inner driven life of the oppressed
nation, which is conversely compelled to
collaborate with imperialism to retard the
autonomous or self-determining development of the oppressed nation.
The fundamental difference between these two
bourgeois fractions and the transnational
fraction is their organic relationship to the
oppressed nation. The national and comprador
bourgeoisies are dependent upon relations of
production within the social and political life
of the oppressed nation. Meaning they are both
dependent on the working masses of the oppressed
nation for their very existence, and hence can be
held accountable to the working classes within it
in various ways. The trans-national bourgeoisie
on the other hand, even though it emerged
primarily from the comprador fraction in New
Afrika and elsewhere, is not dependent for its
existence upon the oppressed nation and its
relations of production. The trans-national
bourgeoisie, as its name implies, is not a
national or national-state bound entity. Its
basis for existence lies in exploiting the
peoples and working classes of the globe, and it
is generally only accountable to or held in check
by its fractional partners and rivals (largely
through their financial control of various
capital markets as exhibited by their deflation
of various national-state markets like Mexico in
the early-1990's; Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia,
and South Korea in the late 1990's; and Brazil
and Argentina at the turn of this century).
Now, while I posit that this understanding of
Obama's positioning helps us to understand his
relationship with the New Afrikan nation and its
historic demands, I argue that we still do not
completely understand at this point, how it
relates to his mass appeal to white voters in
many instances who are not part of this
trans-national formation. This I argue, we as
progressives and revolutionaries, have to
interrogate further to gain a deeper understanding of its strategic potential.
Interrogating the Campaign
Despite what one may personally think of Obama
and the principle merits of his campaign, what we
have to acknowledge is that his actions and his
campaign are deeply rooted in a particular
analysis of how to address national oppression in
the US. This analysis is rooted in the
"integrationist" and "beloved community"
narratives of the New Afrikan petit bourgeois
leadership of the Civil Rights Movement and its
white liberal bourgeois patrons. The strategy
behind this narrative appeal is to highlight the
commonalities between the oppressor and oppressed
peoples, rather than address their contradictions and differences.
This strategy is rooted in the reality that the
road to victory goes through the white electorate
and its sheer numerical strength. Based on this
reality, I argue there are two historical
dynamics that have fundamentally shaped the Obama campaign and its strategy.
1. No Democratic candidate has won a majority
of white voters since 1964. For a Democratic
candidate to win, they are going to have to win a
sizeable portion of, if not the majority of, the white settler vote.
2. The Jesse Jackson campaigns of 1984 and
1988. These two campaigns serve as the primary
negative examples for the Obama campaign. They
illustrate what NOT to do as an Afrikan candidate
running for President, which has determined key
aspects of his strategy, particularly his methods
of appeal to white and Jewish voters in particular.
Based on these realities, the Obama campaign made
a deliberate and strategic choice NOT to base his
candidacy in the institutions (like the Black
church, civic organizations, unions, and the
media) or historic demands (see demands) of the
New Afrikan nation. In order to give himself the
opportunity to win, Obama must avoid being viewed
as a "Black" candidate buy any and all means.
This explains in part, why he has distanced
himself from the likes of Jesse Jackson, Louis
Farrakhan, and Jeremiah Wright – the
"traditional" representatives of the "progressive" New Afrikan bourgeoisie.
However, his campaign has also relied upon the
staunch support of the Democratic Party by New
Afrikan people. New Afrikans have been the most
consistent base of support for the Democratic
Party since the 1964 election of Lydon B.
Johnson. In fact, New Afrikans have voted
consistently for Democratic Presidential
candidates in the range of 80 – 90% since 1956.
This fact however, should not be surprising.
Democratic candidates can and do take the New
Afrikan vote for granted because in the main, New
Afrikans have no other genuine political option
to represent their interests. Knowing this, Obama
and his campaign know that they have to make few
special appeals to New Afrikans and most of the
other oppressed peoples within the "traditional"
Democratic Party coalition to garner their votes
(certain "Latino" populations it can be argued might constitute exceptions).
Interrogating the Popular Forces
Regardless of how marginalized New Afrikan
demands and institutions are to the Obama
campaign, the fact is that since Obama's Iowa
victory in January, New Afrikans have turned out
in near record numbers to support his campaign
for the Democratic nomination. How do we explain
this outpouring of support despite his lack of
engagement with New Afrikan demands and institutions?
Further, how do we explain his victories in
states like Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Colorado,
Connecticut, Nebraska, Vermont, and Wyoming where
the vast majority of the electorate are white
settlers who are not substantively incorporated
into the trans-national nexus of production?
Part of the answer I believe lies in the
trans-national class developments spoken of
earlier. The other part of the answer I believe
lies in the popular response to the last 7 years
of the Bush regime. As a direct result of the
failed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the
accumulation of unprecedented debt, the partisan
management of the economy, the exposed lies and
deceit, and the hostile, belligerent, and
dictatorial "style" of management, this election
is in many ways serving as a popular anti-Bush referendum.
The popular, multi-national, multi-class forces
engaging the Obama campaign are clearly clamoring
for a change of management. This was first
evidenced in the elections of 2006 and has been
further illustrated in several off-term
Congressional elections in Illinois, Louisiana,
and Mississippi where Democrats took elections in
long-held Republican districts. Barack Obama, for
reasons of personal history (including his
newness to Capital Hill), style (particularly his
cultivated charisma and flair for the optimal,
however programmatically empty it may be), and
strategy (including a tacit exploitation of
cultural stereotypes about New Afrikan people
being good listeners and empathizers) has thus
far demonstrated that he would be a profoundly
different manager than either of his remaining Democrat or Republican rivals.
What I think progressives and revolutionaries
have to be clear on in relating to these popular
forces is that a clamoring for a change of
management does not equate to a clamoring for a
fundamental change of program. It is on the
question of program that I would argue that the
national question strongly reenters the fry and
could perhaps fracture the broad multi-national,
multi-class alliance thus far mobilized by the Obama campaign.
For instance, the historic demands of New Afrikan
people are not going to go away without a
revolutionary transformation of the US
settler-colonial state. In fact, as the mortgage
crisis deepens over the course of the next 2 to 4
years, some of the demands, like economic
development and reparations perhaps, are only going to become stronger.
Likewise, the trans-national capital interests
supporting Obama's campaign have no intentions of
stopping their accumulation mission. Rather, they
are trying to expand it through the application
of a friendlier management approach of their
primary regulating instruments – namely the US
military, treasury, and Federal Reserve Bank. And
further, many of the white service and working
class voters who are supporting Obama are not
demanding an end to imperialism and
globalization, but a return to the high standards
of living they are accustomed and feel entitled
to as settlers, i.e. "Americans".
Interrogating the Moment
This is an extremely unique moment in human
history, one that should not be slept on by
progressives and revolutionaries anywhere, let alone in the US.
There are three general things that make this moment particularly unique:
1. The rapid collapse of the ecological
systems that support human civilization as a
direct consequence of the capitalist
world-systems need for constant growth and
expansion and its dependence on a petro-chemical
driven system of mass industrial production to
stimulate and sustain this growth.
2. The declining hegemony (in both its
geo-political and Gramscian connotations) of the
US imperial state and the shift to a multi-polar geo-political world order.
3. The comparative weakening of the US
national economy and the deepening of
trans-national production and accumulation.
In order to be properly contextualized, the Obama
campaign and corresponding "phenomenon" must be
situated as a direct response to this unique
moment in history. As has been argued earlier,
his campaign is clearly a factional response, one
fundamentally serving the interests of the
trans-national bourgeoisie and its means and
instruments of accumulation and rule. The two
fundamental questions stemming from this
assessment are, 1) is this class and the alliance
of forces it has amassed strong enough to contain
the contradictions it has unleashed and 2) can it
continue its accumulation program and political
project without a major transformation away from
petro-chemical dependent production?
I argue that the answer to both questions is
emphatically, NO. Returning to our focus of
analyzing the Obama campaign in relation to the
New Afrikan national question, there are several
examples that clearly illustrate why.
The trans-national program of accumulation is
fundamentally driven by a finance driven
post-Fordist, intelligence dominated system of
production. The intense mechanization of this
production regime is rapidly dislocating
millions, if not billions, of workers, worldwide.
The New Afrikan working class was one of the
first and most devastated sectors of the
international proletariat hit by this
accumulation regime. Since the 1970's, millions
of New Afrikans have been economically dislocated
and physically displaced by this transformation,
which is only set to worsen with the crisis of
finance (witnessed with the mortgage crisis that
robbed millions of New Afrikans of their merge
capital equity) and the deepening of global
production. What is also clear is that the
options of absorbing this surplus labor into the
low-wage service economy or warehousing (i.e.
incarcerating) it, is reaching its political and
financial limits. The likely outcomes of the escalating crisis are:
1. More intense economic dislocation
2. More intense physical displacement and
forced relocation (New Orleans being a clear precedent)
3. More intense and concentrated New Afrikan resistance
4. An escalation of the demands made on the
state and capital by New Afrikans
As a representative of the trans-national
bourgeoisie, its production regime, and the US
imperial state, how would Obama be compelled to
address these contradictions? I argue that he
would fundamentally have to exercise the Nixon
option as it related to the New Afrikan nation
(and other oppressed nations within and beyond US
national-state boarders). Plainly stated the
Nixon option is the calculated employment of
"carrot and the stick" stratagems. Obama's carrot
would be to ameliorate or buy off a sectors of
the New Afrikan bourgeoisie and working class by
offering a set of concessions, primarily in the
realm of loan forgiveness (for the mortgage
crisis) and job training programs (more than
likely for "Green Jobs" and the like). The stick
would be the strategic application of state
repression against resistant and non-compliant
forces within the New Afrikan working class. The
purpose of the Nixon option now, as during his
Presidency in the late 60's and early 70's, would
be to fracture the political unity of the New
Afrikan nation against the trans-national bourgeoisie and its program.
Staying with our analysis, it is also clear that
the Green transformation option is a dead end for
the trans-national bourgeoisie and its program.
Although elements of the trans-national
bourgeoisie are clearly leading the charge for
the development of "green" capitalism, it is not,
and in fact cannot, advocate for the
transformation of scale needed to curb the
production of greenhouse gases to stall or
reverse climate change without bankrupting
itself. As a result, it cannot and will not
generate enough "Green Jobs" to reincorporate the
millions of New Afrikans that have been
economically dislocated by trans-national production.
Yet in still, what we can posit with confidence
at this moment is that capital is going to go to
extreme lengths to extend its life and barbaric
domination over human civilization. Conversely,
as the events of the last 7 years have
illustrated, we should also expect to see an
escalation and diversification of resistance.
Part 2 - Outlining a Framework to Seize the Moment
So, how should the New Afrikan and multi-national
liberation and working class movements
strategically engage this historic campaign and critical moment?
One of the first priorities of engagement is
theoretical development. One of the principle
things the New Afrikan and multi-national left
movements must figure out is how to engage to the
trans-national bourgeoisie. As stated earlier, as
of now, our movements do not have a general, let
alone united, perspective on this question. In
fact, I would argue that most of our forces are
still utilizing the traditional united or
national liberation front theory to determine
their positions and courses of action.
I argue that because the trans-national
bourgeoisie cannot be easily pressured by the
national liberation and working class movements
within the US setter-colonial project, these
movements should not invest the majority of their
time and energy engaging an "inside" strategy of
critical engagement with the Obama campaign. I
argue that thinking strategically, these forces
should concentrate their energy on building
autonomous political movements and institutions
(like the Reconstruction Party) within the US
national-state that seek to build a broad
multi-national united front of oppressed peoples
and workers that makes a principle of building
strategic links and alliances with the autonomous
national liberation, international working class,
global justice, and environmental movements
throughout the world. As the trans-national
bourgeoisie thinks and acts globally, we must
also think and act globally to advance our own interests.
However, as the vast majority of our peoples and
forces are going to support the Obama campaign
and potential Presidency, in the short-term we
tactically have to invest a critical degree of
time and energy engaging them, if only to try and
win a considerable portion of these forces to a
left perspective and program. And it is here that
we need theoretical clarity. How do we offer a
radical critique of Obama, his class position,
interests, and program without alienating
ourselves from the popular masses? How do we move
these forces to engage in autonomous
self-determining action outside of the Democratic
Party? How do we educate and move the white
settler forces mobilized by Obama to actively
engage an anti-racist, anti-imperialist perspective and program?
To these ends, a hard-pressed counter campaign
against Obama I would argue is not the most
effective or productive way to engage these
popular forces from this point forward. Rather, I
think the multi-national left must seek to
highlight the contradictions of Obama's campaign
and program through a combined "outside-inside"
strategy that seeks to advance a coherent set of
principle demands and push him and the forces he
has mobilized sharply to the left. Again, I think
the formation of an autonomous "outside"
political force should be primary. However, what
is perhaps most tactically critical is that both
the "outside" and "inside" forces aggressively
promote and propagate these common demands;
vigorously dialogue and debate in a principled,
non-sectarian manner; and openly communicate and
collaborate whenever and wherever possible.
Some of the primary strategic demands that must
be raised are drawn from the historic demands of
oppressed peoples, particularly New Afrikans,
combined with the demands of the multi-national
working class, women's, and environmental justice
movements. The combination of these demands will
expose not only the limits of the trans-national
bourgeoisie and its production regime, but of US
imperialism itself and its inability to make good
on its democratic promises, either at "home" or
abroad. Some of the most critical of these demands include(2):
1. The full and immediately ending of the
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. The full and unqualified support for
Palestinian self-determination and the Right to Return.
3. The full and immediate Right of Return for
the more than 250,000 New Afrikans displaced from
their homelands in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
4. The repeal of the "war on drugs" and
mandatory minimum sentencing that has resulted in
the imprisonment of more than 2.5 million people,
the vast majority of whom are New Afrikans.
5. The full support for the rights of women
and the LGBTQ communities, including full support
for initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment and "gay" marriage.
6. The full and immediate repeal of the
various Patriot Acts and other undemocratic
anti-terror laws and Executive Orders.
7. The full, complete, and unconditional
amnesty for the millions of migrant and displaced workers in the US.
8. The full and unqualified commitment to
reduce the carbon imprint of the US by 80% or
more by 2016 to stem the production of climate changing greenhouse gases.
9. The commitment to the public financing of
alternative solar, wind, aquatic, and organic
energy to sustain the economy, and the
elimination of all nuclear energy and hard metal extraction.
10. Reparations for Indigenous, New Afrikan,
Xicano, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian and other peoples
and nations colonized by the US (including Guam, Alaskan natives, etc.).
By Way of Conclusion
Although the road ahead may not be clear, and the
outcome of our actions far from certain, the New
Afrikan national liberation movement, and the
movements of all oppressed and exploited peoples,
must seize this critical moment. The survival of
humanity demands that we must act, and act in our
own interests. Barack Obama nor any other
bourgeois messiah is going to liberate us. We must liberate ourselves.
Reference Materials and Resources
1. "The New Imperialism: Crisis and
Contradictions in North/South Relations", by Robert Biel. Zed Books, 2000.
2. "Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril
of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington
to Condoleezza Rice", by Christopher Alan Bracey. Beacon Press, 2008.
3. "We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism
and Class Struggle in the American Century", by
Rod Bush. New York University Press, 1999.
4. "Locked in Place: State-building and late
industrialization in India", by Vivek Chibber.
Princeton University Press, 2003.
5. "Reviving the Developmental State? The Myth
of the 'National Bourgeoisie'", by Vivek Chibber.
Printed in Socialist Register 2005, edited by Leo
Panitch and Colin Leys. Published by Monthly Review Press, 2004.
6. "A Brief History of Neoliberalism", by
David Harvey. Oxford University Press, 2005.
7. "Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black
Power and the Making of African American
Politics", by Cedric Johnson. University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
8. "Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign
Policy, Race, and the New American Century", by
Clarence Lusane. Praeger Press, 2006.
9. "The Darker Nations: A People's History of
the Third World", by Vijay Prashad. The New York Press, 2007.
10. "A Theory of Global Capitalism:
Production, Class, and State in a Transnational
World", by William I. Robinson. John Hopkins University Press, 2004.
11. "Transnational Conflicts: Central America,
Social Change, and Globalization", by William I.
Robinson. Published by Verso, 2003.
12. "Global Capitalism: the New Leviathan", by
Robert J. S. Ross and Kent, C. Trachte. State
University of New York Press, 1990.
13. "The Transnational Capitalist Class", by
Leslie Sklair. Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
14. "Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black
Communities, and the Call for a Deep Democracy",
by J. Phillip Thompson, III. Oxford University Press, 2006.
15. "A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka
and Black Power Politics", by Komozi Woodard.
University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
Footnotes:
1. A New Afrikan is a person of Afrikan descent,
particularly those historically enslaved and
colonized in the Southeastern portion of the
North American continent, that presently live
under the colonial subjugation of the United
States government. New Afrikan is the connotation
of the national identity of this Afrikan people
that recognizes their political aspirations for
self-determination and independence.
2. See also the demands articulated in the "Draft
Manifesto for a Reconstruction Party" by the
National Organizing Committee for a
Reconstruction Party and "Hillary and McCain: the
White Block that must be stopped" by Eric Mann.
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