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<a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=636&Itemid=1" eudora="autourl">
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=636&Itemid=1<br>
<br>
</a></font><font size=3>Wednesday, 28 May 2008<br><br>
<b>by BAR executive editor Glen Ford<br><br>
</b>One of the great ironies of the current campaign season, is the
assumption by so many Black voters that by supporting Barack Obama for
president, they are making a real contribution to African American
self-determination. Nothing could be further from the truth. The
candidate, himself, is mightily opposed to the principle of African
American self-determination, as he revealed in great detail and beyond
doubt in rejecting Rev. Jeremiah Wright's narrative on America's origins.
Obama also has no more respect than other corporate politicians for
principles of international law and the sovereignty of nations. Should he
win the presidency, U.S. militarization of African will continue, as will
American bullying of its Latin American neighbors.<br><br>
</font><font size=4><b>Barack Obama versus Black Self-Determination<br>
</font><font size=3>by BAR executive editor Glen Ford<br><br>
</b><div align="center"><i>"Obama has repeatedly telegraphed his
contempt for any worldview that fails to glorify the U.S. rise to global
dominance."<br>
</i></div>
Obama-ism - a thoroughly corporate political concoction soaked with
banalities and wrapped in fraudulent brown packaging - presents a clear
and present danger to perhaps the greatest legacy of the Black Freedom
Movement: African Americans' embrace of their right to
self-determination. Although African American yearnings for
self-determination are evident in all previous eras, the general and
dramatic emergence of this fundamental understanding among Blacks of
their distinct "peoplehood" and inherent right to shape their
own collective destiny, free of veto by or need for validation from
dominant whites, marks the Sixties as a transformational period in
African American history.<br><br>
Barack Obama, whose disdain for what he calls the
"<a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=501&Itemid=1">
excesses of the 1960s and 1970s" is palpable, seeks to eradicate all
vestiges of Black self-determination, root and branch. The Senator has
never made a secret of his intentions, dating from his 2004 Democratic
National Convention declaration that "there is no Black
America,</a>" to his categorical
rejection<a href="http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-04-30-0129.html">
of the Black counter-narrative of American history, as preached by Rev.
Jeremiah Wright and understood by most African Americans.</a><br><br>
Obama has revealed himself as a rabid nationalist of the standard, white
America variety. "I categorically denounce any statement that
disparages our great country," says Obama - which pretty much says
it all. The candidate has repeatedly telegraphed his contempt for any
worldview that fails to glorify the U.S. rise to global dominance - a
ritual that collides instantly with truth as it actually exists, with
history as Black people have known it, and with Black aspirations to make
their own way in the world unencumbered by the burden of white lies.
Obama promises that he will oppose, with all the powers of his office,
those who, like Rev. Wright, "use incendiary language to express
views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but
views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation;
that rightly offend white and black alike." (Philadelphia
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-t_n_92077.html">
"Race" speech, March 18.)</a><br><br>
If Obama were already president, dissidents would have cause to shop for
a safehouse or foreign getaway.<br><br>
<b>Victims as Perpetrators<br><br>
</b>Clearly, if the United States is inherently good, then Black people
and Native Americans must have done something catastrophically wrong to
bring down upon themselves such suffering at the hands of the U.S.
government - not to mention the sins committed by Vietnamese,
Nicaraguans, Angolans and all the other peoples that have gotten in the
way of white American Manifest Destiny.<br><br>
President Obama will wage war against the heresies of deviant worldviews
that dare to question America's moral superiority - as exemplified by
Rev. Wright's "profoundly distorted view of this country - a view
that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with
America above all that we know is right with America."<br><br>
If racism is merely an aberration in American life, as Obama believes -
and which is the greatest concession that general white society is
prepared to make to Blacks - then all the fuss about institutional
racism, endemic police brutality and such are insults to the
"national honor." Certainly, Obama behaves as if he thinks so.
Every manifestation of Black entitlement to self-determination - that is,
the right to rely on one's own people's collective memory and sense of
the truth - must, from Obama's standpoint, be resisted, denounced and
suppressed as "divisive" and, in general, against the national
interest.<br><br>
In order for Obama's vision of America to be true, most of Black America
must be liars, Black self-determination equals treason, and the Sixties
era was the Mother of Corruption.<br><br>
<b>Sixties Transformation<br><br>
</b>A half-century ago, in a veritable end-of-marathon sprint to
self-emancipation, Black Americans not only achieved full legal
citizenship within barely the space of a decade, but in the process threw
off the chains of subservience to the oppressor's national historical
narrative, the legitimizing mythology of white American Manifest Destiny.
Inevitably, and in the glare of a global anti-colonial firestorm, African
Americans finally perceived en masse the true nature of the centuries-old
crime still-in-progress - that distinct and peculiar monstrosity, U.S.
imperialism. Born of the Middle Passage and Pilgrims making bonfires of
Pequot Indian women and children, 20th Century U.S. aggression against
mainly non-white peoples abroad was inextricably linked to chain gangs
and street cop justice at home. African Americans focused their
"third eye" that could see across oceans and centuries, a
political optic that discerned not just blood kin on The Continent, but
peoples on other, distant shores, also victims of Euro-American
predation, and equally deserving of Black solidarity.<br><br>
<div align="center"><i>"U.S. aggression against mainly non-white
peoples abroad was inextricably linked to chain gangs and street cop
justice at home."<br><br>
</i></div>
African American solidarity with continental Africans - and with
Vietnamese who "never called me nigger" - grew in tandem with
the Black domestic struggle for self-determination: the fight for
political rights with which to defend, control and shape the futures of
Black communities. It is a truism that those who are engaged in struggle
for their own people's self-determination are most sincerely empathetic
towards others seeking liberation - especially when it is understood that
the two peoples share a common antagonist. The period loosely defined as
The Sixties saw not only unprecedented popular mobilization on domestic
issues (10,000 separate demonstrations in 1965, alone, the vast bulk of
them "civil rights" related), but soaring Black identification
with liberation movements elsewhere in the world. African Americans were
preparing themselves to become full fledged citizens of the planet, not
just the United States.<br><br>
The language of self-determination, always a strong current in historical
Black political thought, entered the popular Black vocabulary through
Malcolm X. "We assert that we Afro-Americans have the right to
direct and control our lives, our history, and our future rather than to
have our destinies determined by American racists," declared
Malcolm's Organization of African-American Unity
(</font><a href="http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/gen_oaau.htm">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF">OAAU</a></font>
<a href="http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/gen_oaau.htm"><font size=3>), in a
document scheduled for release on the day of his assassination, February
21, 1965. "[W]e are determined to rediscover our true African
culture, which was crushed and hidden for over four hundred years in
order to enslave us and keep us enslaved up to
today...."</a><br><br>
Self-determination was item number one of the Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense</font>
<a href="http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1966/10/15.htm">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF"> Ten-Point
Program</a></font>
<a href="http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1966/10/15.htm">
<font size=3>, promulgated in 1966:</a><br><br>
"We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine The Destiny Of Our
Black Community. We believe that Black people will not be free until we
are able to determine our destiny."<br><br>
Two years later, 100 Black nationalists in Detroit declared the founding
of the Republic of New Africa
(</font>
<a href="http://socialjustice.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/index.php/Republic_of_New_Afrika">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF">RNA</a></font>
<a href="http://socialjustice.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/index.php/Republic_of_New_Afrika">
<font size=3>), to further Blacks' entitlement to the full rights of a
nation. Following the Nation of Islam's ideological lead and citing
Malcolm X as the "Father of the Black Nation," the RNA
identified five southern states - Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,
Georgia and South Carolina - as the "Promised Land" for Black
Americans.</a><br><br>
The embrace of self-determination was not limited to the Black Left and
land-seeking nationalists, but resonated throughout Black society, from
Black capitalists to Marxists and everyone in between. There can be no
doubt that the people who Dr. Martin Luther King was certain would
"</font>
<a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF">get to the promised
land</a></font>
<a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm">
<font size=3>" were on a conscious, mass journey of
self-determination. It was up to Black people to decide precisely where
the ultimate destination might be - a question over which Dr. King
agonized during the last years of his life. "I think we'll be
integratin</a>g into a
burning<a href="http://www.michronicleonline.com/articlelive/articles/2384/1/Keeper-of-the-Dream/Page1.html">
house," King told entertainer/activist Harry Belafonte, in 1968 - a
clear acknowledgement that African Americans were not simply a darker
variety of citizens, but a distinct people within the United States. King
imagined that Blacks would play the role of firemen in the
"American" house - but at any rate, that would be their choice
to make.</a><br><br>
<div align="center"><i>"The call to self-determination was not
limited to the Black Left and land-seeking nationalists, but resonated
throughout Black society."<br><br>
</i></div>
By definition, the right to self-determination is independent of minority
or majority status - otherwise, no such right can exist in the face of
white majority power. Therefore, self-determination transcends simple
one-man, one-vote rule which, in the United States, affords historically
hostile white majorities a permanent veto over Black aspirations. U.S.
history has provided ample proof that electoral "democracy" is
no cure for institutionalized suppression of racial minorities. With
Voting Rights legislation secured by the mid-Sixties and understanding
the limits of winner-take-all ballots, African Americans, including Dr.
King, insisted on the right of Blacks to exercise effective power over
their own lives<i> as Blacks</i>.. Naturally, such rights would obtain in
the growing number of localities in which Blacks were emerging as
majorities. However, the principles of self-determination, as interpreted
at the time, demanded that Blacks and others claiming
"peoplehood" be entitled to control those resources necessary
for the development of their group<i> independent of the majority's
wishes</i> - "rather than to have our destinies determined by
American racists," as Malcolm's organization put it.<br><br>
The domestic Black American application of self-determination principles
were adapted from
<a href="'"http://www.blackagendareport.com/All%20peoples%20have%20the%20right%20of%20self-determination.%20By%20virtue%20of%20that%20right%20they%20freely%20determine%20their%20political%20status%20and%20freely%20pursue%20their%20economic,%20social%20and%20cultur">
United Nations language that states: "All peoples have the right of
self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their
political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development."<br><br>
The UN's International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Economic Rights
fit the Black liberationist sentiments of The Sixties to a tee. Just as
small nations have rights that powerful nations are required to respect,
so the Black minority in the United States has the right to speak and
act</a><i> for itself</i>, and to claim a share of the national
treasure<i> for
itself</i>
<a href="'"http://www.blackagendareport.com/All%20peoples%20have%20the%20right%20of%20self-determination.%20By%20virtue%20of%20that%20right%20they%20freely%20determine%20their%20political%20status%20and%20freely%20pursue%20their%20economic,%20social%20and%20cultur">
, regardless of majority claims and sentiments. In a world of evolving
standards of civilization, true "democracy" does not allow the
big to lord it over the small.</a><br><br>
Although there was not to be a land-based Black "nation" within
U.S. borders, the core principles of Black self-determination have been
largely incorporated into the political outlook and expectations of
African Americans, and grudgingly acquiesced to by most whites. Blacks
and, later, other minority groupings in white institutions, most notably
academia, demanded and received resources based on their standing<i> as
Blacks</i> within the larger body. The autonomy of Black political
sentiment has, until recently, been at least paid lip-service by whites
throughout U.S. society. Indeed, much of what some whites mean-spiritedly
call "playing the race card" is simply Black assertion of group
rights and prerequisites that should not be curbed by white majorities.
Television programs produced by and for Blacks, now nearly extinct, were
responses to demands that Black people be allowed to speak for themselves
- a right under the umbrella of self-determination. In Democratic Party
circles, at least, "the Blacks" cannot appear to be left out of
decision making exercises, which usually require the (cosmetic) presence
of trustworthy African Americans as a semblance for Black group
inclusion. The moral authority of Black caucuses (including that which
has been frittered away by the Congressional Black Caucus) is derived
from the larger authority of self-determination principles.<br><br>
<b>Solidarity<br><br>
</b>The 1960s Black embrace of political self-determination freed African
Americans from the burdensome inheritance of United States' enemies.
As</font>
<a href="http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/01/mad_and_bad_or_.html">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF"> Muhammad
Ali</a></font>
<a href="http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/01/mad_and_bad_or_.html">
<font size=3> is said to have declared in 1966, "No Vietnamese ever
called me nigger." Self-determination meant the right to declare
solidarity with whomever one chooses, to side with African kin in the
struggle for decolonization of the continent while the U.S. thwarted true
liberation at every turn; and to identify as friends those who shared
status as designated enemies of the U.S. government, abroad.</a><br><br>
<div align="center"><i>"International law is treated as a dead
letter, by corporate Democrats as well as Republicans."<br><br>
</i></div>
During the Sixties, it was discovered that African Americans, whose
foreign policy opinions had previously been only sporadically surveyed,
were more opposed to American military adventures abroad than any other
U.S. ethnic group. The basis of Black anti-war sentiment was rooted in,
not some vague group pacifism, but the conclusion that Washington is a
bully who revels in abusing persons of color (and gets rich doing
it).<br><br>
African Americans had amassed centuries of experience as victims of U.S.
government policy, treated as foreigners in their own land. Blacks,
therefore, harbor the healthiest skepticism about U.S. motives,
especially regarding non-white peoples. The right of self-determination,
as African Americans understood it, liberated Blacks from any obligation
to support Washington's depredations around the world. Moreover, bonds of
solidarity with Africa<i> required</i> active opposition to U.S. foreign
policy.<br><br>
For many Blacks, the "newfound" knowledge of self-determination
principles meant, literally, the right to enjoy freedom of speech for the
first time! African Americans had always understood that Washington cared
as little for the interests of foreign non-whites as it did for
"colored" folks at home. Now, they could shout it, without fear
of being branded traitors - at least, not by other Black people. By 1967,
Dr. Martin Luther King found
his</font>
<a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF"> true
voice</a></font>
<a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm">
<font size=3> and began speaking in what was essentially solidarity with
the Vietnamese people.</a><br><br>
Two generations later, the contradictions of ailing U.S. imperialism
become ever more acute. The United States challenges as never before the
rights of smaller nations to manage their own resources and political
affairs as they see fit. International law is treated as a dead letter,
by corporate Democrats as well as Republicans. Barack Obama is no
different - except in the imaginations of his fans.<br><br>
Obama plans to leave 60-80,000 U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely, retain
the services of many of the 140,000 private mercenaries (contractors)
currently in the country, and add 92,000 additional soldiers and Marines
to overall U.S. force structures - the same number the Bush regime
requested from Congress. Far from being a peace candidate, Obama favors a
huge increase in U.S. war-making capacity, in order to fight yet a third
war while still mired in Iraq and Afghanistan.<br><br>
Washington will have no problem finding locations for its new
war(s).<br><br>
Outside of the Middle East, the fault lines run through Africa and Latin
America. George Bush has already begun the occupation of the Horn of
African under the ruse of "anti-terror," with Ethiopia's brutal
dictatorship acting as U.S. surrogate. Backed by every military resource
of the United States, including the huge American base in Djibouti, the
might of U.S. Indian Ocean naval and air power, and with U.S. Special
Operations "advisors" deployed down to the company level,
Ethiopia in late 2006 crushed the only stable government Somalia has had
since 1994. The
<a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=449&Itemid=1">
U.S.-Ethiopian aggression created what United Nations officials describe
as the "worst humanitarian situation in Africa" - worse than
Darfur.</a><br><br>
Barack Obama has had nothing to say about Somalia except to express
outrage at his opponents posting pictures of himself dressed up in the
garb of
a</font>
<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/26/1203788284463.html">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF"> Somali
elder</a></font>
<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/26/1203788284463.html">
<font size=3>, during a visit to neighboring Kenya (Obama's father's
homeland) several years ago. Suppression of Somali resistance to
occupation threatens to destabilize Kenya, with its large Somali
population, and Ethiopia, itself, where ethnic Somalis and others are in
rebellion against the dictatorship.</a><br><br>
It is fair to say that Somalia is the first African war to be tackled by
the new American military
command,</font><a href="http://www.africom.mil/">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF">
Africom</a></font><a href="http://www.africom.mil/"><font size=3>. So
widespread is public opposition on the continent, fearing an attempt to
re-colonize the region, no country has agreed to host the Africom. But
Barack</a>
<a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?Itemid=37&id=434&option=com_content&task=view">
Obama fully supports the robust U.S. military presence. "There will
be situations that require the United States to work with its partners in
Africa to fight terrorism with lethal force," said Obama.
"Having a unified command operating in Africa will facilitate this
action."<br>
Obama's enthusiasm for swamping Africa in an ever-expanding "war on
terror," is obvious.</a><br><br>
On the western shores of the continent, Obama was rumored in early May to
have proposed a
<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2008/05/04/nigeria_oil_rebels_say_mulling_obama_truce_appeal/">
cease fire in the guerilla war over oil resources in Nigeria's Niger
River delta. The insurgents, who claim the central government excludes
delta residents from the benefits of oil production, have also asked
former President Jimmy Carter to</a>
<a href="http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/05/08/analysis_nigeria_rebels_eyes_us_race/4602/">
mediate the dispute. Whether anything comes of either request, it is
certain that Nigeria, Africa's number one oil producer, will always be a
leading candidate for Africom intervention. The presence of guerillas in
the delta is all the Americans - including, based on his own words, Obama
- will need to invoke the terror threat.</a><br><br>
<div align="center"><i>"Far from being a peace candidate, Obama
favors a huge increase in U.S. war-making capacity."<br><br>
</i></div>
Venezuela claims that recent explorations confirm that the South American
nation has surpassed Saudi Arabia in oil reserves. Barack Obama is nearly
as bellicose as John McCain when it comes to Venezuela's
"rogue" leader, President Hugo Chavez -
a</font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF"> hugely
popular</a></font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez">
<font size=3> politician who was fairly elected three times under the
watchful eyes of international observers. But democratic credentials
don't matter to American politicians anxious to prove they can warmonger
with the meanest blowhards in the pack. His predictable yet perilous mix
of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and checkbook
diplomacy offers the same false promise as the tried and failed
ideologies of the past.</a><br><br>
Obama growls about bringing sanctions against Venezuela for allegedly
undermining its neighbor, Columbia, Washington's narco-death
squad-client-state. With the U.S. guzzling down 60 percent of Venezuela's
oil exports, and plenty of other customers willing to take America's
place, the sanctions threat is just plain silly. But Obama's hostility to
Chavez (who does not return the insult, even when Obama derides Chavez's
"predictable yet perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric,
authoritarian government, and checkbook diplomacy") is a bad omen
for peace in the region.<br><br>
The U.S. supports secessionist efforts by the moneyed classes in
Venezuela and its two closest allies, Ecuador and Bolivia. Not
coincidentally, all three plots are centered in the countries' main oil
or gas-producing regions. Another coincidence: after 60 years
deactivation, the U.S. Navy this month revived
its</font>
<a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gTydi81nrsoFzDYW6KqZpbMgaj7A">
<font size=3 color="#0000FF"> Fourth
Fleet</a></font>
<a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gTydi81nrsoFzDYW6KqZpbMgaj7A">
<font size=3>, with responsibility for South and Central America. Evo
Morales, President of Bolivia, called it "the Fourth Fleet of
intervention."</a><br><br>
The spark can come any time the Americans decide to set off a regional
conflict. Barack Obama, the phony peace candidate, is already providing
warlike rhetoric, vowing to support Colombia if it repeats incursions
into neighboring Ecuador or Venezuela in search of FARC
"terrorists."<br><br>
"We will support Colombia's right to strike terrorists who seek
safe-haven across its borders," Obama promised Cuban exiles and
their progeny in Miami. "And we will shine a light on any
support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments. This
behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional
isolation and - if need be - strong sanctions. It must not
stand."<br><br>
<b>The Southern Color Line<br><br>
</b>The renewed American threats to Latin American sovereignty occur when
Black, brown and indigenous (Indian) populations throughout the region
are in the midst of a political awakening, a deep social transformation
in which Venezuela's Chavez, Bolivia's President Evo Morales and
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa are major players. The non-whites of
Latin America are asserting their rights to self-determination - that is,
their rights<i> as Indians</i>, or<i> as persons of African descent</i>,
regardless of majority or minority status in society. Where they are
majorities, non-whites are seizing political power.<br><br>
Long retarded by the fiction that Latin America has no racial problem,
people of color are finally confronting the racial dimensions of Latin
American poverty (disproportionately non-white) and oligarchy (always
white).<br>
As usual, the U.S. is on the white oligarchy's side. So is Barack Obama,
whose support for the oligarchic, super-corrupt Colombian regime amounts
to backing a barbaric, color-coded caste system. One need not be fluent
in Spanish to understand the meaning of political cartoons in the
newspapers of the rich that portray Hugo Chavez as a monkey.<br><br>
<b>African Americans and Solidarity<br><br>
</b>Wider war is coming to South American and Africa, an inevitability
given the Democrats' failure to choose a real alternative to the
Republicans. There is absolutely no indication that Barack Obama (or his
fading political twin, Hillary) will disassemble the U.S. foreign policy
elements that were put in place specifically as trip wires for and
facilitators of wars. Quite the opposite. Obama will maintain over one
hundred thousand military and civilian personnel in Iraq, with others
"over the horizon"; step up the militarization of Africa
through Africom, continue backing the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia,
and possibly draw neighboring Eritrea into a larger conflict; attempt to
destabilize Hugo Chavez and other progressive leaders of mostly non-white
constituencies in Latin America, with the aim of seizing control of
fossil fuel resources.<br><br>
<div align="center"><i>"We have still not forgotten our
self-determination right to declare solidarity as Black people with
whomever we choose."<br><br>
</i></div>
African Americans, despite their relative quiescence compared to the
roiling Sixties, will respond to these aggressions through solidarity
with Washington's victims on both continents. After 40-plus years, we
have still not forgotten our self-determination right to declare
solidarity<i> as Black people</i> with whomever we choose. We can
confidently predict that President Obama will overreact to dissent,
especially to significant Black protest. He already revealed his
character and core worldview in the confrontation with Rev. Jeremiah
Wright. Let us revisit the incident:<br><br>
Barack Obama's denunciation of Rev. Wright's narrative on American
society's genesis in genocide and slavery - a narrative with which the
vast majority of Blacks are in general agreement - was in fact a demand
that Blacks cease telling their own story, in deference to white opinion
and the foreign policy interests of the United States.<br><br>
In framing Rev. Wright's critique of the United States as "not only
wrong but divisive," Obama came perilously close to charging the
minister and those who think like him with something resembling
"un-American" activities. Wright's worldview, said Obama, is
"divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time
when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two
wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis
and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither
black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us
all."<br><br>
In short, Blacks of Wright's political persuasion are culpable for more
crimes against the planet than Hitler's propagandists blamed on the Jews.
If any of this were even half-true, most people would agree that all
those who sympathize with Rev. Wright should be silenced and imprisoned,
for the sake of humanity!<br><br>
Barack Obama is not yet president, or even the Democratic nominee, but he
has already made it clear that he believes African Americans are
obligated to uphold the honor and reputation of the United States under
any and all circumstances, refrain from actions or statements that might
create "division," and avoid agitation for either their own
rights to self-determination or anybody else's.<br><br>
I think I smell a thug.<br><br>
---------<br><br>
<i>BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
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