Musings From the Margins Archives - Page 2 of 3

“The fact is that there was no secular, moderate force worthy of the name operating inside Syria; virtually the entire anti-Assad effort is dominated by Islamist extremists who, if Assad was overthrown, would probably replace a secular dictator with something far worse. The Obama policy of regime change in Syria, like the Bush policy in Iraq, has done little more than unleash forces which the U.S. was unable to control, costing American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and the blood of American military personnel who lost their lives in its implementation.”

A left publication? No the American Conservative!!

Those of us who said from the beginning that Syria was never about some simplistic pro or anti-Assad but was about U.S. imperialism and needed to be opposed were viciously maligned by the soft, objectively pro-U.S. imperialist latte left.

I would add to the U.S centric lens from the piece above that in the clumsy, incoherent process of attempting to realize full spectrum dominance after their blunder with the invasion and occupation and defeat in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of innocents have lost their lives and ancient cities from civilizations much older and developed than those of Europe were destroyed.

But I don’t expect any of those who supported this barbarism from a left position to change position, they are much too invested and beyond the politics, the moral implications of their collaboration is quite obvious, that is why they would never bring themselves to admit that they were wrong.

But it is imperialist privilege that allows you in the safety of your gentrified communities to allow U.S. imperialism to destroy peoples and nations while you pontificate about authoritarianism and the mistakes being made in revolutionary processes when you haven’t made shit.

The city of Buenaventura on Colombia’s Pacific coast is home to the country’s main international port through which billions of dollars of imports and exports pass every year. Yet due to decades of abandonment form the government, the mainly Afrodescendant and indigenous community of Buenaventura does not have access to adequate health services, education or running water. Further, neoliberal development projects to expand the port threaten the very existence of communities as traditional fishing livelihoods are destroyed and whole communities violently displaced from their ancestral lands.

Since last Tuesday 16th May the community of Buenaventura (along with communities in the Chocó region of Colombia) has been on general strike demanding that the government fulfils basic human rights to water, education, health, culture, land and freedom from racism and violence. Businesses were closed, road blocks were set up at several points along the main road and peaceful protestors chanted, sang, danced and banged cooking pots to call attention to the desperate situation. On the first day along the Chamber of Commerce reported the strikes had caused up to 10,000 million pesos (about $3.5 million USD) in losses.

For three days there was a sense of joy and hope as the Civic Strike Committee entered into discussions with the government. But unfortunately due to lack of consensus the discussions were suspended and on Friday 19th the national government sent the ESMAD (riot squad) to repress the protestors and violently remove the roadblocks. The crowds and communities were attacked with tear gas throughout the day and into the night of the 19th causing numerous injuries. Tragically in the community of Punta el Este, located at the end of Buenaventura’s main bridge to the port and city centre, Puente Piñal, a baby was suffocated from the gas causing outrage and indignation throughout the community. The ESMAD had one aim here, to open the road for the trucks to leave the port and allow the global capitalist machine to clunk back into action. Once again private business interests were prioritised over the lives of the black and indigenous community.

On Saturday the government installed a prohibition on public demonstrations and a curfew in response to looting of supermarkets by some people, although many have claimed these actions were instigated by outside forces. Nevertheless the peaceful protestors have remained firm in their objectives and calls for a satisfactory response to their demands. On the 20th March over 30,000 people put on white shirts and marched to the city centre to demonstrate that the strike would go on, and on the 21st, National day of Afro-Colombian Heritage, we estimate that up to 200,000 marched to the outskirts of the city. Up to 200 people have been detained by the authorities accused of participating in looting and rioting and while the freedom of some has now been secured many have ongoing legal processes.

Today as the Committee returns to discussions with the government the people of Buenaventura continue to strike and continue to march under the calls “el pueblo no se rinde carajo” (the people won’t give up…), and “pueblo unido, jamás será vencido” (a united people will never be defeated).

In solidarity with the struggling people of Black Colombia and in defence of fundamental human rights, the Black Alliance for Peace calls on the people in the United States to sign the petition below, but also to circulate information on this situation through your networks since it is being “whited out” by the corporate press. We are also asking that you send statements of solidarity to Charominarojas@gmail.com

https://www.change.org/p/solidaridad-con-el-paro-civico-en-buenaventura?source_location=minibar

In the run-up to budget discussions, the Trump Administration floated various proposals for a dramatic increase in military spending on top of the already bloated $596 billion Pentagon budget. This, figure doesn’t even represent the true expenditures devoted to war-making and militarism in the $1.1 trillion discretionary side of the national budget. The $596 doesn’t include the $65 billion in veterans spending and $26 billion for nuclear weapons. That brings the total to about $690 billion or 63% of all discretionary spending! To fund this outrageous theft of the peoples’ resources for the military/industrial/complex, the Administration called for unprecedented cuts to various Federal agencies and departments since everything is supposed to be revenue neutral.

Now a reasonable person might conclude that for an oppositional party that claims to be the voice of the downtrodden and committed to social justice informed by “liberal values,” Trump’s proposals to take a meat cleaver to state agencies in order to increase military spending and indeed his whole budget recommendations would be a godsend for democrats since militarism has a direct impact on working people and the poor. Even republican president Dwight Eisenhower understood this in what today’s right-wing U.S. culture would read as a radical statement:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

Yet, instead of vigorous opposition and mass mobilizations from the loyal opposition, the democrat party is still trying to hold the public’s attention with the nonsensical drama related to supposed collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign., As though collusion between campaigns and foreign governments is something new – think Nixon’s efforts to sabotage peace efforts in the ‘68 campaign and Reagan’s campaign’s coordination with Iran and release of U.S. hostages that sunk Carter’s presidency.

What is so incredibly inept about the strategy to keep the focus on Russia is that the issues that could really begin the process of driving a wedge between the Trump administration and the independents and white workers who voted for Obama in ‘08 and ‘12 but voted Trump in 2016 - the healthcare issue, no support for an increase in minimum wage, tax cuts for the rich - are there to be exploited if the democrats were really a serious oppositional party with an alternative reform agenda. This is precisely the point. The democrat party is not a serious oppositional party.

The absence of any real opposition to the reckless use of U.S. military force - the attack on Syria, the macho demonstration bombing in Afghanistan, the provocations toward North Korea - exposed once again the unanimity among the U.S. ruling class and the state on the use of military force as the main strategy to enforce its global interests.

What this means for Black and oppressed people, in the capitalist centers in the West and in the Global South is that we cannot afford the luxury of diversionary politics when it is our bodies that are in the crosshairs of an F-16 in Libya and a Glock 9mm in the hands of a racist cop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For us, unrestrained militarism and war has always meant death and destruction.

It also means that attempting to build oppositional coalitions to confront and defeat militarism and neoliberal state austerity cannot depend on effective and consistent support from democrat party related structures both inside and outside of the democrat party such as many of the nonprofits and labor unions. It even means that it is becoming more difficult to build opposition to war and militarism among the U.S. left and progressives because these sectors along with the corporate media and the general public have fallen prey to what Rashna Batliwala Singh and Peter Mathews Wright calls “imperial privilege.”

Imperial privilege is this strange ability on the part of the U.S. public to “shrug off” the consequences experienced by people impacted by the direct and indirect result of U.S. militarism. That is precisely why pro-imperialist politicians like Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren can be designated as “progressives” and vast numbers of voters can rally around a warmonger like Hilary Clinton without suffering much moral distress.

It is also why there is not much discussion of the consequences for the people of Korea if through macho posturing the Trump administration sparks a military confrontation on the Korean peninsula or why there are no calls from the public to stop Saudi war crimes in Yemen and it seems perfectly acceptable that the entire U.S. Senate would sign-on to a letter to the United Nations condemning it for its bias against Israel. And it is why “Trump became president” of all the people after ordering the military to engage in an illegal attack on Syria.

According to Batliwala Singh and Mathews Wright:

“Imperial privilege makes it possible for even the liberally-inclined to turn a blind eye to the toxic footprint of U.S. militarism at home and abroad; to fall silent at any mention of the homicidal decisions of an American President; to exclude such matters from public political discussion and to prevent them from influencing their voting patterns in any way.”

So, while Trump only got a $15 billion dollar increase in the budget compromise, the “commonsense” acceptance of war by the public at this point makes it more likely that the Administration will be successful in securing billions more of the public’s resources for war-making in the 2018 budget that will be debated over coming months.

The irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism, fueled by white nationalist sentiment has produced a toxic, proto-fascist politics. This is the context in which we must build an alternative to the neoliberalism of the Democrats and the nationalist-populism of Trump.

The drive toward war, domestic repression, and the militarization of society can only be stopped by the people. But that will not occur until there is a shift in the culture and consciousness of the public. A shift in which the inherent value of all lives is recognized and a new kind of politics is practiced in which the people are able to recognize that their interests are not the same as the interests of the capitalist oligarchy and that they have a responsibility to victims of U.S. imperialism around the world.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) https://blackallianceforpeace.com/ and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine.

While the Congress debates an appropriation bill this week to keep the government funded for the rest of the year, the Trump Administration called all 100 U.S. Senators to a meeting to discuss the administrations’ plans on North Korea.

The opportunism of this public relations stunt could not be more obvious. An important element of any Continuous Resolution to keep the government funded and eventual budget agreement will have to address at some point the obscene demand from the Trump administration to increase the Pentagon’s budget by $54 billion dollars. While the corporate media and democrats have focused on issue of funding for the border wall, the issue of increase military spending is the proverbial elephant in the room.

To fund the U.S. war machine, Trump’s proposals call for cutbacks in programs that fund education, provides meals to seniors, support for housing, after-school tutoring programs, heating assistance, food for poor children, just to name a few of the draconian cuts that will occur.

The issue of North Korea and reckless machoism plays so well with the chicken-hawks in Congress and the media. This is meant to pre-empt opposition to the outrageous assault on the agencies and programs still in place that provide a modicum of relief from the inherently brutal consequences of an economy unable to provide a decent, dignified life for millions. The illegal attack on Syria, escalating tensions with Russia, bellicose statements on China and continued provocations with North Korea are all meant to keep the U.S. public on a war footing and justify the ongoing theft of public funds to the turn of over $600 billion dollars that goes straight into the pockets of the 1%.

Those of us in the Black Alliance for Peace will not allow ourselves to be manipulated. We demand an end to the lawlessness of the U.S. state and the criminal waste of the people’s resources.

International law is supposed to govern the conduct of states and funnel any threats to international peace into the mechanisms that have been set-up to prevent and resolve grave threats to peace and human rights. Yet the U.S. continues to act outside of international law with its arbitrary and unilateral actions. For good reason, the U.S. is now seen by many in the world as the greatest threat to world peace and international law.

As a result of its criminal actions, millions have been murdered, states destroyed and countless people displaced.

The first to fight and die are the poor and working people of this country and the nations that are attacked by the U.S.

We call on members of the Congressional Black Caucus, specifically, and all members of congress to reject the Trump proposal to increase military spending.

End the madness. Stop the U.S. war machine and take back our resources and use them for the people.

50 years ago, on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King reconnected with the radical black tradition by adding his voice of opposition to the murderous U.S. war machine unleashed on the people of Vietnam. For Dr. King, his silence on the war in Vietnam had become an irreconcilable moral contradiction. He declared that it was hypocritical for him to proclaim the superior value of non-violence as a life principle in the U.S. and remain silent as the U.S. government engaged in genocidal violence against a people whose only crime was to believe that they could escape the clutches of French and then U.S. colonialism.

“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems,” Dr. King said. “I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, ‘What about Vietnam?’ They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”

In his speech at Riverside Church, King not only criticized U.S. actions in Vietnam but identified the cultural pathologies at the center of U.S. society. “I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values,” he said. “We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

50 years later, what rational person can honestly argue against the position that the U.S. is still the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet?

But what existed in 1967 that helped put moral and political pressure on King was a militant anti-war and anti-imperialist movement; a movement that in many respects was born out of the black-led pro-democracy and social justice struggles and organizing in the South. Many of the young white activists who took up opposition to the war and built such organizations as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) cut their activist teeth while working with black activists in the South. From the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) to the Northern-based Black Panther party, the cutting edge of the Black liberation movement took an early and resolute oppositional stance against the war on Vietnam.

After almost three decades of pro-war conditioning by both corporate parties and the corporate media coupled with cultural desensitization from almost two decades of unrelenting war, opposition to militarism and war is negligible among the general population. The black public has not been immune to these cultural and political changes. And with the ascendancy of the corporatist President Barack Obama, during whose tenure the U.S. continued its militaristic bent unabated and in fact ratcheted up its aggressive posturing in some parts of the globe, particularly in the Middle East, there was a decidedly rightward shift in the consciousness of the black public and a significantly dampened anti-war sentiment among black people.

Politically the result has been disastrous for the society and for the U.S. anti-war movement. The bi-partisan warmongering over the last two decades has met very little opposition, and the traditional anti-war stance of the black population has almost disappeared.

But once again we are seeing opposition to militarism, violence and war developing among young people. And once again we are seeing young black voices making the connections between opposition to domestic state violence and the moral necessity to be in opposition to the U.S. war machine reflected in the policy statements from the Movement for Black Lives, BYP 100 and the Black Lives Matter network. Those positions are supported by the Black Left Unity Network, the Black is Back Coalition and other black formations. What is needed at this historical moment is for those forces to be galvanized and given more strategic focus.

What is needed is a Black Alliance for Peace (BAP).

The BAP must be a people(s)-centered human rights project against War, Repression, and imperialism that seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. So, on April 4, we are calling for a new alliance to help revive the black anti-war and peace movement in the black community as an essential component of a revived broader anti-war and pro-peace movement. Moreover, this new movement is even clearer on the connection between state violence and repression and the global war-mongering of the U.S. The pivot to Asia, the rotating of NATO troops on the borders of Russia, the destabilization of the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM), continued support for apartheid Israel, police executions and impunity in the U.S. and mass incarceration are all understood to be part of one oppressive, desperate structure of global white supremacy.

Dr. King also called upon the nation to understand the link between the unfulfilled economic needs of the majority of the population ground down by the ravages of an unforgiving racialized capitalism and the ruling class commitment to direct public funds toward militarism. His call for a poor people’s campaign was the human rights foundation of his anti-war position.

Militarism has a direct impact on working people and the poor. Even Republican president Dwight Eisenhower understood this when he issued what in today’s right-wing U.S. culture would read as a radical statement:

There must be an alternative to the neoliberalism of the Democrats and the nationalist-populism of Trump. We need an independent movement to address both the economic needs of poor and working people and the escalating attacks on the Black community, immigrants, women, unions, the LGBTQ community, refugees, Muslims, the physically and mentally challenged, youth, students, the elderly, Mother Earth - all of us. We need a new movement to end the wars on black people and people around the world. The BAP is a significant step toward helping to revive the anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-state-repression movement in the U.S. Let us on this 50th anniversary re-dedicate ourselves to building a movement for social justice that rejects the de-humanizing effects of war on everyone.

52 years-ago on February 21st, the world lost the great anti-colonial fighter, Malcolm X. Around the world, millions pause on this anniversary and take note of the life and contribution of Brother Malcolm. Two years ago, I keynoted a lecture on the legacy of Malcolm X at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon. While I had long been aware of the veneration that Malcolm inspired in various parts of the world, I was still struck by the love and appreciation that so many have for Malcolm beyond activists in the black world.

There are a number of reasons that might explain why 52 years later so many still pay homage to Malcolm. For those of us who operate within context of the Black Radical Tradition, Malcolm’s political life and philosophy connected three streams of the Black Radical Tradition: nationalism, anti-colonialism and internationalism. For many, the way in which Malcolm approached those elements account for his appeal. Yet, I think there is something else. Something not reducible to the language of political struggle and opposition that I hear when I encounter people in the U.S. and in other parts of the world when they talk about Malcolm. I suspect it is his defiance, his dignity, his courage and his selflessness. For me, it is all of that, but it is also how those elements were reflected in his politics, in particular his approach to the concept of human rights.

The aspects of his thought and practice that distinguished the period of his work in that short year between his break with the Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1964 and his assassination in 1965 included not only his anti-racism and anti-colonialist stance but also his advocacy of a radical approach to the issue of human rights.

Human Rights as a De-Colonial Fighting Instrument

Malcolm – in the tradition of earlier black radical activists and intellectuals in the late 1940s – understood the subversive potential of the concept of human rights when philosophically and practically disconnected from its liberal, legalistic, and state-centered genesis.

For Malcolm, internationalizing resistance to the system of racial oppression in the U.S. meant redefining the struggle for constitutional civil rights by transforming the struggle for full recognition of African American citizenship rights to a struggle for human rights.

This strategy for international advocacy was not new. African Americans led by W.E. B. Dubois were present at Versailles during the post-World War I negotiations to pressure for self-rule for various African nations, including independence from the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. At the end of the World War II during the creation of the United Nations, African American radicals forged the possibilities to use this structure as a strategic space to pressure for international support for ending colonization in Africa and fight against racial oppression in the United States.

Malcolm studied the process by which various African American organizations – the National Negro Congress (NNC), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), petitioned the UN through the Human Rights Commission on behalf of the human rights of African Americans. Therefore, in the very first months after his split with the NOI, he already envisioned idea that the struggle of Africans in the U.S. had to be internationalized as a human rights struggle. He advised leaders of the civil rights movement to “expand their civil rights movement to a human rights movement, it would internationalize it.”

Taking a page from the examples of the NNC, NAACP and CRC, The Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), one of the two organizations Malcolm formed after leaving the NOI, sought to bring the plight of African Americans to the United Nations to demand international sanctions against the U.S. for refusing to recognize the human rights of this oppressed nation.

However, there was something quite different with Malcolm’s approach to human rights that distinguished him from mainstream civil rights activists. By grounding himself in the radical human rights approach, Malcolm articulated a position on human rights struggle that did not contain itself to just advocacy. He understood that appealing to the same powers that were responsible for the structures of oppression was a dead end. Those kinds of unwise and potentially reactionary appeals would never result in substantial structural changes. Malcolm understood oppressed peoples must commit themselves to radical political struggle in order to advance a dignified approach to human rights.

“We have to make the world see that the problem that we’re confronted with is a problem for humanity. It’s not a Negro problem; it’s not an American problem. You and I have to make it a world problem, make the world aware that there’ll be no peace on this earth as long as our human rights are being violated in America.”

And if the U.S. and the international community does not address the human rights plight of the African American, Malcolm is clear on the course of action: “If we can’t be recognized and respected as a human being, we have to create a situation where no human being will enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Malcolm’s approach to the realization of human rights was one in which human agency is at the center. If oppressed individuals are not willing to fight for their human rights, Malcolm suggested that “you should be kept in the cotton patch where you’re not a human being.”

If you are not ready to pay the price required to experience full dignity as a person and as members of a self-determinant people, then you will be consigned to the “zone of non-being,” as Fanon refers to that place where the non-European is assigned. Malcolm referred to that zone as a place where one is a sub-human:

“You’re an animal that belongs in the cotton patch like a horse and a cow, or a chicken or a possum, if you’re not ready to pay the price that is necessary to be paid for recognition and respect as a human being.

And what is that price?

The price to make others respect your human rights is death. You have to be ready to die… it’s time for you and me now to let the world know how peaceful we are, how well-meaning we are, how law-abiding we wish to be. But at the same time, we have to let the same world know we’ll blow their world sky-high if we’re not respected and recognized and treated the same as other human beings are treated.”

People(s)-Centered Human Rights:

This approach to human rights struggle is the basis of what I call the People(s)-Centered approach to human rights struggle.

People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHR) are those non-oppressive rights that reflect the highest commitment to universal human dignity and social justice that individuals and collectives define and secure for themselves through social struggle.

This is the Black Radical Tradition’s approach to human rights. It is an approach that views human rights as an arena of struggle that, when grounded and informed by the needs and aspirations of the oppressed, becomes part of a unified comprehensive strategy for de-colonization and radical social change.

The PCHR framework provides an alternative and a theoretical and practical break with the race and class-bound liberalism and mechanistic state-centered legalism that informs mainstream human rights.

The people-centered framework proceeds from the assumption that the genesis of the assaults on human dignity that are at the core of human rights violations is located in the relationships of oppression. The PCHR framework does not pretend to be non-political. It is a political project in the service of the oppressed. It names the enemies of freedom: the Western white supremacist, colonial/capitalist patriarchy.

Therefore, the realization of authentic freedom and human dignity can only come about as a result of the radical alteration of the structures and relationships that determine and often deny human dignity. In other words, it is only through social revolution that human rights can be realized.

The demands for clean water; safe and accessible food; free quality education; healthcare and healthiness for all; housing; public transportation; wages and a socially productive job that allow for a dignified life; ending of mass incarceration; universal free child care; opposition to war and the control and eventual elimination of the police; self-determination; and respect for democracy in all aspects of life are some of the people-centered human rights that can only be realized through a bottom-up mass movement for building popular power.

By shifting the center of human rights struggle away from advocacy to struggle, Malcolm laid the foundation for a more relevant form of human rights struggle for people still caught in the tentacles of Euro-American colonial dominance. The PCHR approach that creates human rights from the bottom-up views human rights as an arena of struggle. Human rights does not emanate from legalistic texts negotiated by states—it comes from the aspirations of the people. Unlike the liberal conception of human rights that elevates some mystical notions of natural law (which is really bourgeois law) as the foundation of rights, the “people” in formation are the ethical foundation and source of PCHRs.

Trumpism is the logical outcome of the decades long assault of racialized neoliberal capitalism. Malcolm showed us how to deal with Trumpism, and the PCHR movement that we must build will move us to that place where collective humanity must arrive if we are to survive and build a new world. And we will – “by any means necessary.”

Ajamu Baraka was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine. His latest publications include contributions to Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence (Counterpunch Books, 2014), Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (HarperCollins, 2014) and Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral ( CODESRIA, 2013). He can be reached at www.AjamuBaraka.com

With the establishment of the period when the nation would celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, no one could have anticipated the possibility that one day that period would converge with the date when a “first black president” would be turning over executive power after serving two terms. But in just a few days Barack Hussein Obama will conclude an ironic but historic chapter in the ongoing story of this strange and dangerous place called the United States of America.

But the overlap of these two events, King’s official birthday period and the constitutionally mandated turnover of power by the nations’ first black president, serves as a kind of historical analogy for the contradictory politics of race, representation, and power in the first white supremacist nation-state in human history.

Dr. King, the creation of the black mass-movement for democratic and human rights that were presumably granted after the end of the civil war and then denied for another hundred years, and Barack Obama who allowed himself and even indirectly embraced the notion that his presidency was the natural and logical result of the black movements of the 60s and 70s, in actuality represented two different and competing narratives of black existence in the U.S.

For me, nothing symbolizes more the gulf between the meaning and politics of Dr. King and Barack Obama than an incident that I wrote about a few years ago, in Atlanta.

Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s special advisor and personal friend, paid a visit to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church of Dr. Martin Luther King. As members of the King family looked on, Ms. Jarrett received a standing ovation from the assembled congregation when she shared the story of how President Obama was responsible for the killing of an unarmed Osama bin Laden. I share this strange and surreal scene from Ebenezer Church, where the largely African American congregation endorsed the killing of another human being – while in church – because I think it captures the vast historical and moral distance between two distinct periods: the period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Dr. King emerged as the symbolic leader of the civil rights wing of the ongoing Black liberation movement and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964; and the era of Barack Obama, launched with his ascendancy to the highest political office in the country and the winning of the Nobel Prize in 2008.

Not only did Dr. King and Barack Obama exist in two distinct but interrelated periods, they were on two distinct moral trajectories. By 1967 King would condemned the U.S. as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” He said that he could not morally square calling for non-violence resistance in the U.S. and remain silent in the face of the massive destruction and death being unleashed by the U.S. military against the people of Vietnam.

However, for Obama, U.S. violence presented no such qualms because his loyalties are not with the peoples of the world but with the American empire.

In the 2009 Nobel Prize acceptance speech given by the newly-elected Barack Obama, he presented an argument for the concept of a “just war.” Startling many in the Oslo audience, Obama forcefully asserted in what many would begin to refer to as the “Obama doctrine” that: “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

For Obama, like liberal thought in general, there is a hierarchy of humanity and where one is situated is directly related to their value to the empire. If they are the objects to be “saved” from some “dictator” and reside in a national territory that empire has decided to seize in order to plunder its resources or for other geopolitical objectives, those peoples will occupy a higher status and will be recognized as humans – at least temporarily. But for the human beings who may be in resistance to the interests of empire, it is another story for them. For those people, they have been assigned to what Fanon referred to as the “zone of non-being” and are, therefore, killable without any remorse and with impunity – think Native Americans, the Vietnamese, Libyan and Syrian nationalists, Palestinians, Eric Garner and Walter Scott, and the list goes on throughout the bloody history of this white supremacist, settler state.

The Obama period is over and hopefully with it the moral relativity. However, we know that moral relativity is inevitable in a society that has not come to terms with the contradictions of its defining philosophical tradition – liberalism, that represents the original sin of hierarchizing human societies and peoples and providing the arrogant justification for committing the most horrific crimes against “others” in the name of humanitarianism. This the essence of the white supremacist doctrine of American exceptionalism.

While Dr. King condemned the lawless violence, warmongering and colonialism of the U.S. historically and in Vietnam specifically in the name of exceptionalism, Obama in contrast states clearly that he believes “in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being”

So on the occasion of the departure of Barack Obama and the acknowledgement of Dr. King’s birthday, let us re-commit to a vision – not a dream, but a life-affirming vision – of a society and world in which the fundamental human rights and dignity for all is respected.

It is not too late, even with the election of Donald Trump but it will courage and clear thinking in order to shake ourselves free from the strange, hypnotic trance that has gripped liberals and progressives of all stripes. Dr. King pointed us in the right direction just before he was assassinated when he reminded us that we were living in revolutionary times, and that the U.S. needed to get on the right side of the world revolution. And for the U.S. to do that it needed a revolution of values. With the U.S. gripped in an unsolvable capitalist economic crisis that has deepened poverty, exacerbated racism and xenophobia, intensified class contradictions and struggle and produced a Donald Trump, the liberated knowledge and experience of the black liberation movement in the U.S. and all who have been made barefoot and shirtless by capitalist exploitation and oppression are actively creating new ways of living and seeing the world that will end up liberating all of us.

This is the reality of a new world that Dr. King could see from the mountaintop – and that a visionless, opportunist technocrat like Obama and a moribund liberalism could never imagine.

This article was adapted from The Descent: From Dr. King to Barack Obama that was published in Counterpunch and Black Agenda Report in January 2013

Ajamu Baraka was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine. His latest publications include contributions to Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence (Counterpunch Books, 2014), Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (HarperCollins, 2014) and Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral ( CODESRIA, 2013). He can be reached at www.AjamuBaraka.com

The political culture in the United States is shifting. The majority of registered voters are neither Democrats nor Republicans and 57% of people in the US say that a third party is needed, an 11% increase from 2012 [Gallup, Sept.30, 2016]. This creates an opportunity for the Green Party to become a more powerful political force in 2018 and beyond.

In order to build Green power, it will be necessary to learn from past mistakes and to be proactive in preparation for not only the next elections but also the continuation, and even the worsening, of crises in wages and working conditions, education, health care, racialized state violence, assaults on civil liberties and more.

In order to become the independent, radical alternative that is necessary to confront issues that the capitalist parties ignore, we urge the Green Party to debate and take action on the proposals below.

Be Clear about Green Independence

The defining political issue of our era is the influence of wealth over policy. Both capitalist major parties service the rich and Big Business to the detriment of the working class and poor. The Green Party is distinct from the two capitalist parties in that it does not accept donations from political action committees (PACs) funded by the wealthy or Big Business. The four pillars and ten key values of the Green Party are other distinguishing factors that differentiate it from the capitalist parties.

These distinctions draw people who are searching for a party that represents their interests to the Green Party. In addition to not accepting donations from Big Business, being clearly independent of the capitalist parties is critical in order to challenge the agendas of both parties.

In the past, the Green Party has not been clear about its independence. Problems have occurred at the local, state and federal levels; however, a major turning point was the presidential election of 2004. Ralph Nader, the Green Party presidential candidate in 2000, was incorrectly demonized as the reason for George W. Bush’s election. Rather than embracing the power to impact elections, Greens ran on a ‘safe-states’ strategy, later called a ‘smart state’ strategy, in order to help the Democrats attempt to defeat Bush. This caused division within the party and the loss of Greens who opposed the party’s support for ‘lesser-evilism’, i.e. picking Kerry over Bush.

A similar situation may present itself in 2020 if Donald Trump seeks re-election. Although we can anticipate fear-mongering by the Democrats and accusations of ‘spoiling’ elections, Greens must be clear that neither capitalist party will solve the crises we face and that the need for a party that represents people is more important than ever.

Actions:

We urge the Green Party US to debate its stance on political independence now and to make that stance clear through a formal statement.
We also encourage this debate at the local and state levels and the consideration of a resolution to address issues of requirements for membership in the party, fusion and endorsement of candidates from the capitalist parties.

Pursue Electoral Reforms that Build Green Power

The electoral system in the US was created by and for the capitalist parties. Therefore, there are obstacles to alternative parties at every level of the process that, as a consequence, necessitate a wide range of reforms in order to have a more effective and fair democratic process. The Green Party should be the party to champion those efforts with a specific focus on blocking states from enacting voter suppression laws or policies. It is important when promoting changes to the electoral system that reforms are pursued in ways that enhance party-building and grow the power of the Green Party to challenge the capitalist parties.

We recommend that the Green Party prioritize gaining ballot access and ending both voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression. States should be encouraged to build the skills of local party members to do what is necessary to gain ballot access. Green Party local organizers should be prioritized when hiring people to petition for ballot access. And Green Party locals should be encouraged to organize with and in marginalized communities that are experiencing disenfranchisement and suppression. Leadership should be recognized and cultivated in working class and front line communities.

We support Ranked Choice Voting (RCV or Instant-Runoff Voting) but it needs to be part of a series of reforms. Without also addressing obstacles to Green Party candidates such as ballot access, voter registration for marginalized communities, fair media exposure, campaign financing and inclusion in debates, RCV serves to remove the power of Green Party candidates to impact elections and hands Green votes to one of the major parties.

Actions:

We urge the Green Party US to invest in efforts to support local and state organizing around ballot access and ending voter disenfranchisement and suppression.
If funds are left over from the Stein-Cobb recount effort, we encourage them to be used specifically for electoral reform efforts that build and empower party grassroots infrastructure.

Strengthen Relationships with the Popular Movement

Social transformation in the US has always required both a social movement and a political party that reflects the agenda of the social movement. As the crises in the US continue and grow, the Green Party must prioritize building relationships with people engaged in struggles in order to serve as a vehicle for transformation.

The Green Party must continue to develop a more comprehensive organizing and recruitment strategy with a clear eye towards growing the party in a new, more politically-defined, and diverse and inclusive direction. It must continue to make the necessary investments to broaden party-building efforts with a new commitment to bottom-up movement building and solidarity by working directly with front line and working class communities and their struggles.

As a political party this will clearly include running candidates, but as a relatively small and growing party, the Green Party’s power also resides in building and strengthening its relationship to the popular movement. This means showing up in solidarity with communities that are in struggle. And it means recognizing or developing leadership within working class and front line communities so that candidates arise from those communities.

Actions:

We urge the Green Party US to actively address issues within the party that perpetuate racial and class dominance, sexism, cis-heterosexism, ableism, and all manifestations of oppressive and White supremacist culture.
We also urge the Green Party US to encourage members to support working class and front line struggles, to prioritize the voices of those engaged in struggle and to run candidates from communities in struggle.

Ensure Democracy within and Accountability to the Party

As the Green Party grows, there will be challenges to sustain the party, maintain unity and ensure the party members and its candidates are accountable to the pillars and values of the party. It is necessary to put structures in place now that address these challenges.

One of the key strengths of the Green Party is that it does not accept donations from the wealthy and Big Business so that it represents the interests of the people. This is also a weakness because the Green Party does not have adequate resources, and when an individual or group does have resources, they can control what is done without accountability to the party.

A solution is to develop a dues-paying (or other form of support for those who cannot afford dues) membership structure for the party based on a simple national standard. Along with a membership structure, the Green Party can also develop a mechanism by which decisions are made in a democratic way so that members have an equal voice.

In the past, there has been little coordination between candidates and the party, especially at the presidential level. Candidates have acted in ways that are not consistent with the interests or majority support of the party members. While political parties and candidates have different needs, a structure can be put in place so that the party is more supportive of candidates at all levels and so that candidates, particularly those running at the national level, more accurately represent the priorities of the party members.

Actions:

We urge the Green Party US to develop a national standard for a dues-paying (or non-monetary contribution for some) membership structure and mechanism for democratic decision-making by members.
We also urge the Green Party US to develop a structure that strengthens the relationship between the party and candidates.
We urge the creation of a comprehensive political education program that provides information and analysis of the issues and concepts outlined in this letter.

Late on the evening of December 23, when the attention of the public was fixed on the consumerist excesses of the holiday season, President Obama signed into law the Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Like the other NDAAs that President Obama signed into law during his administration, this one further strengthened the repressive capacities of the state.

Buried deep in the provisions of the NDAA was language from a bill introduced by Sen. Rob Portman ostensibly to protect the public from the effects of “foreign propaganda.” As previously reported by Black Agenda Report, the bill, originally introduced last March, was passed by the Senate on December 8 as the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” and then inserted into the NDAA.

According to Senator Portman, the intent of the law is to “…improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation from our enemies by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government. To support these efforts, the bill also creates a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government.”

For Senator Portman, the U.S. is the innocent victim of ruthless propaganda efforts on the part of foreign governments to slander and discredit the altruistic objectives of U.S. global activities.

In the face of the Neo-McCarthyism represented by this legislation and the many other repressive moves of the Obama administration to curtail speech and control information – from the increased surveillance of the public to the use of the espionage act to prosecute journalists and whistleblowers – one would reasonably assume that forces on the left would vigorously oppose the normalization of authoritarianism, especially in this period of heightened concerns about neo-fascism.

Unfortunately, the petit-bourgeois “latte left” along with their liberal allies have been in full collaboration with the state for the past eight years, with the predictable result that no such alarm was issued, nor has any critique or even debate been forthcoming.

So there has been very little “mainstream” liberal/left discussion around the fact that, as the political blog Zero Hedge noted, “long before ‘fake news’ became a major media topic, the US government was already planning its legally-backed crackdown on anything it would eventually label ‘fake news.’ ”

As Black Agenda Report publisher Glen Ford framed it, “When the narrative at the heart of a system of rule falls apart, when the flow of history runs counter to the story told by those in power, then we know the entire edifice is crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions. The political crisis arrives when the people sense that the prevailing order is built on a foundation of oppressions and lies. The rulers panic, scrambling to reweave the matrix of fables and myths that justify their waning supremacy. At such points in history, the truth is up for grabs – and a change of regime is in the offing.”

The dangerous and cynical moves by the Clinton campaign during the presidential campaign to paint Trump as an agent of a foreign government in order to project Hillary as the real, tough alternative, has morphed into a commonsense narrative that has a dual purpose.

First, it is meant to weaken the incoming administration by attempting to split it from its Republican legislative arm. The liberal, transnational financial and corporate rulers are especially concerned by Trump’s economic and social base that is demanding an alteration of the neoliberal order in favor of small, mid-size and large business interests still dependent on the U.S. domestic market. They see this demand as a threat to the neoliberal logic that has been largely unquestioned in the West over the last three decades.

Secondly, by narrowing the scope of acceptable political discourse in relation to U.S. global strategies that are heavily dependent on militarism and the strategic commitment to suppress regional capitalist rivals, the neocons and liberal interventionists can expect to avoid mass opposition to continued imperialist adventures. Similar to the McCarthyite period when the ideological commitment to containment abroad required the destruction of any domestic opposition, the neo-McCarthyism of today is geared toward ideological conformity. In this sense, Trumpism is becoming a useful tool for enforcing neoliberal ideological consensus.

For those of us who take a consistent oppositional stance to the bi-partisan games being played on the people, the potential danger of the unfolding order is not lost on us. The set-up piece that ran in the Washington Post that supposedly identified news outlets that were supposed to be involved in questionable or outright “fake news” included a number of outlets to which I contribute, including Counterpunch and the only all-black outlet on the list, Black Agenda Report.

When you have supposedly respectable liberal outlets pushing this kind of madness, we are not expecting much support from liberals or even left forces when the repressive knife is sharpened on us.

The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner has even suggested that Trump is guilty of treason because of what he calls the President-elect’s “dalliance” with Vladimir Putin.

With the left’s attention fixed on Trump and its fear of the “new” authoritarianism that he is supposed to introduce, it has failed to confront or even be aware of the fact that the foundation for any kind of “neo-fascism” that might emerge in the U.S. was constructed over the last 15 years of the combined Bush and Obama administrations.

But even more dangerous for authentic oppositional forces in the U.S., collaboration from the left with the new McCarthyism is providing an opening for the isolation and repression of those of us who represent and are part of oppressed communities/peoples who were going to have to fight no matter who would have been elected.

This is not a new situation for us. When the repressive apparatus of the state focused on radical black organizations like the National Negro Congress and Civil Rights Congress, and on such individuals as Paul Robeson, W.E. B. Dubois, William Patterson and Claudia Jones, to the systematic assault on the radical Black Liberation Movement in the 1960s and ‘70s, we were largely required to fend for ourselves against the state after being abandoned by white liberals and significant numbers of white leftists. I fully expect that to happen again.

Neo-fascism is not a new existential phenomenon for us or for people around the world who have suffered from the racist, arrogant assaults of this criminal state to maintain the Pan-European colonial/capitalist project. So save your hysterical concerns about Trump for others and either commit yourself to building a revolutionary movement or get out of the way.

__________________________

Ajamu Baraka is the former Vice Presidential candidate for the U.S. Green Party in 2016 and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. He is also a contributing writer with various outlets including Commondreams, Pambazaka, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch Magazine and Black Commentator.

We are at a critical moment in history. The multiple contradictions of the collapsing neoliberal order are coming to a head – in climate disasters, in the racial violence we see in the streets, at Standing Rock and in the lives of countless people in the U.S. who have seen their economic circumstances deteriorate while the transnational elites continue to accumulate wealth and power. These contradictions suggest that this system is no longer able to continue in its present form. We are seeing the writing on the wall that the legitimation process,the symbols of legitimacy,no longer hold. Young white suburbanites taking a knee during the national anthem in solidarity with professional athletes is a powerful indication that the usual symbols of patriotism no longer provide the social cement that they used to.

We recognize the threat that Trump represents. He stands for the dark forces in this country – the racism, xenophobia, and misogyny that existed before him and will persist regardless of whether he wins. But the political realignment taking place among the right, with significant elements breaking from the Republicans and moving to the Democrats, also represents a serious threat the liberal left fails to recognize. This realignment represents, for the first time in a long time, a consolidation and unity of the ruling elite, who are apparently willing to suspend their differences and support Hillary Clinton and her cynical strategy of throwing bones to the poor and working class in this country. If we are serious about opposing the right, we must be serious about the various movements of the right, and we cannot afford to miss the implications of this realignment.

The Stein/Baraka campaign is committed to building alternative popular power. We must move beyond protest to a direct struggle for power, to take and exercise state power to improve our material conditions. This is why a central component of our campaign is the effort to use our national platform to lift up the struggles of African, Latinx, and indigenous people for sovereignty, self-determination, and authentic decolonization.

The Stein/Baraka Green Party campaign does not attempt to represent itself as “the” movement. It is developing an instrument, a tool, whose value is reflected by its ability to be linked with rising social movements everywhere. If people want to engage with the state, if they see it as a site of struggle, and if they want to involve themselves in the electoral arena, we need to have an instrument to do that. And the Green Party is an instrument that can be used in the service of a larger movement to build power.

That’s why we find ourselves in places like Standing Rock. Indigenous and African people are the original victims of the genocidal violence through which this nation was born. Indigenous and African peoples worked together throughout centuries of colonialism and slavery to fight back against our common oppressors, as evidenced by the Great Seminole Uprising and countless other rebellions throughout our shared history. And now, the Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter engagements are at the forefront of contemporary resistance movements.

As the Green Party vice-presidential candidate, I have been afforded the unique opportunity to travel extensively around the country and engage the people, listen to their stories and observe the unwavering commitment in our communities to racial, economic and environmental justice. I have been surprised at the number of people of color, especially black people, who are involved in the Green Party at all levels. And through these experiences I have been convinced that there is more of an appetite for radical solutions in the U.S. than the elite and corporate media let us know exist.

The people are on the move and we are winning. Our campaign is very close to the critical 5 percent of the national popular vote we need in order to gain federal funding, ballot access, and the ability to build the national infrastructure needed to mount a real challenge to power in upcoming elections. Any time we have an opportunity to engage people in critical discussion to build an alternative, we are in fact winning. It is imperative for us to have an oppositional presence in this moment. It makes no sense to completely surrender that space to the ruling elite. Building independent political power is always a winning proposition.

What we’ve been trying to do across this country is talk not just about the importance of voting for us on November 8, which is important, but about the absolute need to build an alternative to the existing paradigm. We are trying to facilitate the linking of these various movements together amongst themselves and the fledgling apparatus of the Green Party. We see this as part of a broader strategy for developing alternative power, understanding that we in a protracted struggle to shift the balance of forces back in favor of the people. Every action we take toward advancing this strategy, in the streets and at the ballot box, is an investment in laying a path to authentic human liberation - not the false liberation offered by liberalism from above, but true liberation that we take for ourselves, to save us all.