by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

The president's announcement favoring the right of same sex couples to marry is long overdue and better than nothing. But it doesn't make him a fearless warrior for human rights, any more than Henry Kissinger's Nobel Peace Prize makes him Mahatma Gandhi.

Obama's No-Risk Drive-By On Gay Marriage

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“Marriage is a legal and human right that same sex couples and their families need, want and deserve. “

President Obama's belated declaration in favor of same sex marriage was not an act of political courage. Courage is risky and the president put nothing on the line he could lose. It wasn't about leadership, because Barack Obama arrived after and not before most of his party and most of the country. Barack Obama did a presidential drive-by, a mock-assault in which he rolled by and sprayed a clip full of rhetorical blanks in the general direction of the foes of equal rights at no risk to himself and without targeting anything in particular.

Think about it. If this had been a Republican president, say Reagan or Bush, making the opposite announcement, it would have been accompanied with a fistful of new executive branch regulations, a couple new bills for introduction in Congress, and a proposed constitutional amendment. Almost a week later, Obama is finally suggesting that repeal of the odious Defense of Marriage Act would be a good idea. But don't wait up for his people in Congress to introduce it.

Make no mistake, Obama's announcement is better than nothing. Marriage is a legal and human right that same sex couples and their families need, want and deserve. Without it, same sex partners can't visit each other in hospitals, can't get medical coverage for spouses, cannot make emergency medical decisions for each other and their survivors and children are not guaranteed access to joint assets, pensions or survivors benefits when one partner dies, and they have no access to divorce courts when coiuples break up.

This is crucially important because divorce courts are the only legal proceedings where the objective is equitable distribution of assets along with the best interests of children. Without access to divorce court the high earner in a same sex couple can pocket the lion's share of assets and walk away. Child support? If gay couples can't legally adopt or marry, don't count on it.

“The president's announcement satisfied a constituency that was mostly his already, and that makes significant campaign contributions as well. Some of his other supporters might grumble, but none of them will bolt. ”

Obama's belated announcement on gay marriage is good. It's just not all that good. Marriage is the overwhelming priority of well-off white gays. But the rest of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community have other pressing issues.

If you're a gay teenager, your big problem might be having a place to live and attend school, how to stay out of the juvenile system after your parents kick you out or after your school turns a blind eye when you get beat down. If you're a gay or transgender adult, you might live in fear that your landlord or boss will discover your identity and fire or evict you. If you're gay or transgender and homeless, there are shelter and agencies who simply won't deal with you, and if you're in the custody of adult or juvenile correctional institutions, you've got special problems as well.

The president's announcement satisfied a constituency that was mostly his already, and that makes significant campaign contributions as well. Some of his other supporters might grumble, but none of them will bolt. So politically, it was a no-risk, no-lose proposition, and it gives staunch Obamaphiles still another halo, this one in rainbow colors, to hang on the head of their shining black prince.

So while the president's announcement in favor of gay marriage really IS a good thing, it doesn't make him a fearless warrior for human rights any more than his tainted Nobel Peace Prize made him Martin Luther King. After all, Henry Kissinger F.W. DeKlerk have those too.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The administration imposed the most draconian police state legal structures in U.S. history summoning the heads of NATO to Chicago. The pact accounts for 70 percent of military spending on the planet – combining the capacities of yesterday’s imperialists and the current superpower. “The Black man in the White House is seen, ironically, as the last best hope of the old colonial racial order and the rule of capital.”

The Empire Holds Its War Council in Chicago

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“U.S. anti-war movement now confronts a growing fascist infrastructure here at home, as it opposes imperial crimes, abroad.”

If anyone has doubts about what it means here at home when the U.S. seeks to militarily dominate the world, take a trip to Chicago, this week. There, you’ll see the Chicago police, the second largest force in the country, reinforced by cops from Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, and backed up by two high decibel noise machines that were first used against American civilians in Pittsburgh to blow out the eardrums of protesters, back in 2009. Overall security for the NATO summit meeting is overseen by the FBI and the Secret Service, who in recent months have been given unprecedented police state powers, thanks to President Obama and a bipartisan Congress.

With dignitaries on hand from the more than 50 countries that have done Washington’s bidding in Afghanistan, there will be lots of opportunities for the feds to invoke their new powers to put demonstrators in prison for up to ten years if they set foot on property containing any person under the protection of the Secret Service. That could include huge chunks of the city. And, of course, who knows what kinds of plots the FBI is conjuring up through its squads of agent provocateurs embedded in the ranks of demonstrators. Thanks to the preventive detention without trial legislation signed into law by President Obama this past New Year’s Eve, every American has lost her Constitutional right to due process of law. Which means that a reconfigured and far more principled U.S. anti-war movement now confronts a growing fascist infrastructure here at home, as it opposes imperial crimes, abroad.

“Obama has drawn closely to his side the old imperialists of Europe.”

The Chicago police claim they don’t plan to turn the eardrum-busting sound cannons on full volume against the demonstrators – just loud enough to convey “messages” to the crowd. The protesters are sending their own message, one that has become far more popular and general than could have been imagined, a year ago. Since the emergence of the Occupy movement, last October, millions of Americans have come to understand what Latin American peasants have always known: that the nexus of war in the world is Wall Street, and the Pentagon is its servant – as is the White House and most of the Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. War is waged for the purpose of global economic subjugation and, therefore, peace can only be won by dethroning the financial bad guys: the Lords of Capital. So, much of the peace movement now sees itself as an expression of the 99 Percent, against the warlike and greedy 1 Percent.

Once that lesson is learned, it cannot be shouted out by police sound-blasters.

President Obama has made skillful use of NATO, to make it appear that he is not a go-it-alone cowboy, like George Bush. Obama has drawn closely to his side the old imperialists of Europe, who looted and pillaged the earth for five hundred years, establishing the planetary racial hierarchy that has only recently begun to crumble. The Black man in the White House is seen, ironically, as the last best hope of the old colonial racial order and the rule of capital. The Global One Percent can only be maintained in power by the U.S. war machine. Ultimately, the world needs only one thing from the American people: that they dismantle the machine.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

The United States: An Impoverished, Delusional Society

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Since at least 2006, Somalia has been the focus of the United States’ drive for military domination of Africa, with other African states lining up to join in the bloody, neocolonial feast. Sierra Leone is the latest. “Sierra Leone’s soldiers have become cogs in the imperial reconquest of Africa, with Somalia as ground zero.”

Somalia Recolonized – With African Help

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Washington’s actions have been calculated to ensure that a strong Somali state never rise again.”

With great fanfare from the international corporate media, the West African nation of Sierra Leone has committed 850 soldiers to the African Union’s forces in Somalia. In reality, Sierra Leone’s soldiers have become cogs in the imperial reconquest of Africa, with Somalia as ground zero.

Following the U.S.-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia, in 2006, Washington and its European allies, including the old colonial rulers, Italy and Britain, propped up a puppet government in the capital city, Mogadishu, while simultaneously encouraging the breakaway regions of Puntland and Somaliland. The capital is occupied by AMISOM, the African Union’s military force in Somalia, which is paid for by United Nations and, for all practical purposes, an extension of U.S. foreign policy on the continent. AMISOM’s largest contingents are from the U.S. client states Uganda and Burundi, and the force is commanded by a Ugandan. Another contingent hails from Somalia’s neighbor to the north, Djibouti, a tiny country that is little more than a military base for the United States and France. Djibouti is the main center of operations for AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command.

Although the Americans pay constant lip service to the idea of a permanent national Somali government and to the territorial integrity of country, Washington’s actions have been calculated to ensure that a strong Somali state never rise again. Vast areas of the country have been occupied by Somalia’s historical enemies, Ethiopia and Kenya. The Ogaden region of Ethiopia is populated mainly by people of Somali origin, against whom Ethiopia’s military regime has waged a brutal counterinsurgency war. Parts of northern Kenya are largely inhabited by ethnic Somalis. Both Ethiopia and Kenya view an intact and unified Somalia as against their national interests. Yet these are the countries, along with Uganda, to which the U.S. has, in the words of one Somali analyst, “subcontracted” the war against the Islamist Shabaab – which the U.S. claims is part of its war on terror.

“Oil companies also have an interest in a weak Somali government, and have already begun operations in the secessionist regions of Puntland and Somaliland.”

Kenya and Ethiopia can be expected to pursue what they consider to be their own national interests, bringing large parts of Somalia under their direct or indirect control, while fulfilling their obligations to the U.S. master. Ethiopia, especially, has exhibited the utmost contempt for Somali civilians under their control, arming and financing their own warlords and criminal gangs. Somalis widely believe that Kenya wants their oil.

But the truth is, the people that will ultimately get the oil are the multinational energy corporations favored by the United States and its European allies. These oil companies also have an interest in a weak Somali government, and have already begun operations in the secessionist regions of Puntland and Somaliland. In the national capital at Mogadishu, the international community – meaning, the United States and its allies – is overseeing the writing of a new Somali Constitution, one that effectively partitions the country into three territories: Puntland, Somaliland, and South Central Somalia. These same international overseers have warned that any “spoilers” that oppose the new order will be dealt with, harshly. Thus, we see that the recolonization of Africa is well underway – with the enthusiastic collaboration of other Africans.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

News reports are surfacing of more fraudulent financial advisors operating from the pulpits of black and white prosoperity gospel megachurches. Federal lawmen are investigating, corporate news reporters and commentators bloviating. But are they asking the real questions, or missing the real story?

The Black Church: How Corporate Media & the Prosperity Gospel Make Legions of Ready Dupes

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“Why are prosperity gospel churches such a fertile ground for retail financial fraud?”

Corporate media like ABC's Nightline this week briefly focused on an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of a shady character that prosperity gospel churches foisted upon their credulous members as a “financial advisor” on a ministry that was called the “Building Wealth Tour.” In an all too common story, the so-called “wealth-building ministry” was a Ponzi scheme, a Bernie Madoff swindle in miniature..

The Nightline news report consisted of interviews with a couple of families who entrusted the financial advisor with their life savings, and saw them disappear. It included footage of the charlatan's employee, who recounted how he locked his office doors and hid from the church people whose money he took, and finally a statement from the crook's lawyer, interspersed with clips of complicit black and white prosperity gospel mega-preachers Joel Osteen and Bishop Eddie Long. The case is much mentioned too, in what pass for black sites on the internet, but the focus on Creflo Dollar style flashy pimp preachers and the rotating cast of crooks they allow to access their pulpits fails to ask what ought to be the real questions of the hour.

Why are prosperity gospel churches such a fertile ground for retail financial fraud? Why doesn't this kind of thing happen more often in non-prosperity gospel churches, orby BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

News reports are surfacing of more fraudulent financial advisors operating from the pulpits of black and white prosoperity gospel megachurches. Federal lawmen are investigating, corporate news reporters and commentators bloviating. But are they asking the real questions, or missing the real story?

The Black Church: How Corporate Media & the Prosperity Gospel Make Legions of Ready Dupes

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“Why are prosperity gospel churches such a fertile ground for retail financial fraud?”

Corporate media like ABC's Nightline this week briefly focused on an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of a shady character that prosperity gospel churches foisted upon their credulous members as a “financial advisor” on a ministry that was called the “Building Wealth Tour.” In an all too common story, the so-called “wealth-building ministry” was a Ponzi scheme, a Bernie Madoff swindle in miniature..

The Nightline news report consisted of interviews with a couple of families who entrusted the financial advisor with their life savings, and saw them disappear. It included footage of the charlatan's employee, who recounted how he locked his office doors and hid from the church people whose money he took, and finally a statement from the crook's lawyer, interspersed with clips of complicit black and white prosperity in other self-governing organizations like community groups, sororities or labor unions?

“As long as our media, our leaders and our preachers educate us to be sheep, we will be preyed on by wolves...”

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

News reports are surfacing of more fraudulent financial advisors operating from the pulpits of black and white prosoperity gospel megachurches. Federal lawmen are investigating, corporate news reporters and commentators bloviating. But are they asking the real questions, or missing the real story?

The Black Church: How Corporate Media & the Prosperity Gospel Make Legions of Ready Dupes

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“Why are prosperity gospel churches such a fertile ground for retail financial fraud?”

Corporate media like ABC's Nightline this week briefly focused on an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of a shady character that prosperity gospel churches foisted upon their credulous members as a “financial advisor” on a ministry that was called the “Building Wealth Tour.” In an all too common story, the so-called “wealth-building ministry” was a Ponzi scheme, a Bernie Madoff swindle in miniature..

The Nightline news report consisted of interviews with a couple of families who entrusted the financial advisor with their life savings, and saw them disappear. It included footage of the charlatan's employee, who recounted how he locked his office doors and hid from the church people whose money he took, and finally a statement from the crook's lawyer, interspersed with clips of complicit black and white prosperityThe obvious answer is that the peculiar kind of mby BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

News reports are surfacing of more fraudulent financial advisors operating from the pulpits of black and white prosoperity gospel megachurches. Federal lawmen are investigating, corporate news reporters and commentators bloviating. But are they asking the real questions, or missing the real story?

The Black Church: How Corporate Media & the Prosperity Gospel Make Legions of Ready Dupes

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“Why are prosperity gospel churches such a fertile ground for retail financial fraud?”

Corporate media like ABC's Nightline this week briefly focused on an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of a shady character that prosperity gospel churches foisted upon their credulous members as a “financial advisor” on a ministry that was called the “Building Wealth Tour.” In an all too common story, the so-called “wealth-building ministry” was a Ponzi scheme, a Bernie Madoff swindle in miniature..

The Nightline news report consisted of interviews with a couple of families who entrusted the financial advisor with their life savings, and saw them disappear. It included footage of the charlatan's employee, who recounted how he locked his office doors and hid from the church people whose money he took, and finally a statement from the crook's lawyer, interspersed with clips of complicit black and white prosperityagical thinking embraced by these kinds of churches, and in lots of other places, like in the universe of Oprah, constantly maintains and manufacture a vast and ready supply of credulous marks and hopeful dupes, wooly headed little sheep eagby BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

News reports are surfacing of more fraudulent financial advisors operating from the pulpits of black and white prosoperity gospel megachurches. Federal lawmen are investigating, corporate news reporters and commentators bloviating. But are they asking the real questions, or missing the real story?

The Black Church: How Corporate Media & the Prosperity Gospel Make Legions of Ready Dupes

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“Why are prosperity gospel churches such a fertile ground for retail financial fraud?”

Corporate media like ABC's Nightline this week briefly focused on an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of a shady character that prosperity gospel churches foisted upon their credulous members as a “financial advisor” on a ministry that was called the “Building Wealth Tour.” In an all too common story, the so-called “wealth-building ministry” was a Ponzi scheme, a Bernie Madoff swindle in miniature..

The Nightline news report consisted of interviews with a couple of families who entrusted the financial advisor with their life savings, and saw them disappear. It included footage of the charlatan's employee, who recounted how he locked his office doors and hid from the church people whose money he took, and finally a statement from the crook's lawyer, interspersed with clips of complicit black and white prosperityer to be sheared. Millions of us have been instructed, and now teach each other to “visualize” wealth, happiness and material comfort and that the power of this visualization will make them real, will bring them into being. Preachers of the prosperity gospel contrive various ways to award divine sanction to this nonsense, while advocates of the Oprah-style “secret” take their superstition straight with no chaser.

And that's the real story. Bernie Madoff was able to steal tens of billions over 20 years because investors and the general public all believed that financial magicians made profits out of hot air. Bernie Madoff is gone now, but there are still millions who still have faith in the magic, faith reinforced by the teachings of corporate media hucksters like Oprah, and shored up every Sunday by prosperity gospel preachers, black and white, across the country.

The African American church, which likes to imagine and promote itself as the leading institution in black America, is deeply infested with the disease of the prosperity gospel. As long as our media, our leaders and our preachers educate us to be sheep, we will be preyed on by wolves. It's really that simple.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He lives and works in Marietta GA, and is a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him via this web site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Charter school advocates are among the biggest scam artists in politics. They use the language of community control to transfer public assets into private hands. “Promoters of 'trigger laws' have only one use for parents: to pull the trigger on a school so that it can be converted to, or make room for, a charter school operated by the private sector.” Have mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel, both bullies for charter schools, ever supported community control?

Charters Have Nothing to do With Community Control of Schools

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Anyone who believes that the Lords of Capital would finance anything that puts real power in the hands of poor parents, is in serious need of remedial education.”

The so-called “parent trigger” law is the newest weapon in the arsenal of the school privatizers and their billionaire backers. The law was passed in California in 2010, and versions of it have been enacted in several other states. The California law allows a majority of parents A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Charter school advocates are among the biggest scam artists in politics. They use the language of community control to transfer public assets into private hands. “Promoters of 'trigger laws' have only one use for parents: to pull the trigger on a school so that it can be converted to, or make room for, a charter school operated by the private sector.” Have mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel, both bullies for charter schools, ever supported community control?

Charters Have Nothing to do With Community Control of Schools

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Anyone who believes that the Lords of Capital would finance anything that puts real power in the hands of poor parents, is in serious need of remedial education.”

The so-called “parent trigger” law is the newest weapon in the arsenal of the school privatizers and their billionaire backers. The law was passed in California in 2010, and versions of it have been enacted in several other states. The California law allows a majority of parents to pull the “trigger” on their local school and take it out of control of the school district. It’s only been used against two elementary schools: first in Compton, then in the town of Adelanto. In both cases, the process dissolved in acrimony and bitterness, with many parents claiming they had been bulldozed into signing petitions.

The trigger law is a scam, a bait-and-switch scheme designed to make it appear that a charter school “movement” is sweeping parents in poor communities. In fact, promoters of trigger laws have only one use for parents: to pull the trigger on a school so that it can be converted to, or make room for, a charter school operated by the private sector. The last thing these people advocate is community control of schools – a concept that is antithetical to corporate-run education.

In both Compton and Adelanto, it became clear that the privatizers who pushed the petition knew exactly which charter outfits would take over the schools once the trigger was pulled. Groups like Parent Revolution are paid to drum up business for the charter school industry. They are funded by the same rich billionaires – Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Waltons – that bankrolled the charter school business, and who have been joined by the most cut-throat hedge fund managers on Wall Street. Anyone who believes that the Lords of Capital would finance anything that puts real power in the hands of poor parents, is in serious need of remedial education. The job of front organizations like Parent Revolution, is to put a democratic façade on a corporate takeover of the public schools.

“Charters are the ideal deal, where the public takes all the risk and the corporations can’t lose.”

Even the billionaire Eli Broad claims to want to preserve the public schools – and, in a sense, he does. The fat cats behind charter schools want to keep them technically part of the public sphere, but only so that the public will continue to pay the costs. That’s why billionaires love charters! The public pays the bill, while private companies reap the profits. Public education represents an almost trillion dollar a year pool of money. That’s what’s got the billionaires so hot: charters are the ideal deal, where the public takes all the risk and the corporations can’t lose. Only the kids, and the society they inherit, lose.

Black parents are especially susceptible to the privatizers’ propaganda, which uses the language of community control. But that’s the most cynical ploy of all. Corporate education is responsible to shareholders, not parents or students. The politicians most closely associated with charter schools are mayors like Michael Bloomberg of New York and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, both of whom grew rich on Wall Street and, more importantly, both of whom advocate that mayors wield near-dictatorial powers over the public schools. Community control is the last thing that Bloomberg and Emanuel want to see. A genuine parent’s revolution is anathema to the rich, because empowered parents would make the rich pay for quality public education. How about a law that would trigger that.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.to pull the “trigger” on their local school and take it out of control of the school district. It’s only been used against two elementary schools: first in Compton, then in the town of Adelanto. In both cases, the process dissolved in acrimony and bitterness, with many parents claiming they had been bulldozed into signing petitions.

The trigger law is a scam, a bait-and-switch scheme designed to make it appear that a charter school “movement” is sweeping parents in poor communities. In fact, promoters of trigger laws have only one use for parents: to pull the trigger on a school so that it can be converted to, or make room for, a charter school operated by the private sector. The last thing these people advocate is community control of schools – a concept that is antithetical to corporate-run education.

In both Compton and Adelanto, it became clear that the privatizers who pushed the petition knew exactly which charter outfits would take over the schools once the trigger was pulled. Groups like Parent Revolution are paid to drum up business for the charter school industry. They are funded by the same rich billionaires – Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Waltons – that bankrolled the charter school business, and who have been joined by the most cut-throat hedge fund managers on Wall Street. Anyone who believes that the Lords of Capital would finance anything that puts real power in the hands of poor parents, is in serious need of remedial education. The job of front organizations like Parent Revolution, is to put a democratic façade on a corporate takeover of the public schools.

“Charters are the ideal deal, where the public takes all the risk and the corporations can’t lose.”

Even the billionaire Eli Broad claims to want to preserve the public schools – and, in a sense, he does. The fat cats behind charter schools want to keep them technically part of the public sphere, but only so that the public will continue to pay the costs. That’s why billionaires love charters! The public pays the bill, while private companies reap the profits. Public education represents an almost trillion dollar a year pool of money. That’s what’s got the billionaires so hot: charters are the ideal deal, where the public takes all the risk and the corporations can’t lose. Only the kids, and the society they inherit, lose.

Black parents are especially susceptible to the privatizers’ propaganda, which uses the language of community control. But that’s the most cynical ploy of all. Corporate education is responsible to shareholders, not parents or students. The politicians most closely associated with charter schools are mayors like Michael Bloomberg of New York and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, both of whom grew rich on Wall Street and, more importantly, both of whom advocate that mayors wield near-dictatorial powers over the public schools. Community control is the last thing that Bloomberg and Emanuel want to see. A genuine parent’s revolution is anathema to the rich, because empowered parents would make the rich pay for quality public education. How about a law that would triggerthat.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

President Obama, like the joker in the White House before him, owes Osama bin Laden for making him appear sufficiently lethal-minded. But it was U.S. the alliance with Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan that, ultimately, made “Osama bin Laden became, arguably, the most recognizable face on the planet.” Then came the “blowback,” when the “Americans found they could not control the Islamic forces they had unleashed.” The U.S. once again aligns itself with jihadis against Syria – and another blowback is coming.

Bragging About Killing Osama bin Laden: Old Blowbacks and New

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The U.S. is back in the business of encouraging Islamic holy war.”

President Obama made a surprise flight to Afghanistan to sign an agreement to keep U.S. troops in that country after 2014, but the real purpose of the trip was to once again dance on the grave of Osama bin Laden. Of course, bin Laden has no gravesite, his body having been dumped into the Indian Ocean after his execution. But the ghost of bin Laden is as politically useful to President Obama as the living and breathing bin Laden was to George Bush. One year after U.S. Navy Seals carried out Obama’s orders to kill the unarmed al Qaida leader, rather than capture him, the president used the Afghan agreement as another excuse to strut around like a Wild West sheriff – the top gun on the planet. That’s worth a lot of votes, and the Republicans are jealous.

If there were such a thing as mass journalism in the United States, the anniversary of bin Laden’s demise would have been an occasion to ponder what might have been learned, had U.S. troops not blown his brains out. A live bin Laden might well have been eager to recall his close collaboration with the Americans back in the 1980s, when worldwide Islamic jihad grew from a small start-up venture to a multi-billion dollar enterprise through the funding of the United States and Saudi Arabia. The Americans and Saudis were the fat cats that provided the cash, the weapons, the logistics, and the propaganda that ultimately drew hundreds of thousands of Muslims to wage holy war against Afghanistan’s leftist government and its Soviet backers. Bin Laden got in on the ground floor of an emerging American geopolitical strategy: to forge a firm military and political alliance with the most backward, reactionary forces in the Arab world – the Saudis and their filthy rich royal cousins in the Persian Gulf.

“Bin Laden got in on the ground floor of an emerging American geopolitical strategy.”

Then came the “blowback.” The Americans found they could not control the Islamic forces they had unleashed. Osama bin Laden became, arguably, the most recognizable face on the planet. The United States, which had acted as both midwife and sugar daddy to the global jihadi movement – had called them “freedom fighters” – only a few years before, declared bin Laden and his acolytes the scourges of the earth, deserving instant death. That’s the ritual Obama was performing in front of the troops in Afghanistan.

But it’s all a sham, because the truth is, the U.S. is back in the business of encouraging Islamic holy war. Terrified by the Arab Spring, Obama rushed into the arms of the only Arabs Wall Street and the Pentagon can trust: the Saudis, Qataris and the other rich royal criminals of the Gulf. Their answer to the upheaval in the Arab world was to wage unprovoked war against Libya, using mainly Islamists fighters – including some whom the U.S. had previously pursued as terrorists. The Libyan jihadis are now joined with their Islamist brethren from throughout the region in a war against Syria, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Americans doubtless think they are in control of events in the Mideast and North Africa, but the jihadis know better. The Arab world wants the U.S. and the Europeans out of their countries. That certainly includes the jihadis – who are glad to take the West’s weapons, but have dedicated their lives to a Higher Power whose address is not London, Paris or New York. The Mother of All Blowbacks is coming. And when those jihadis turn on the Americans, Washington will have no place else to go.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The Obama administration has repeatedly refused to spend moneys a set aside for distressed homeowners and communities. Why? Because banks have refused to cooperate with such programs, fearing that intervention in the housing market “would threaten to upset the bankers’ carefully calibrated market manipulations.” They would rather continue rigging the game. “The banks have been carefully dribbling out houses for sale, attempting to artificially stabilize prices with the goal of pumping up another bubble.”

Why Obama Won’t Help Foreclosure Victims

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“A real mortgage modification program serving millions of desperate homeowners would screw up the bankers’ game.”

The Obama administration’s failure to spend almost any of the $7.6 billion in TARP housing money set aside for the neediest regions of the country seems counterintuitive. Why let all but 3 percent of the funds just sit in the Treasury Department’s accounts for two years, unspent, when millions of the president’s most loyal supporters were struggling to maintain a roof over their heads?

The Hardest Hit Fund was specifically targeted to homeowners in areas most seriously impacted by unemployment and falling home values – a formula tailor made for Black and Latino communities devastated by massive foreclosures and layoffs. With the $7.6 billion already in hand, the administration could have won political points with its base at no cost. But instead, hundreds of thousands of the intended beneficiaries were allowed to lose their homes. What could Obama, or his Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, have been thinking?

The problem was, Obama’s people resisted putting the program into effect. A report by the Special Inspector General for the TARP program found that Geithner’s department hardly even tried to get bankers to cooperate with the Hardest Hit Fund. Instead of leaning on the banks to participate so that homeowners could take advantage of the federal help, the Treasury Department most often left it up to the states, many of which have little ability to influence banking institutions. Essentially, the Treasury Department behaved as if the program wasn’t there.

That’s quite similar to inspector general reports on the larger Home Affordable Modification Program, which President Obama promised would help three to four million homeowners, but actually assisted less than a million. With this program, too, the administration refused to pressure banks to participate.

“Wall Street doesn’t know how to make money anymore except through manipulating markets and inflating bubbles.”

The problem begins at the top. Obama has consistently protected bankers’ rights to deal with homeowners as they please.

Doing as they please means rigging the market. Wall Street doesn’t know how to make money anymore except through manipulating markets and inflating bubbles. Even though five or six million additional foreclosures are expected In the next couple of years, and millions of homeowners are technically in default, the banks have been carefully dribbling out houses for sale, attempting to artificially stabilize prices with the goal of pumping up another bubble. That’s a helluva trick, when the truth is that the banks are as deep in the red as the homeowners they refuse to help. However, the unleashing of billions of dollars in federal loan modification money to hardest hit areas would threaten to upset the bankers’ carefully calibrated market manipulations. The goal is to declare that the housing crisis has hit bottom, and the future is bright. But, the banks can only pull off this scam if the government allows them to foreclose properties and put them on the market at times of the banks’ choosing, and allows the banks to control the information on what’s really happening in the housing market. A real mortgage modification program serving millions of desperate homeowners would screw up the bankers’ game. So the banks resist federal intervention; the Obama administration betrays the homeowning public and leaves billions of housing dollars unspent; and millions of families are ruined.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to Black AgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

When the Gulf Disaster happened, President Obama had solid majorities in Congress and a free hand. Instead of using it to protect the public, he grabbed for the favor of oil companies and protected their homicidal, ecocidal practices. Can there be any doubt who Barack really is?

2 Years on, BP Gulf Disaster Proves Obama Just As Oil-Soaked A Political Stooge as Cheney or Bush

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

When you knock your cup of coffee over, that's a spill. When a giant oil company orders employees worldwide to evade safety protocols, and incinerates eleven people and discharges anywhere between 300 million and one billion gallons of toxic oil crude and carcinogenic “dispersants” into the air, water, fish, wildlife and people of the Gulf region, it's not a spill. It's a calculated act of murderous, ecocidal vandalism. It's a criminal conspiracy.

When you take pro-active steps to conceal the extent and effects of a murderous criminal conspiracy, steps like lying to the public about the amount of toxins discharged, or using the Coast Guard, the US Navy, federal and local law enforcement to prevent reporters or the public from flying over open waters, wetlands or beaches to gauge the extent of the disaster, you're a participant in the murderous criminal conspiracy.

When you're running for president, and you know giant oil companies have long histories of disregarding public safety, and you make campaign promises to restrict their reckless practices and you shed the promises like old lizard skins once in office in return for big wads of campaign cash you are every bit as much an oil-soaked partner in crime as Dick Cheney and George Bush were when they were in power.

When you restrict the damages recoverable from BP's holdings on five or six continents to just what can be paid for out of its Gulf revenues, you're protecting your cronies, not the public, and ensuring that BP's reckless operations in the gulf of Mexico will continue till more fish, wildlife and livelihoods are destroyed and until more people die in the next preventable disaster. And when you further protect the oil-soaked corporate criminals from liability by appointing the same clown to manage claims against BP that managed claims at the World Trade Center on 9-11, you can't be taken seriously as anything but another oil-soaked corporate stooge yourself.

When the Gulf disaster started and for seven months afterward, President Obama had whopping majorities in both houses of Congress, along with a mandate in the polls to rein in offshore drilling and a host of other homicidal and ecocidal practices of the energy industry. But this president does not use his political capital for the people or the environment or the noble but vague promises he makes on this or that issue from time to time. For another seven months, House Republicans couldn't even call a meeting without Democratic permission, and Senate Republicans could have been steamrolled with minimal effort. But Barack Obama and his Democrats passed no new laws, promulgated no new executive decisions to regulate Big Oil.

Two years after the Gulf Disaster, instead of seeking a corporate death penalty against BP, Haliburton and its co-conspirators, the Obama Justice Department has indicted a single mid-level BP engineer for erasing emails. Can there be any doubt now that our First Black President is nothing but a cynical and relentless liar, a corporate stooge in blackface who expects black and progressive Americans to have his back, while he stabs repeatedly us in ours?

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Bruce Dixon. Find Black Agenda Report on the web atwww.blackagendareport.com.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He lives and works in Marietta GA, and is a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The United States cannot follow the Finnish model to emerge from second class world educational status, because the Finnish system is based on social equality and esteem for the teaching profession. Here, “teachers are relentless hounded and degraded, made the scapegoats of society’s inequalities by sharing low scores with their students, whose families and communities are cut off from America’s wealth.” To compete, America must be radically transformed.

Why the U.S. Can’t Compete Educationally

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The United States, with the most striking social inequalities among the rich countries of the world, is simply not equipped to benefit from the Finnish model.”

President Obama this week told a White House audience honoring teachers of the year that elected leaders have “a particular responsibility…instead of bashing teachers, to support them.” By his side stood Education Secretary Arne Duncan who, as chief of Chicago’s schools waged holy corporate war on public school teachers, and now, with the enthusiastic backing of his boss, seeks to crush them as union members and as educational professionals, nationwide.

Obama is constantly holding forth about the need for America to achieve educational excellence – like Finland, which is top-ranked in the world. But a recent article in the Washington Post by Finnish educational leader Pasi Sahlberg makes clear that his country’s success is rooted in a comprehensive national system that strives for equity – for equality of access to resources for all Finland's people. The United States, with the most striking social inequalities among the rich countries of the world, is simply not equipped to benefit from the Finnish model, and will never be until the U.S. is transformed as a society.

Even the baby steps towards equity that Mr. Sahlberg says the U.S. must take to advance educationally, are anathema to the corporate powers-that-be. Finland guarantees equal allocation of educational resources to all communities, rich or poor; requires, by law, that all kids have “access to child care, comprehensive health care, and pre-school”; and it provides free education from pre-school through university. These are prerequisites for general, quality education – and are non-existent in the United States.

“Finnish teachers are the “sole authority in monitoring the progress of students. There are no standardized tests in Finland.”

Teachers in Finland are respected professionals, with the prestige of doctors and lawyers, and a masters degree as a minimum. It is because they are so esteemed by society that Finnish teachers are the “sole authority in monitoring the progress of students.” There are no standardized tests in Finland.

Yet, here in the United States teachers are relentless hounded and degraded, made the scapegoats of society’s inequalities by sharing low scores with their students, whose families and communities are cut off from America’s wealth. Obama’s corporate privatization campaign relentlessly seeks to de-professionalize teachers, to replace them with young, essentially temporary employees who have no intention of making teaching their life’s work. With that kind of self-destruct mechanism, the U.S. will be lucky to remain in the global second tier of education also-rans.

Mr. Sahlberg keeps returning to the principle of social equity as an educational necessity. You can’t just keep shouting “Excel! Excel!” when the resources and support systems that would allow all children to reach their potential are hoarded by the rich and largely segregated by race.

The Finnish educator did not mention Finland’s ethnic homogeneity – that its population is 93 percent Finnish and the next largest group is Swedes. Sahlberg is a kind of diplomat as well as a teacher. But, here is the truth: the lack of a social compact in the United States has crippled the society in myriad ways, including its inability to take even the first steps towards educational equity. That absence of a social compact is rooted in white supremacy. Racism is why Deshawn can’t read and why Chip isn’t doing very well on a world scale, either.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.