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“Our
new home -- Black Agenda Report.”
Until the end of August, Glen Ford,
Margaret Kimberley, and I, along with Leutisha
Stills who heads up the team at CBC Monitor,
the only outfit that rates the Congressional
Black Caucus from an African
American point of view wrote nearly half
of and edited all the copy at Black
Commentator. Since leaving that shop, we've
received about a dozen emails like the following
one from Gerri, a Black Commentator
subscriber in Florida.
"I liked your work in
Black Commentator, and read it all the time.
Why did you leave? Are you in competition
with them now?"
The short answer is that we left
because of business and creative issues including
differences around the control of our work.
To get around the restrictive lockouts Black
Commentator has placed on our work we will, over
the next few weeks, archive all Glen's,
Margaret's, Leutisha's and my past work
which originally appeared in Black Commentator on
this site. It's ours. We can do
that.
Competition? Since Glen
Ford's, Margaret Kimberley's Leutisha Stills' and
my work played a very large part in building
the brand at Black Commentator, we are in
some significant degree competing with our
former selves. We're OK with that while
it lasts, which we expect won't be long. We
are already growing at a much faster rate than
Black Commentator did at this stage, and offer
weekly audio content, which our former shop does
not, and are planning a number of steps which
should put us in a place where talk of
"competition" will be silly.
Blogger ebogjonson offered us a slew of
useful suggestions and
observations, some of which we really hadn't
thought of before, and most of which we do
intend to implement. So by the end of
this month, we'll institute two weekly audio
podcasts. RSS feeds are coming too. If
donations come in sufficient volume, we want to go
to a daily production schedule instead of our
present weekly one as soon as January. After
that we will expand our production of audio and do
some video too, original stuff. And we have
a spinoff in the works. So there it
is. If you want to see us do daily, hit one
of the "DONATE" boxes on the site, and help
us do what we do better.
“Israeli
Apartheid and the You-Know-What of
Palestine”
Somebody named Diana Jaeger from
California wrote this deeply misinformed and
misguided screed in response to Jonathan
Scott's "Niggerization of Palestine" a couple
weeks ago.
" The people
stolen from their native lands, ways, families and
homes in Africa to be enslaved in unfamiliar lands
did not walk around with bombs strapped to their
bellies blowing people up in public cafes and
meeting events/places. They really were
victims.
" Many
Palestinians do in fact walk around with bombs
strapped to their chests and blow up as many
people as they can while they take themselves
out. Furthermore, Palestine has had
terrorist leaders in their government who have an
overt agenda to obliterate Israel from Earth. It
is a government's obligation to protect its
citizens from obliteration - war - that's one of
the main reasons we have government...
Your comparison of the enslaved Negroes to
Palestinians is a severe insult to the Negro
race."
Hmmm. So many lies, so little
time. Ms Jaeger seems to have swallowed the
entire load of racist justifications for Israel's
war against the Palestinians. The notion of
government's main obligation being to make war
against all comers is typical of
our homegrown, and fortunately so far
immature American facism. The fact is that
much of the world outside the US media bubble
recognizes the state of Israel for what it is ---
a modern 21st century apartheid
state. But as I wrote in Black
Commentator on July 20, this is apartheid with a
difference.
"Though unspeakably odious, racist
South African was only marginally important to US
interests. By contrast, the maintenance of
Israel's apartheid regime, essentially a white
hi-tech and military outpost in the middle of all
those brown people sitting atop a large share of
the world's proven oil reserves is absolutely
central to US foreign policy for the foreseeable
future. The US is Israel's banker, its arms depot,
and its principal diplomatic sponsor. The US is
far more complicit in the crimes of the Israeli
state than it ever was in South Africa."
The US is also Israel's publicist,
and has manufactured the bubble of unreality
through which Palestinian suffering is invisible
or justified because they are Muslims or
terrorists or whatever. Ms. Jaeger speaks to
us from within that bubble.
Blowing holes in bubbles of false
reality is what journalism and commentary are
supposed to be about. We look forward to a
good long run here at Black Agenda Report, to
expanding and doing better what we do to serve and
inform you. If you think we do a good job,
write and tell us, subscribe to our mailing
list, send our links to other folks you
know. If we don't, write and tell us that
too. You already support the mainstream
corporate media in a dozen ways
including paying the taxes that they don't.
We hope you will support
independent, unbought and unbossed media like
BLACK AGENDA REPORT by hitting one of the many
"DONATE" buttons on our site. It
costs money to do this, and we can't do it without
your support.
bd
Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and can be reached at bruce.dixon (at) blackagendareport.com
| LISTEN TO THE LATEST BLACK AGENDA RADIO
COMMENTARIES |
November 15, 2006
America is willing to spend millions on monuments to Dr. King.
But we spend next to nothing on solving the problems of poverty and want that defined his legacy.
CLICK HERE TO
LISTEN TO
Millions on Monuments, Pennies on People
by GLEN
FORD
|
November 15, 2006
The HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy reveals that voting machines and the programs that run them can not only ADD votes, but SUBTRACT them too.
CLICK
HERE TO LISTEN
to Subtracting the Vote
by BRUCE DIXON
CLICK
HERE TO WATCH THE HBO FILM
HACKING DEMOCRACY
CLICK
HERE TO VISIT THE HACKING DEMOCRACY WEBSITE with a wealth of interviews and additional materials.
|
November 8, 2006
What is facism?
What would
home-grown American facism look like, and how
close is it right now?
CLICK HERE
TO LISTEN TO
American
Facism
by GLEN FORD
|
November 8, 2006
The so-called war on terror is a
palpable fraud. It is enemy propaganda that leaves
us no choice but to vote for the politicians who
can scare us the most. This is a contest Democrats
cannot win and should not play. And we must not
let them.
CLICK
HERE TO LISTEN
to Ending the So-Called
"War on Terror"
by BRUCE DIXON
|
November 1, 2006
AMERICAN GENOCIDE
When Columbus invaded America there
were more than 15 million native Americans in what
is now the U.S. By 1890 there were 300,000, a 97%
death rate. Our nation sits on the bones on one of
the greatest genocides in human history.
CLICK HERE
TO LISTEN TO
THE ALL-AMERICAN
GENOCIDE
by GLEN FORD
|
November 1, 2006
WHERE IS THE BLACK CHURCH ON
IRAQ?
African Americans overwhelmingly
oppose the war in IRaq, and have done so since its
beginning. 650,000 Iraqis are now dead, compared
to less than 3,000 Americans, a ratio of 200 to 1.
Why then, do we allow black preachers in black
churches to pray every Sunday ONLY for the
Americans in harm's way and not for the other
99% of the dead, who are Iraqis?.
CLICK
HERE TO LISTEN
to WHERE IS THE BLACK CHURCH ON
IRAQ
by BRUCE DIXON
|
October 25, 2006
MYTH OF THE MELTING POT
White Americans frequently
celebrate the US as a Melting Pot. The phrase is
actually taken from an early 20th century play
that lauds the US as a melting pot for it called
the races of Europe alone, transforming them
into what we now call white Americans.
CLICK HERE
TO LISTEN TO
MYTH OF THE MELTING POT
by GLEN FORD
|
October 25, 2006
WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE
America's leaders
need war, like vampires need blood. Even if it's
war on a noun.
In fact, in an era where
politicians create and exploit fear to stay in
power, the so-called war on terror is an
invaluable political tool, something they cannot
do without.
CLICK
HERE TO LISTEN
to WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE
by BRUCE DIXON
| |
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