Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Blitzkrieg
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
08 Mar 2017
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Blows and kicks are raining thick and fast, though many miss their mark their mark. But the intention of the 45th president is plainly to take us somewhere we really don't want to go, in a hurry or at all. Are we prepared to resist?

Boss Tweet’s Blitzkrieg

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

I wake up in a cold sweat

Scrambling for the internet—

What damage has daily doses of Shock and awe—blitzkrieg—done?

What salvoes were let loose

while we slept?

How badly

Bombed is the social safety net?

What rights are left?

Is blitzkrieg a 140 character shtik—

Boss Tweet’s clever crafting; swift installation of Fascist framework, the Cheeto Bandito's handiwork?

Or, are unnamed players pullers of strings;

ALEC architects of orders and edicts—pens

Included—narcissist’s signature required?




Bless the left, left behind holding their noses…

Debating a Devil’s disciple, apprentice Führer

And lil’ fella, funny mustache, jackboots, stiff

Salutes; versus Brooks Bros. suits…

(They dig definitions:

“Overt terroristic dictatorship

most reactionary,

most chauvinistic

most imperialist elements

of finance capital…

establishment of

Fascism reflects inability

of the ruling capitalist class

to maintain power by

Usual ‘democratic’ methods”)

Are we there?

Or should we, unsuspecting

Frogs, wait in the water, in the pot on the

stove, while you ‘unpack’, nuance, contextualize

Complexities of class war waged by the 1%?

Are we there?

Or should we spend 2-4 yrs blood and

Treasure chasing corporate slogans

and longing for seats at the table—

When we’re on the menu?

Are we there?

Or is it only the offal office oozing orange pus—

Or the whole bloody, rotten, yellow-taped, white supreme court, capitalist hill crime scene—

Where thugs make the law as they break the law?

Are we there?

Or is there a method to Michigan’s madness:

Flint’s poisoned water/overthrown elected government;

Whirlpool’s cesspool—golf course coup in Benton Harbor;

Detroit under anti-democratic, corporate control?

Are we there?

Or should we continue passionate pleas to

Sociopaths—moral messages to cold-blooded

Killers; treatises, eloquent arguments to

Madmen and women water-boarding, bombing the world?

Are we there?

Or is it some new ‘Alt/post’ patriarchy—

From founding fathers, framers, doubling as

Murderers, torturers, land and wage thieves—

pussy grabbers of grandmothers, granddaughters?

Are we there?

Are we ready to have a conversation on Race?

Race to Resist and rid ourselves of corporate

Killers poisoning the planet’s water, air, food—

Torching Mother Earth—

Race to Unite in workplaces, schools, churches…

Training and organizing ourselves ASAP to

STOP

These mutha-fukkkas; or, perish as fools:

If this Race doesn’t quicken the pulse—

Check your embalming fluid…

Raymond Nat Turner Š 2017 All Rights Reserved

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist.

Find much more of his work at Http://upsurgejazz.com

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Jacqueline Luqman
    Continuity of Social Control From Slave Patrols To Policing To ICE
    28 Jan 2026
    To understand the violence of contemporary immigration enforcement, one must trace its lineage directly to the antebellum slave patrols — a system founded on racial terror and complete state control.
  • Aby L. Sène
    Patagonia Forest Fires Reveal Imperialist Theft of Protected Lands
    28 Jan 2026
    The arson attacks that engulfed the protected forests of he Andean-Patagonia region serve as a reminder that Western conservation models, which dispossess Indigenous peoples of their lands, are…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Real, And It Obfuscates the Requisite Question of Self-Determination in the Heart of U.S. Empire
    28 Jan 2026
    When political energy is channeled into opposing an individual, that energy is diverted from the work of building the popular power needed to challenge the empire he represents.
  • Hanna Eid
    Iran and the Strategy of Tension
    28 Jan 2026
    The Cold War-era "strategy of tension" has evolved into a modern system of hybrid warfare targeting sovereign nations that challenge Western hegemony.
  • Julia Wright
    The Photos of a Five Year Old ICE Terror Doesn't Want Us to See
    28 Jan 2026
    The arrest of a five-year-old captured public attention and ignited a prisoner revolt inside a U.S. ICE detention center. Powerful imagery is a useful tool for the people, but dangerous in the hands…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us