A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
As the Smarter Sentencing Act moves through Congress, President Obama masquerades as a prison reformer. In reality, the administration “has placed legal roadblocks in the way of release for thousands” and “has no intention of limiting the scope and powers of the Incarceration State.”
The “Smarter Sentencing Act”, Wishful Thinking and White House Fakery: Obama as Prison Reformer
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
“Obama’s legacy to the nation is the shrunken husk of a Constitution.”
President Obama’s spin doctors have been working overtime revising his administration’s historical record on criminal justice issues. On the most fundamental level, the Obama team can fairly be described as the most anti-civil liberties U.S. regime in modern times, having substantially destroyed the principle of due process of law through its preventive detention
However, in the wake of widespread Black outrage at the Trayvon Martin verdict, the administration found it politically advantageous to dress up as criminal justice reformers. Obama and his attorney general mouthed words of sympathy for at least some of the millions locked away in the mostly Black and brown gulag, especially non-violent drug offenders. In truth, the Obama White House is behind the curve on criminal justice issues. Significant numbers of Republicans and lots of corporate think tanks have for some time favored scaling back the U.S. prison system, if only because it is so expensive. But, the Obama team has no intention of limiting the scope and powers of the Incarceration State. How could anyone believe that an administration that spies on virtually all of its citizens, would ever consider seriously scaling back its institutional capacity to imprison an unlimited number of people. Therefore, Obama puts forward only cosmetic and provisional proposals such as selective clemencies and commutations for a small number of inmates – but nothing that strikes at the institutional heart of the system. It is all sham and smoke, cynicism and hypocrisy.
“Obama puts forward only cosmetic and provisional proposals.”
As both Margaret Kimberley Bruce Dixon Heritage Foundation New York Law Journal
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
Governments choose to make deals that often do not reflect the wishes of the people. Normalization of relations with Israel elicited protests in Morocco, the latest state to
The nation of Barbados recently became a republic, severing its ties with the British crown. The road to independence began years earlier as part a wider Caribbean movement.
International media cannot be trusted to give accurate information. Skepticism is especially warranted when China is the topic and allegations of colonizing Africa make headlines.
A 1965 interview with Malcolm X demonstrates how his encounters in Africa had a profound impact on his thinking about the domestic struggles of Africans in the Americas.
The rapid expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent should be a cause for concern as African nations are quickly surrendering their sovereignty to the US.
