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
  • omnibus

Department of War: What’s new is so old
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
10 Sep 2025
🖨️ Print Article
US War Department Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
US War Department Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

“War is only a cowardly escape 
from the problems of peace.” 
—Thomas Mann

“War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only
one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
 —Major General Smedley D. Butler

Slaughtering Seneca, Seminole;
Slaughtering Creek, Choctaw, Mohawk, 
Cayuga, Blackfeet — like some demonic
Department Of War. It was always Department of War.

Slaughtering Sioux, Shawnee, Chickasaw; 
Slaughtering Chippewa, Lakota, Ohlone—
Like some demonic Department Of War. It was
Always Department of War.

Capturing bodies; and looting labor of Ashanti,
Fulani, Huasa, Wolof, Yoruba, Ibo, Kongo,
Mongo, Hutu, Zulu … Like some demonic
Department Of War. It was always Department of War.

Great oceans east and west.
Friendly neighbors north and 
South — Department of Defense 
Never made sense. It was always Department of War.

It was always Department Of War. Always 
Class war with Offal Office in War House!
Class war with Capitalist Hill! Class war with
White Supreme Courtesans in revealing black robes!

Does dull thud of boot heels goose-stepping down
D.C. streets to “Dixie” surprise you? Have you been
Attaching Fox-box electrodes to skull; stuffing pizza 
Hole; self-lobotomizing for decades on the La-Z-Boy?

It was always Department Of Cooked Books. Department Of Can’t
Pass An Audit. Department Of Greasy-Thumbed Grifters. Always
Department Of $500 hammers and $10 pencils billed as “impact
Fasteners,” and “portable hand-held transcribing devices” on our dime!

It was always ‘Luftwaffe’ dropping 2,000 lb. bombs on
Hospitals and homes. Making pools of blood bloom from babies’ heads —
And rechristening children, ‘Civilian Casualty,’ and ‘Collateral Damage’ 
With lethal lies.

It was always ‘Wehrmacht’ with nightmarish music of moans—
Hair-raising, heart-pounding shrieks. With unlimited capacity for
Cruelty and savagery— like cutting off fingers of fallen fighters 
For souvenirs … and urinating on their bodies …

It was always confederacy— champion of chains and whips. Blood-
Thirsty warfare state — unleashed on neighbor, inhabitant alike. It
Is also glorious, technicolor, dream! Will we rise, realizing it? Or,
Will we fall, presenting ‘Nobel War Prize’ to traitor-pedophile-Führer?

© 2025. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet, BAR's Poet-in-Residence, and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can vote for his work at GoFundMe and PayPal.

Haiti Occupation
imperialism
Genocide
War and Empire

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


Related Stories

Djibo Sobukwe
Malcolm X: Foundational Black Internationalism and the Anti-Imperialism of the Black Alliance for Peace
21 May 2025
Malcolm X didn’t just fight for Black liberation—he waged war on empire itself. As U.S.
Black Alliance For Peace
No Matter Who Sits in the White Peoples’ House, the War Being Waged by the U.S. Colonial/Capitalist Class Against the Black Colonized Working Class and All Oppressed Peoples and Nations Will Continue
20 November 2024
Originally published in Black Alliance for Peace
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: United We Stand! Joint Struggles of Native Americans and African Americans in the Columbian Era, Jan Carew, 1995
16 October 2024
“The Seminoles had set a dangerous example, for if Blacks and Native Americans united everywhere in the
Imani Nile
End the Siege on NYC
02 October 2024
New York City is a case study of how imperialist violence abroad and state violence domestically are two sides of the same coin.
Too Black
Unburdened by Palestine: Shedding Black liberalism for anti-imperialism
04 September 2024
Liberals are demanding that Black people in the U.S.
Shaka Shakur
Revolutionary Notes from the Western Front
05 June 2024
The international liberation struggles of colonized people in nations like Haiti, Palestine, as well as Indigenous nations on land stolen by th
Belgian colonialism in Congo.
Abayomi Azikiwe
Pan-African Struggles Against Colonialism and the First Imperialist War: 1876-1919
28 February 2024
From the decline of the triangular trade to the rapacious extraction of mineral resources and labor exploitation, Africans have organized and r
Stepin Fetchit with Will Rogers in "The County Chairman"
Mark P. Fancher
Negroes Steppin’ and Fetchin’ for Imperialism
10 January 2024
The current Black political leadership in the country is filled with puppets, content with acting in the service of the empire.
Cover of the "We Charge Genocide" book
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
When Genocide Is No Longer Genocide
13 December 2023
Some of Israel's defenders want to do away with the concept of genocide in hopes of washing away its war crimes.
Hashtag Activism and US Imperialism
Erica Caines
Hashtag Activism and US Imperialism
19 October 2022
The social media hashtag is often where serious politics goes to die.

More Stories


  • Sarah B.
    Gaza to Donbass: How Israel and Ukraine Built a Fascist, Transnational War Machine
    10 Sep 2025
    From Bandera to Ben-Gurion, an axis of ethno-supremacy is rising, fueled by U.S. backing. Same guns. Same flags. Same ideology. Gaza and Donbass are not separate wars. They are one machine.
  • Mohamad Elmasry
    Israel's attack on Qatar should be a wake-up call for the Arab world
    10 Sep 2025
    The strike on Doha shows that Arab regimes' silence and passivity in the face of Israeli violence will only invite further aggression.
  • x
    North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights
    Inequality in Kenya: View from Kibera
    02 Sep 2025
    Poverty i
  • x
    The Editors
    Black Agenda Report Will Return on September 10, 2025
    02 Sep 2025
    Black Agenda Report will return with our next issue on Wednesday, September 10. Please watch our new video, "Inequality in Kenya: View From Kibera," produced in collaboration with the North-South…
  • asdf
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Katrina Victims: Relocated or Forced into Exile?
    27 Aug 2025
    Black Agenda Report's late Executive Editor, Glen Ford, gave this interview a decade after Hurricane Katrina to explore how the narrative of "starting over" is being used to whitewash the forced…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us