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

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

​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Black Radicalism and the Return of the “Subversive Negro”
16 September 2026
NSPM-7 and the State Department's international campaign against "far-left political terrorism" represent new and more dangerous form
Wolfgang Bronner
North Nashville's Reckoning: The Fight for Sovereignty in the Shadow of a Data Center
19 August 2026
Fisk University, an HBCU, is presenting a $400 million A.I. data center as progress for the North Nashville community.
Gary Wilson
From Louisiana to Havana: Law as a weapon against Black power and liberation
20 May 2026
The same legal machinery that once protected Jim Crow segregation has found a new way to strip Black voters of political power without touching
Petros Bein
Internal Colonialism and the Reproduction of Capital
15 April 2026
The United States operates as an internal colonial system.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
SPEECH: Reporting the News in the Heartland of Empire, William Worthy, 1970
21 January 2026
“From journalists…the greatest need of the moment is sound analysis of the U.S.
Dr. Gerald Horne , Anthony Ballas
Shadowboxing with Ghosts: Whiteness, Jake Paul, and the Crisis of U.S. Imperialism
21 January 2026
Jake Paul’s ascent in boxing is a cultural symptom of an empire in decline.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Autocracy in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Eric D. Walrond, 1923
14 January 2026
“[T]he United States on March 31, 1917,...acquired the three Danish West Indian isles…subsequently rechristened “the Virgin Islands o
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The Domestic Global South and The Need for Climate and Environmental Internationalism
14 January 2026
True environmental liberation demands south-to-south solidarity against racial capitalism, linking the struggles of oppressed communi
We Charge Genocide
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Genocide Stalks the U.S.A., Paul Robeson, 1952
08 October 2025
“We, the people, charge genocide.”
Erica Caines
The Chicago Raid in Context: Connecting the Wars at Home and Abroad
08 October 2025
The fight against fascism is a fight against racism and capitalism.

More Stories


  • Map of Niger in West Africa
    Abayomi Azikiwe
    Russian Advisors Arrive in Niger While the Masses Demand the Immediate Withdrawal of Pentagon Troops
    24 Apr 2024
    Thousands gathered in Niamey to call for the departure of United States drone stations and soldiers.
  • Ramzy Baroud
    When Namibia Stands Up to Germany: Why the Global South is Rising for Palestine
    24 Apr 2024
    The Palestinian fight against colonialism is recognized by nations in the global south as one that mirrors their own. Solidarity and cooperation among the colonized must continue to grow on the…
  • Audra Diptée
    Operation Legacy: How Britain covered up its colonial crimes
    24 Apr 2024
    The British sought to cover up their atrocities in Africa and the Caribbean by manipulating information to obfuscate history. 
  • UAW organizers
    Luis Feliz Leon
    Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Vote Union
    24 Apr 2024
    The vote by Volkswagon workers in Tenessee to unionize with the United Auto Workers union is a clear indication that it is possible to organize in the South.
  • Children near destroyed solar panels in Gaza
    Melissa Garriga
    Don’t Let Warmongers Greenwash their Ecocide this Earth Day
    24 Apr 2024
    The destruction of the environment and acceleration of the climate crisis happen silently under the veil of “national security,” despite the fact that the environmental toll of war is the most…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us