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

Anthem of Banksters & War Profiteers
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
07 Sep 2016
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Why does San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick choose to sit when the Star Spangled Banner is played before football games? Evidently he is one of many who know the real intention and import behind those bombs bursting in air...

Anthem of Banksters & War Profiteers…

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

“I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
—Marine General Smedley Butler at his retirement, 1933

I.

No Iroquois or Seminole National Anthem,

No Hawaiian or Mexican National Anthem,

Before bombers fly over stadiums schools and

social services were sacrificed for on altars of austerity;

No Ohlone or Navajo National Anthem,

No Iroquois or Seminole National Anthem,

No Hawaiian or Mexican National Anthem,

Before rockets red glare/bombs bursting in air

Over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bosnia, Libya,

Panama, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen…and

Others, soon to be announced…

II.

The bleeding baby with blown off arms and stumps for legs

Dies in a ‘surgically struck’ hospital while you drain kegs?

Commander’s quarterback, bloody band wrapping his wrist,

Running old red zone, war-profiteer plays from his kill list?

Are other peoples’ children ‘collateral damage expendable—

Like leftovers lost when your fridge became undependable?

Why’s the fight for ‘our freedom’ usually where there’s oil?

Why’s it where mineral wealth’s buried beneath foreign soil?

How about freedom fighting without tanks, planes and boats—

Freeing: Fitzgerald, Peltier, Gilbert, Bell, Jamal, Shoatz…?

Ain’t ‘Incarceration Nation’ Slave State, by its other name—

Ain’t it the darker side of a barbaric, brain-damaging game?

Black players: interception, sack, fumble, loss from N-word

Inches from lynching by the intoxicated mob, the racist herd—

Of Hitler-loving, hair-trigger thugs, masquerading as fans…

Always seconds away from true team colors of their klan’s!

Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. Find 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


  • Minneapolis anti-ICE protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    ICE Invades Minnesota
    16 Jan 2026
    Suleiman Adan is Deputy Executive Director of the Minnesota Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. He joins us from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Donald Trump has unleashed ICE…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Renee Good, Keith Porter and the Normalization of Police Violence
    14 Jan 2026
    Law enforcement in the United States are responsible for more than 1,100 deaths in a typical year. This level of bloodshed goes unnoted even when police killings are deemed newsworthy and attract…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Breaking the Silence Revisited: Gaza, Venezuela, and the Enduring Relevance of Dr. King’s Critique of Empire
    14 Jan 2026
    The annual ritual of sanitizing Martin Luther King Jr. serves to obscure his radical anti-war politics, which are urgently needed to challenge U.S. imperialism.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Autocracy in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Eric D. Walrond, 1923
    14 Jan 2026
    “[T]he United States on March 31, 1917,...acquired the three Danish West Indian isles…subsequently rechristened “the Virgin Islands of the United States.” 
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    The Bolivarian Legacy, from Hugo Chávez to Nicolás Maduro
    14 Jan 2026
    Attorney Dan Kovalik is an attorney representing Colombian President Gustavo Petro. He is also author of The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela: How the US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil. Skyhorse…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us