Black Agenda Report co-founder Glen Ford transitioned on July 28, 2021. This week I’m reporting from Caracas, Venezuela where I’m part of an International Peoples Tribunal on US Imperialism and fact finding mission which will hold a hearing on the issue of US economic coercive measures, commonly known as sanctions, which have been waged against Venezuela by the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. In honor of Glen’s memory, I will read from a 2019 article he wrote when Donald Trump began his maximum pressure campaign against Venezuela. He titled this piece, “The Racist, Imperialist War Against Venezuela.”

Glen Ford on the U.S. War Against Venezuela

The U.S. attack on a Syrian air base last week was designed to “prolong the war” and ultimately “destroy secular government in the Arab world,” said Margaret Kimberley, an editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report. The claim that Syria used chemical weapons against civilians is bogus, said Kimberley, speaking on Sputnik radio. The U.S.-backed Islamic jihadists stand to benefit most. “It’s interesting that these attacks always occur at some moment that is very opportune for them,” she said.  President Trump hopes to increase his approval levels and ward off Democratic attacks. “Because he’s been accused of being under Putin’s influence, carrying out an attack against a Russian ally gives him some protection from those charges.”

Margaret Kimberley

The Democrats “know what they need to do to get out the vote,” said Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report. “They need to raise wages, stop the student loan debt, and protect people’s homes. But none of these things are acceptable to their patrons” among the 1 percent,” said Kimberley, who recently authored an article titled “The Democratic Party Death Spiral.” The Democrats “cannot depend on corporate money and do what the people want them to do.”

Democrats' Formula For Losing Elections

Part Two: Speakers at the UNAC Conference in Richmond, Virginia
Ralph Poynter, New Abolitionist Movement; husband of the late political prisoner and people’s lawyer, Lynne Stewart
Ajamu Baraka, co-founder, Black Alliance for Peace; editor and columnist, Black Agenda Report; Green Party 2016 vice-presidential candidate
Larry Hamm, co-founder and chairman, People’s Organization for Progress, Newark, New Jersey
Margaret Kimberley, member of UNAC administrative committee; editor and senior columnist, Black Agenda Report
Jaribu Hill, Founder and Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights

UNAC conference Part 2, Ralph Pointer, Ajamu Baraka, Jaribu Hill, Larry Hamm, Margaret Kimberley

Anyone that claims to be “on the left” must defend 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, the latest victim of the anti-Russian dragnet.

First They Came for Jill Stein

“We should hear about these killings every day, because they happen every day,” said Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist (“Freedom Rider”) for Black Agenda Report. Kimberley is encouraged by the response to Stephon Clark’s death-by-cops in Sacramento, California, but the scale of protest is dwarfed by the crimes. “Every day, an average of three people are killed by police, and one of these people will be a Black person,” said Kimberley. “These protests should be constant.

Every Murdered Black Person Deserves Protest

Russiagate “has blossomed and blossomed until it’s this huge thing that obliterates rational thought,” said veteran media critic Jeff Cohen, of the Park Center for Independent Media, at Ithaca College. The Democrats have inflated the controversy beyond all reason in order to avoid confronting how they “failed to stop someone who clearly has fascist tendencies -- the current president.”

Russiagate is Excuse for Democratic Party Failure

“We see the Democrats, who are supposed to be a party of civil liberties and human rights, adopting McCarthyist tactics,” said Jeremy Kuzmarov, co-author, along with John Marciano, of The Russians are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce. Putin is “rather conservative” on the Russian political spectrum,” said Kuzmarov. “He’s not a threat to the West, at all.”

Russiagate is an Historical “Farce”

In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, two of the Obama administration's most consistently hawkish advisors, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power have rebranded themselves as anti-war voices in a world turned upside down by Trump’s radical foreign policy and what we’ve been told is an global environment of rising "authoritarianism."

With a perfunctory “we could have done more” gesture towards accountability for their role in an administration that turned Libya into a broken state and assisted the destruction of Yemen before they move on to positioning themselves as truth-tellers on behalf of a kinder, gentler machine gun hand in the run up to a potential Warren, Sanders or Harris administration, Rhodes and Power have tested the limits of liberal amnesia.

On this episode, we take a closer look at their rebranding and what it says about the so-called “foreign policy” debate in the 2020 democratic primary and what actual accountability looks like beyond empty tweets and self-serving “I was trying to change things from the inside” revisionism.

Our guest is Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi of Michigan State University.

Episode 76: The Anti-War Rebranding of Rhodes and Power and the Moral Hazard of Faux Mea Culpas

Daoud Andre: The US only respects its own rigged elections, like Haiti & Venezuela; Jennifer Harvey: white parents need to train their kids to be anti-racists; In Them Goons Rule Marquis Bey offers four essays on radical black feminism.

Glen Ford on the U.S. War Against Venezuela

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