A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Seven years of Bush-Cheney governance has
resulted in a seven-fold increase in oil prices, as "speculators" - actually,
the Lords of Finance Capital that rule the U.S. imperium - pursue the last
ounce of unearned profit. The Bush gang's "unceasing wars and threats of war in
oil producing regions" have made oil "futures" as volatile and terrifying as
the future prospects of a planet in the grip of warmongers and mad profiteers.
The U.S. Congress plays at seeking out the cheaters in the Great Energy Game,
while making the situation "much worse by pressing for a naval blockade of
Iran" - an act of war that is like playing Russian Roulette with the world
economy.

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{mp3}089x_gf_lords_of_oil{/mp3}

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by Tim Wise

In the United States, mass human tragedy almost
instantly becomes overlaid with massive abuse of the victims, if they
are Black - a double tragedy. Racists like Rush Limbaugh attempt to contrast
the "supposedly good and decent" white people of the flooded upper Mississippi
River basin with the "presumably evil, lazy and violent folks of New Orleans,
who we are told, did nothing but foment criminality" when disaster struck their
city. Limbaugh's belief - shared by millions who would never speak publicly -
is that whites are by nature more self-sufficient than Blacks. But the figures
show that flood-struck Iowans, for example, are at least as dependent on
welfare and government subsidy as their darker counterparts in pre-Katrina New
Orleans.

by Antonia Juhasz

Methodically and without fanfare, the United
States spreads its military tentacles across the length and breadth of Africa.
Although imperialism needs no excuses to expand its dominion, the lure of huge
untapped oil reserves gives urgency to the massive U.S. military penetration of
the continent. "Under the rubric of the Global War on Terror, the Bush
administration has implemented the greatest realignment of US forces since the
end of the Cold War." As the Americans endeavor to turn the entire globe into
an energy battlefield, "the impact in Africa will likely be the same as in
Iraq: perpetual occupation, instability, and growing anti-Americanism."

by BAR editor and senior columnist
Margaret Kimberley

As George W. Bush's second term comes to an end, we
are compelled to face the fact that "the worst outrages of the Bush regime
could have been stopped with sustained opposition." The reminder comes from
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who last week submitted a 35-count bill of
impeachment against the Texas criminal, thus giving Democratic leadership -
including Barack Obama - yet another chance to show their spinelessness and
sweep it off the table. "Bush will leave office after having completed the
destruction of what little was left of democracy and his successors will know
that they too can get away with anything they want."