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

What The Left Left At O’Hare
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Jun 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

To fly the friendly skies of the National Security State, one must first be prepared to jettison all leftist baggage.

 

What The Left Left At O’Hare

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

I recall, it was like TSA had groped,

Probed and lightened their load:

“You can’t carry independent politics aboard”

“Militant mass-action is forbidden aboard the aircraft”

“Proletarian Internationalism must be dumped out here”

“Revolutionary attitude toward the state is absolutely forbidden beyond the gate!”

“You are allowed to bring aboard:

2oz see-through plastic bottles of social-chauvinism

2 oz plastic bottles of reformism

2 oz plastic bottles of tokenism

Unlimited humanitarian interventions in see through plastic is allowed”

 

Happy campers boarding in ’08,

Gate 1%, O’Hare, via Ronald

Reagan, “the left” powered

Down principles, turned off

Theoretical devices, kept its

Seatbelts buckled low and tight—

Paid high prices for complimentary

Kool Aid, mini-bottles of beer and

Headphones for feature films like

0 Dark 30 looped eight years on

Their non-stop flight—

Making their descent

Three years left in the

Holding pattern, acting as

Floatation devices under one

Seat aboard… Air Force One…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 All Rights Reserved 

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


More Stories


  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    New York Times Attacks “Peace-peddling” Jill Stein as the Presidential Race Comes Down to the Wire
    23 Oct 2024
    The New York Times scapegoats Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein as polls indicate a dead heat between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    United Nations Releases New Report on the Death of Former Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold in 1961
    23 Oct 2024
    Apparent assassination and cover-up occurred during a critical period in African history.
  • Jon Jeter
    John Mearsheimer’s Folly: How Whites Agree to Misinterpret the World to Fulfill Their Racial Contract
    23 Oct 2024
    Systemic racism and reactionary violence are embedded into the foundation of the US political and social system, despite false claims of any sort of progress. Denying this reality is an act of mere…
  • Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    MOLEGHAF: Update on Armed Attacks in Port-au-Prince
    23 Oct 2024
    Western imperialist-backed paramilitary violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti has escalated in the last year. As the conditions on the ground worsen, MOLEGHAF puts out this call to allies around the…
  • Jonathan Cook
    The West's Support for Israel's Genocide is Destroying the World as we Know it
    23 Oct 2024
    The old world is dying once again, but the US-Israel axis is wrong to suggest it is slaying monsters. It is the monster.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us