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


  • New York City Loses Black Population Due to Lack of Affordable Housing
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    New York City Loses Black Population Due to Lack of Affordable Housing
    11 Aug 2023
    Leah Goodridge joins us from New York City to talk about that city’s loss of its Black population, 200,000 people in the last 20 years.
  • Jihad Abdulmumit on the Significance of Black August
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Jihad Abdulmumit on the Significance of Black August
    11 Aug 2023
    In August 2020 the late Glen Ford spoke to former political prisoner Jihad Abdulmumit of the Jericho Movement about the origins and importance of Black August.
  • Coup in Niger and the U.S. Response
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Coup in Niger and the U.S. Response
    11 Aug 2023
    Wilmer Leon and Margaret discussed the true reasons for antipathy towards Niger, and why other African nations are used as proxies for western interests.
  • Eritrea Celebrates Freedom
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Eritrea Celebrates Freedom
    09 Aug 2023
    Eritrea is an example of an independent and self-determining African state. Its people are rightly proud of their history.
  • ESSAY: Why Africa Must Unite, Kwame Nkrumah, 1963
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Why Africa Must Unite, Kwame Nkrumah, 1963
    09 Aug 2023
    ​​​​​​Sixty years ago, Nkrumah told us why it was important that Africa unite. Today, his message and roadmap for Pan-African unity is needed more than ever.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us