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
  • omnibus

Embassy crawlers, kidnappers, Butchers and Boss Tweet…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
15 May 2019
standoff at the Venezuelan embassy
Standoff at the Venezuelan embassy

“The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.”
— Article 22 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961.

Whistles blowing, sirens blaring through bullhorns,
strobe lights flashing to pounding, banging rhythms
It must be the embassy medieval thugs mistook
for a butcher shop—or the one thugs entered to
kidnap towering truth-teller?

Instead, evening’s infested with
pot and pan-banging blue arm bands, Assault-Right
hipsters with Hitler haircuts; choreographed from
The War House and Capitalist Hill.

Ordinarily, big banner headlines splash
Post, Times, Wall Street Journal:
Americans Holed up in Foreign Embassy
surrounded by secret police blocking food,
medicine, supplies; shutting off electricity,
assaulting, arresting peaceful protestors:
Replacing rule of law with Law of Jungle;
Violating Vienna Convention, abdicating
responsibility
to
protect…

Ordinarily, Fox-box foot-soldiers/State Department
stenographers are on the ground grindin’— 24/7
with talking heads hopping mad—shit-fit, send-
in-the Marines-mad—for Boeing’s war of the week
versus strongman who became the wrong man!
Rogue state with redacted 1st and 4th amendments,
we wait for wet, cold, Wikileak words: “Live from New
York, it’s Saturday…”

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Our poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed performning artist, educator and an oficial of the National Writers Union.
Find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

Venezuela

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


More Stories


  • SPEECH: Frederick Douglass on John Brown, 1860
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Frederick Douglass on John Brown, 1860
    20 Oct 2021
    In an 1860 speech commemorating radical abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harper’s Ferry, Frederick Douglass argued that slavery would only end if the slave owner feared the violent retribution
  • Julian Assange and the Poisoned American Psyche
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Julian Assange and the Poisoned American Psyche
    20 Oct 2021
    The Biden administration continues the Trump prosecution of Julian Assange. The case ought to be dismissed out of hand but the U.S.
  • Biden Demands Ethiopia’s Unconditional Surrender
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Biden Demands Ethiopia’s Unconditional Surrender
    20 Oct 2021
    President Joe Biden continues to play the cluelessly racist and paternalistic Ugly American in the Horn of Africa. 
  • Fighting for Oak Flat/Chi Chil Bildagoteel
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Fighting for Oak Flat/Chi Chil Bildagoteel
    20 Oct 2021
  • BAR Book Forum: Joshua Myers’ Book, “Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Joshua Myers’ Book, “Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition”
    20 Oct 2021
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us