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.
In this week’s segment, we discuss student protests by Black and brown youth in France against austerity measures and race-based inequality in the education system. But we begin with a discussion of…
Brazil's incumbent president Lula da Silva finished second behind Flavio Bolsonaro in the first round of the presidential election. Because neither man received at least 51% of the vote, a run-off…
Students in France are engaging in mass protests. Hundreds of them have been arrested and injured by police, and many schools are closed. Annick Metefia joins us from Paris. She is a member of the…
Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace joins Dimitri Lascaris on BettBeat Media for a conversation about something Western publics have not yet come to terms with — the fact that resistance to…
Progressive candidates rarely remain so after winning public office. Zohran Mamdani is no exception, but his capitulation to New York zionists angered his supporters, and the people he hoped to…
