by BAR's poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
This week the poet briefly contextualizes the candidates and campaigns of the capitalist parties running for the White House in 2016.
$campaigns & $elections
by BAR's poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
“Promises, promises, promises” morphing into big lies—
January snowing “appointments” of Wall Street guys
Bloody war criminals wedded in one Plutocratic Party
Warring their way to banks, laughing loud and hearty—
Playing a most reliable con game of bait and switch;
Sorting out which warlord faithfully serves the rich…
Their nonstop, smokescreen $elections and $campaigns
Red, white and blue Kool-Aid—for bathing of brains
With blather, drowning out the resonant radical voices
With Thug-in-a-Rug-Golda-Plated Iron Lady “choices:”
Mike and Ike, good cop, bad cop foils from the jump—
Bogeymen like Bush, McCain, Romney, and Trump!
Absent independent politics—November sows danger:
Reaping crimson “hope and change,” like Drone Ranger…
Pentagon pimps propagandizing through the Apollo
Proving again, where cash flows, “leaders” will follow—
But the 99% need not wait every four years to mobilize:
Strikes, boycotts, rallies, marches that build—organize,
Raise consciousness, raise money, canvass, phone bank
For salt of the earth, the masses, grassroots—the rank!
Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turner is Artistic Director of the JazzPoetry Ensemble UpSurge, and a regular contributor to Dissident Voice, aaduna, and Struggle Magazine. Turner has opened for such people as James Baldwin, People’s Advocate Cynthia McKinney, radical sportswriter Dave Zirin and CA Congresswoman Barbara Lee following her lone vote against attacking Afghanistan and a Steering Committee member of the New York Chapter of the National Writers Union
On March 8,1971 a brave group of people revealed the extent of FBI spying, harassment and even the killings of US citizens. More than 50 years later we would do well to remember the significance of…
Revisiting a 1974 editorial on Black women and the international struggle against patriarchy, racism, imperialism, and capitalism on International Women’s Day.
In Africa as in the rest of the world, US machinations undermine its goals and bring other nations together as they seek to protect themselves from a desperate empire.
…
This week’s featured author is Biko Mandela Gray. Gray is Assistant Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. His book is Black Life Matter: Blackness, Religion, and the Subject.
