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

$campaigns & $elections
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
13 Apr 2016
🖨️ Print Article

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 

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


More Stories


  • Police Terror = “Support The Troops!”—1,000 x in ________
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Police Terror = “Support The Troops!”—1,000 x in ________
    06 May 2021
    Police Terror = “Support The Troops!”—1,000 x in ________ Raymond Nat Turner, BAR Poet-in-Residence
  • U.S. policies are not guided by the whims of the individual who sits in the White House, but by the objective interests of dominant sectors of the ruling elite.
    Black Alliance For Peace
    100 Days of Biden's Bait and Switch
    06 May 2021
    U.S. policies are not guided by the whims of the individual who sits in the White House, but by the objective interests of dominant sectors of the ruling elite.
  • Black Girl Magic Trio Seeks to Suppress Spirit of Rebellion Inside St. Louis Jails     
    Adofo Minka
    Black Girl Magic Trio Seeks to Suppress Spirit of Rebellion Inside St. Louis Jails     
    06 May 2021
    The trio of so-called “progressive” female officeholders pretend to fight the power, but only misdirect and bewilder.
  • A Dose of Reality for the #ADOS Movement
    Broderick Dunlap
    A Dose of Reality for the #ADOS Movement
    06 May 2021
    Instead of showing solidarity with the third world, ADOS makes it clear that they want their share of the spoils of imperialism. 
  • Arendt saw the “Negro question” as a “Negro problem” rather than a white problem.
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Kathryn Sophia Belle’s “Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question”
    06 May 2021
    Arendt saw the “Negro question” as a “Negro problem” rather than a white problem.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us