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


  • Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly on the Necessity of Black Socialism 
    Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Report Presents: The Left Lens
    24 Oct 2020
    Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly on the Necessity of Black Socialism 
  • Peace, Black Self-Determination, and the Duopoly Trap
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Peace, Black Self-Determination, and the Duopoly Trap
    22 Oct 2020
    Corporate institutions and their Black servants conspire to hide the fact that the Black American worldview is profoundly Left on issues of peace and social justice.
  • Freedom Rider: Biden and Liberal Censorship
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Biden and Liberal Censorship
    21 Oct 2020
    It is Democrats and the technology companies which support them that are doing most of the censoring that is identified with fascist societies. 
  • Say Racism’s Name, and Fight it with Solidarity
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Say Racism’s Name, and Fight it with Solidarity
    21 Oct 2020
    Black Lives Matter is the internal enemy while China is considered the most dangerous foe to U.S. hegemony.
  • America’s Wars on Democracy in Rwanda and the DRC
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    America’s Wars on Democracy in Rwanda and the DRC
    21 Oct 2020
    This is an excellent chronicling of the Rwandan government’s racist policies toward the majority Hutu population, writes Ann Garrison.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us