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

Anthem of Banksters & War Profiteers
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
07 Sep 2016
đŸ–šïž Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Why does San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick choose to sit when the Star Spangled Banner is played before football games? Evidently he is one of many who know the real intention and import behind those bombs bursting in air...

Anthem of Banksters & War Profiteers


by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

“I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
—Marine General Smedley Butler at his retirement, 1933

I.

No Iroquois or Seminole National Anthem,

No Hawaiian or Mexican National Anthem,

Before bombers fly over stadiums schools and

social services were sacrificed for on altars of austerity;

No Ohlone or Navajo National Anthem,

No Iroquois or Seminole National Anthem,

No Hawaiian or Mexican National Anthem,

Before rockets red glare/bombs bursting in air

Over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bosnia, Libya,

Panama, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen
and

Others, soon to be announced


II.

The bleeding baby with blown off arms and stumps for legs

Dies in a ‘surgically struck’ hospital while you drain kegs?

Commander’s quarterback, bloody band wrapping his wrist,

Running old red zone, war-profiteer plays from his kill list?

Are other peoples’ children ‘collateral damage expendable—

Like leftovers lost when your fridge became undependable?

Why’s the fight for ‘our freedom’ usually where there’s oil?

Why’s it where mineral wealth’s buried beneath foreign soil?

How about freedom fighting without tanks, planes and boats—

Freeing: Fitzgerald, Peltier, Gilbert, Bell, Jamal, Shoatz
?

Ain’t ‘Incarceration Nation’ Slave State, by its other name—

Ain’t it the darker side of a barbaric, brain-damaging game?

Black players: interception, sack, fumble, loss from N-word

Inches from lynching by the intoxicated mob, the racist herd—

Of Hitler-loving, hair-trigger thugs, masquerading as fans


Always seconds away from true team colors of their klan’s!

Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. Find more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

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


More Stories


  • Free All Political Prisoners –- Including Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Free All Political Prisoners –- Including Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
    13 Feb 2020
    Julian Assange and his protĂ©gĂ©s have made common cause with Black revolutionaries in their zeal to lay bare the dictatorial nature of the omni-pervasive national security state and the sheer,
  • Chuck Sims Africa Freed: Final Jailed Move 9 Member Released From Prison
    Ed Pilkington
    Chuck Sims Africa Freed: Final Jailed Move 9 Member Released From Prison
    12 Feb 2020
    The last of Philadelphia’s most besieged, and heroic, Black political families is released, after a 42-year ordeal.
  • Freedom Rider: Trump Has No Opposition
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Trump Has No Opposition
    12 Feb 2020
    The Bloomberg cash onslaught and the anti-Bernie conspiracy have laid bare the degree of collusion among the rulers.
  • Kobe, Impeachment and the Coronavirus: A Study on the Dangers of White Liberal Fragility
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Kobe, Impeachment and the Coronavirus: A Study on the Dangers of White Liberal Fragility
    12 Feb 2020
    White liberalism is not a kinder, gentler form of white supremacy, or a lesser evil to the more explicit racism of Trump and his base.
  • Lives Over Luxury: The Poor People’s Army Plans to March on the DNC
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Lives Over Luxury: The Poor People’s Army Plans to March on the DNC
    12 Feb 2020
    The founder of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign invites everyone to join them in a march against the DNC if it steals the presidential nomination.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us