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

State of the Union—or state of Capitalist decay?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
12 Mar 2025
🖨️ Print Article
Donald Trump State of the Union
Photo: ABC News

“Every man for himself
and the devil take the hindmost.”

Something’s soothing, lobotomizing, about the snotty
Voice flooding from Fox-boxes. Something’s
Lobotomizing about an ignorant comedian coming to
Kill—but bombing—yet, still killing …

Something’s soothing about Jumping Jack Fascists—
Springing up at every absurd utterance and
Thunder of rattling rubbish. Their hand bones
Fracturing from clapping so damn loud—so long …

Something’s soothing about Jumping Jack Fascists
Springing up like they got the Holy Ghost! Fits of
Ecstasy applauding poor people used as props—
Mascots—human shields for class war’s unpopular policies

Something’s soothing about Jumping Jack Fascists
Springing up, sane-washing a lipsticked pig. And face-
Lifting lies about capitalism’s impossible promises to
The People …

Forked tongue tour de force— False from beginning to
End. 1hour, 40 minute Mussolini masterpiece. Il DOGE
Smashed Dr. Goebbels’ Guinness Book of Records for
Orwellian wizardry: misinformation/disinformation/1/2 truths/big lies.

Barren make believe desert. Echo chamber of hollow mockery—
Hypocrisy, humbuggery/thuggery, treachery, treason, truth-less-
Ness and alternative facts where up is down. Bad’s good. Worse
Is better. Woke's worrisome/and straw’s spun orange into fools gold …

Leaning in, listening to bosh-laden blizzards of fabrications—
Falsifications— bleached bone white lies—but not eating the
Dogma does cause trauma. Trauma of two car crashes;
Three boxing matches; And four NFL and hockey games …

Blitzkrieg! Warp speed war on the working-class—
Moving fast! Breaking things! Things shoe leather, steel spines,
Blood and grit won working people long, long ago.
Things we long to make more muscular, more robust. And for all …

© 2025. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at GoFundMe and PayPal.

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


More Stories


  • x
    Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor
    Iran, China, Fascism, and Boycotting FIFA
    05 Aug 2026
    Ajamu Baraka and Dimitri Lascaris join BettBeat media to interrogate the questions the anti-imperialists keep refusing to ask.
  • x
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    "Real Talk" from Kamala Harris on the Voting Rights Act Says the Quiet Part Out Loud
    04 Aug 2026
    The evisceration of the Voting Rights Act is of great concern to Black voters. But most of them are affiliated with the Democratic Party, whose leadership have no real interest in making it a…
  • x
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: “I, for one, know I’m a prisoner of War,” Herbert X. Blyden, 1973
    04 Aug 2026
    “I don't mean just in the struggles in these prisons. America is one whole concentration camp in and of itself.”
  • x
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Somalia: On the Front Lines with Somaliland
    04 Aug 2026
    "During the last week of July, I traveled to the front lines of Somalia’s unresolved border conflict with Somaliland, the Somali secessionist state now recognized by Israel but not by
  • x
    Anthony Rogers-Wright
    The Commodification of Social Justice: (Or, Saving the Data Center Subject from the Elite Capture of the Climate Industry)
    04 Aug 2026
    There is near unanimity of opinion against data centers in the U.S. But elitist and compromised environmental groups and the climate industry should not lead this fight. 
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us