by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Since the onset of the Obama phenomenon, Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth and death days have been “polluted” by false and ahistorical comparisons between Obama and MLK. The two men represent opposite political poles: one, a radical opponent of imperial war and concentrated economic power, the other, an ally of Wall Street and commander-in-chief of “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” In focusing on King, the man of peace, Tavis Smiley’s PBS special corrects a history that has been distorted, sometimes beyond recognition – not the least by the revisionist and poseur in the White House.
On any given day, 80,000 people are locked in solitary confinement in US prisons and jails.
This week we discuss the rising popularity of socialism in the US, Bernie Sanders’ energy policy, and the electoral obstacles to electing a new Congress.
Race-based medicine in the US has solidified health inequality and is bound up with indebtedness.
Colonial relations of power and ways of classifying human persons that were essential to political colonialism have persisted.
Papua and West Papua are subjected to violence and habitual repression from the Indonesian central authorities.
