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.
This week readers continued to engage with the role of Kwanzaa, responded to arguments about race and class in the criminal justice system, and the possibilities of political party boycotts.
US troops have been dispatched to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the results of presidential balloting are still unknown.
At the midway point of the Trump presidency the Democrats have nothing to show in the way of meaningful resistance.
The US war machine can no longer provide its corporate masters the neo-colonial stability they need to reap long-term gain from the imperial order.
If measured by 1960s yardsticks, today’s US poverty rates are three times higher than officially recognized.
