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.
“Huey used the framework of dialectical materialism, which gave him the understanding that all development is a struggle between contradictions.”
“Anticommunism provided a global language that could be used to silence anti-racist organizing.”
“Few on the broader US left can name more than a handful of African revolutionaries.”
”The women, peace and security agenda, if implemented and financially resourced, can be the pathway to peace in my country and around the world.”
“Fleets of white Toyota trucks arrived in the desert to carry refugees and drugs to Europe and to bring weapons into central and western Africa.”
