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

What The Left Left At O’Hare
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Jun 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

To fly the friendly skies of the National Security State, one must first be prepared to jettison all leftist baggage.

 

What The Left Left At O’Hare

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

I recall, it was like TSA had groped,

Probed and lightened their load:

“You can’t carry independent politics aboard”

“Militant mass-action is forbidden aboard the aircraft”

“Proletarian Internationalism must be dumped out here”

“Revolutionary attitude toward the state is absolutely forbidden beyond the gate!”

“You are allowed to bring aboard:

2oz see-through plastic bottles of social-chauvinism

2 oz plastic bottles of reformism

2 oz plastic bottles of tokenism

Unlimited humanitarian interventions in see through plastic is allowed”

 

Happy campers boarding in ’08,

Gate 1%, O’Hare, via Ronald

Reagan, “the left” powered

Down principles, turned off

Theoretical devices, kept its

Seatbelts buckled low and tight—

Paid high prices for complimentary

Kool Aid, mini-bottles of beer and

Headphones for feature films like

0 Dark 30 looped eight years on

Their non-stop flight—

Making their descent

Three years left in the

Holding pattern, acting as

Floatation devices under one

Seat aboard… Air Force One…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 All Rights Reserved 

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


More Stories


  • Chris Smalls
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Chris Smalls' "When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class"
    02 Oct 2026
    Chris Smalls discusses his memoir, "When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class," published by Penguin Random House. He is the first and only union leader to successfully…
  • South Africa anti-immigration march
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    South Africa's "March and March" Collaborates with Right Wing Afrikaners
    02 Oct 2026
    Our guest is Nairobi based political writer and strategist Clinton Nzala. He joins us to provide an update and an analysis of the South African anti-migrant March and March movement, which is…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Defending a Non-Existent International Law
    30 Sep 2026
    The Hague Group’s goal is to “. . . take coordinated legal and diplomatic measures against Israel’s violations of international law.” But international law was never a reality.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: “We See Preparations for a Direct Military Intervention by the United States and Its Allies,” Fidel Castro, 1990
    30 Sep 2026
    “I believe that the Movement of Nonaligned Countries…can buttress the united will of the Arab nation and help it to prevail against intervention and aggression.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Don’t Believe the Hype: Revolutionary Eritrea Sustains Sovereignty Over Its Red Sea Coast
    30 Sep 2026
    There is no evidence that Eritrea has surrendered its Red Sea Coast in exchange for relief from US sanctions.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us