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


  • Ten Commandments
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Politics in Louisiana
    05 Jul 2024
    Kevin Griffin-Clark joins us to analyze Louisiana politics, including recently enacted legislation requiring public schools and universities to post the Ten Commandments in all classrooms.
  • Joe Biden and Donald Trump
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Biden and Trump Debate
    05 Jul 2024
    BAR's Executive Editor, Margaret Kimberley, recently joined Political Misfits to discuss U.S. politics, including the recent presidential debate, bipartisan support of Israel, a SCOTUS ruling, and…
  • Frederick Douglass
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" read by Ossie Davis
    03 Jul 2024
    On July 5, 1852 Frederick Douglass was asked to speak on the topic of the nation’s independence celebration. Now known as What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, the speech was a stinging…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Julian Assange Freed by the Prospect of Justice
    03 Jul 2024
    After seven years of asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London and another five years imprisoned by the United Kingdom, Julian Assange is finally a free man. The prospect of justice, of Assange…
  • Trayvon Martin and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Assassinations at Home and Abroad, Jemima Pierre, 2012
    03 Jul 2024
    The US Supreme Court’s decision to grant the President of the United States “absolute immunity” merely codifies criminal behavior by all US presidents. Take, for example, Barack Obama’s assassination…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us