This week you wanted to talk about Joe Biden’s presidential run, the National Lawyers Guild, Julian Assange, and Israeli apartheid. Strong comments came for “Joe Biden, Prince of Private Prisons,” “National Lawyers Guild Echoes Smear Campaign Against Julian Assange,” and “Parallels Between Black and Palestinian Struggles.”
“Joe Biden, Prince of Private Prisons” by Glen Ford exposes the presidential candidate’s key role in black mass incarceration.
Yuri S. writes:
“If Joe Biden is force-fed to the US public, and people -- even Sanders supporters -- continue to airbrush/whitewash the Obama legacy and support Joe Biden who is the male version of Hillary Clinton, Trump will win once more in landslide or a small victory in 2020. Biden is awful and shame on voters for not seeing through his bullshit.”
“National Lawyers Guild Echoes Smear Campaign Against Julian Assange” by Riva Enteen alleges that the left wing legal organization has failed to show solidarity with Julian Assange or expose Russia-gate due to succumbing to Neo-McCarthyism.
Jeff Weinberger writes:
“Extremely troubling. As an activist/organizer whose work at various times has necessitated calling on either NLG or ACLU attorneys, my preference always was for the former because of both the NLG's political orientation and the comportment of the attorneys, themselves. It was the ACLU that always struck me as historically representing and promoting white bourgeois liberal values, right up to today with its defense of the 'free speech rights' of out and out fascists. I can only hope that the more politically clearheaded members inside the NLG will come out on top in this struggle.”
Paul Cianfrocca writes:
“I believe that the empire's plan is for Julian to die in custody, I'm sorry to say. They cannot successfully try him even in the United States since the charges are all bogus and they know it. Another Steven Biko.”
In “Parallels Between Black and Palestinian Struggles” Dr. Johnny E. Williams examines how he came to see that Black Americans and Palestinians are struggling against the same forces of institutionalized oppression during his recent trip to Palestine.
John A. Imani writes to us about the similarities between the West Bank and gentrification in his neighborhood in Los Angeles, called West Adams:
“I’m gonna put this straight and a lot of people ain’t gonna like it but it is so. What is happening in West Adams is a softer version of Israeli ‘settlers’ going in and snatching Palestinian lands with civilian ‘settlers’ walking around occupied land carrying Uzis.
“I first came to West Adams in 1963. There were still white folks in the neighborhood and there was never no ‘nevermind’ about color. But the whites moved out and blacks took their place. Then Latinos came in and relative to the gang wars going on in LA in the ‘80s and ‘90s the neighborhood was lucky.
“And now, into our neighborhood come the ‘settlers.’ Here armed not with a sub-machine gun but with a weapon equally powerful, the money. Expo line trains near so as to take the ‘yuppy’ invaders to their Valhalla, downtown. Rents rising as fast as the ‘rent control’ law allows; non controlled apartments sky-highed. Property sells for ridiculous amounts. Commercial properties replace dwellings. Art galleries replace second-hand dress shops. Gourmet pizza replacing taco stands. Traffic on Adams like its the 10FWY at five o’clock. ‘Settlers’ partying like its 2007 all over again. And being out of a home is treated like a crime.
“So. To the ‘settlers,’ protected by greater policing, invading and ethnically cleansing what was our neighborhoods I say “You tired of crime? Do something about it: Do something about the conditions that breed it. Real education. Skills training. Public works. Subsidized housing. Where’s the money? 2007-09 showed where it is: the Fed printed $750 billion dollars...twice. And gave it to the banks. The purchasing power can be created. Such an influx of money will only devalue the holdings of the wealthy provided that wages, Social Security and savings are indexed to an anticipated and welcome inflation. There’s the money. Where’s the will?”
As John points out the ideas debated here are things we can see in the communities around us. The goal of ideological struggle is to clarify these things for those around us.
Jahan Choudhryis Comments Editor for Black Agenda Report. He is an organizer with the Saturday Free School based in Philadelphia, PA
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