We anticipate that our multi-part series, “Wanted: A Plan for the Cities to Save Themselves” will grow beyond the three installments we originally intended. So intertwined have the fates of the cities and Black America become that it is impossible to defend their interests, separately.  

In last week’s Part II of the series, we described the utter madness of allowing corporate boardrooms to dictate urban development, a path leads inexorably to displacement of current urban populations, privatization of public assets, the strangulation of urban democracy and, ultimately, the collapse of Black and progressive politics in America. “It is the historical responsibility of Black Labor to become an incubator of leadership for African Americans, city dwellers, and progressive politics in the U.S.,” we wrote.  

“Black labor brings to African American leadership the same big-picture vision and zeal for group solidarity – a willingness to act collectively – that has disproportionately drawn Blacks to unions, where they are among the most militant activists. (Roughly one in five Black households are union.) Labor men and women are comfortable with taking on an adversary role with capital, as a matter of routine. In this era of arrogant, hyper-aggressive capital, the most important quality for urban leadership is the spine to stand up in bargaining with corporations….”  

Union pension funds can play an important role in defending urban populations against the worst ravages of kleptomaniacal capital, as we will explore in future installments of our series. “In the near term,“ we believe, “African American labor’s most effective contribution to transforming Black politics in America – and thus, recasting progressive politics overall – would be to advance the necessity of labor’s immersion in city and regional planning.”  

The people of the cities face an extraordinary array of obstacles to democratic development. “Not content with direct gifts of urban assets,” we wrote, “capital has converted every social initiative to its own service.” These include subversion of the federal HOPE VI public housing “revitalization” program that, in many localities, has in fact become a tenant displacement and speculator enrichment scheme. (See “From HOPE VI to Hope Sick?” Sabrina L. Williams, Dollars and Sense.) As corporate and public policy, “Urban Renewal” continues to equal “Negro Removal” in cities across the nation.  

Wade Tillett has been following our series. He notes the assault on Section 8 housing subsidies, part of a larger scheme to prepare urban ground for gentrification.  

You predicted this one. On May 1st The Black Commentator wrote, "Clearly, the Hard Right would turn Section 8 into a kind of time-limited, "workfare"-type housing program, and then destroy it, entirely."

That is exactly the plan. See below. (From Kansas City Star, September 2.)

 ”When is volunteer community service not really voluntary? When the federal government threatens to throw you out of your home if you don't comply.

A rule to be enforced starting in October will require certain public housing residents to perform eight hours a month of community service. Those who refuse such duty face eviction.”

Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said "it's entirely reasonable" for the government to expect something in return for subsidizing housing.

"But to call it voluntarism is really pernicious," Tanner said. "It undercuts true voluntarism. We should be upfront that this is a work requirement for receiving public housing, just as there are work requirements for receiving welfare."

Mr. Tillett continues: “Maybe they could combine this with the program whereby residents tear down their own housing and the whole ‘public housing crisis’ would be solved!” He called attention to a HOPE VI-funded program in Washington, DC, that pays public housing tenants to work on the crews that demolish their apartments (Washington Post, June 15). Unfortunately, many of the current residents will not be able to afford the “mixed income” apartments that rise from the rubble.  

"The truth is that if everyone wanted to return as low-income residents, they couldn't do that," said [Larry] Dwyer, who serves as the Housing Authority's HOPE VI coordinator. "But the intention is to have a healthier mixed-income environment, where there is a spread of incomes and the socioeconomic mix is much healthier and will help improve the lives of all residents."  

As we wrote in last week’s issue, “Although ‘one-for-one’ public housing tenant relocation agreements have been struck in scattered cities, the norm is that affordable housing is never found for large proportions of displaced families – resulting in Negro Removal combined with a city-sanctioned program of gentrification.  

Carol Christen has learned to read between the lies – a required skill in modern America.  

Once again, you have clearly stated the problems for citizens, cities, and jobs.  Thanks.  I am looking forward to the next part.  It’s as if truth has flown out the window and marketing processes and hype flew in and settled down.

Clarence in a Fright Wig  

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown doesn’t physically resemble Clarence Thomas, but they’re both from the same menagerie of treacherous, incompetent Tomfoolery. The Bush men plucked Brown from the short list of Black reactionaries-in-waiting, for possible nomination to the DC federal appellate bench – just one outrage away from a seat next to Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court.  

People for the American Way and the NAACP released a joint analysis of Brown’s “record of ideological extremism and aggressive judicial activism that makes her unfit to serve on the appeals court,” which we published on September 4 under the title, “A Female Clarence Thomas for the DC Federal Court?” The statement included this assessment from Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington Bureau: "For the administration to bring forward a nominee with this record and hope to get some kind of credit because she is the first African American woman nominated to the DC Circuit is one more sign of the administration's political cynicism."  

Leutisha Stills, our frequent correspondent in Oakland, is familiar with the political environment that spawned Justice Brown.

She was nominated and confirmed to her current position on the bench during the "Sneaky Pete" Wilson Administration.  'Nuff said.  The Wilson Administration also produced the likes of Ward Connerly, Propositions 187 and 209, and did more damage to the racial relationship climate in California than D. W. Griffith did with his movie "The Birth of A Nation."  Therefore, in looking at anyone the Bush Administration nominates for important, politically impacting positions, all one needs to do is check their credentials; the more questionable their credentials are, the more likely that the Bush Administration is going to nominate them for a key position that will allow them to set back historical progress in areas such as civil rights, women's rights and civil liberties at least 75 years.

I am glad that mainstream African-Americans are intelligent enough to realize when this Administration tries to sell our community on the "okey-doke" disguised as "representative" of African-Americans. They are really sent to the community with an infiltration assignment that Al Sharpton didn't receive when he was an FBI informant.  Keep it coming, .

The full PFAW and NAACP report on Justice Brown is titled, "Loose Cannon."

The Great Unraveling

There was never any possibility that the Bushwhackers would succeed in their Iraqi adventure. As the world witnessed on Sunday evening, relentless intrusions of reality have zombified George Bush, his chicken hawk morale broken after only five months of low-level warfare. Racist corporate Pirates are not very good at this sort of thing, crippled as they are by delusions grounded in – nothing.  

The Pirates dreamed of a corporate version of the Oklahoma land rush descending on Baghdad and Basra. The traffic is all headed in the other direction, especially in the wake of the United Nations bombing. The Pirate’s fantasy of Dallas and Houston on the Euphrates is finished, over, done. George Bush’s childish dare, “Bring ‘em on,” scares the wrong people.  

As we stated on August 28 (“Racist ‘Transformation’ Strategies: The Pirates have already lost in Iraq”), the Bush regime’s strategy was “doomed on its own terms.”  

The objective of their crusade is to impose corporate terms of relationships throughout the world – their version of globalization – enforced by the U.S. military and any sepoys they can gather. Bush’s people constantly remind us that Iraq is to be a “model” for the New American Century (“This is the future for the world …”) The “freedom” they crave for Iraqis requires American corporate domination of the economic and political life of the country. As scholar Tariq Ali points out in the August 27 issue of Counterpunch: "For the US, the main thing in Iraq is to push through the privatisation of Iraq's oil, to achieve the liberalisation of the Iraqi economy and to get the big US corporations in there. They are not too concerned as to how the country will be run, as long as that sort of economic structure is maintained."  

The corporate media provide the American people no basis for discussion of the central issues of Iraq, effectively shutting the U.S. public out of the momentous conversation that the rest of the world will be conducting in coming weeks and months.  

Margo D. Smith, however, is informed by history.  

The US and Great Britain have combined to create the "colonialism of the 21st century".  In the 19th and early 20th century colonialism was in the pursuit of gold and later slave labor to build the economies of the new world.  The colonialism of the 21st century is to control the wealth of the modern economy – oil.  Your September 4 article on "Racist Transformations" is on target uncovering the US strategy to own the oil fields.  I believe Great Britain is equally ensconced –

perfecting its colonial model in today's economic realities.  Let's not forget Amoco (American Oil Company) is now owned by BP (British Petroleum).  

Peggy Hirsch quotes an impeccable source:  

I really appreciated your piece subtitled "The Pirates have already lost in Iraq," especially this vanguard observation:

"The ugly and shameless rush to divvy up Iraq’s economy and infrastructure even before the invasion had begun shocks the sensibilities of normal humans, but is really just corporate behavior writ large and on display for a global audience. If one sees only pigs squealing at the trough, one misses the central point, which is to transform a nation, region and planet into one big trough for the benefit of pigs."

A "businessman’s jihad," indeed.

The Bush men are Blind, Deaf, Dumb and Deluded – the title of a June 26 commentary, and a serious handicap when one sets out to conquer a planet. Chris Herz, on the other hand, sees things clearly.  

Another good job.  These fascist pirates have got their butts in a buzzsaw, and it couldn't happen to nicer guys.  

Halliburton-style “bridge financing”  

Baghdad is home to a very fine writer of English who calls herself “Riverbend.” Last week we posted an August 28 entry from the young Iraqi woman’s site, Girlblog, which we (taking license) titled, “’Reconstructing’ Baghdad: The promise and the threat.”  

Riverbend reported that a cousin of hers, an engineer with a reputable Iraqi construction firm, had been commissioned by occupation authorities to estimate the cost of rebuilding Baghdad’s New Diyala Bridge: “They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward: $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.”  

Later, wrote Riverbend, the cousin’s firm learned that an American outfit had been contracted to do the job – for $50 million dollars! 

“The reconstruction of Iraq is held above our heads like a promise and a threat. People roll their eyes at reconstruction because they know (Iraqis are wily) that these dubious reconstruction projects are going to plunge the country into a national debt only comparable to that of America. A few already rich contractors are going to get richer, Iraqi workers are going to be given a pittance and the unemployed Iraqi public can stand on the sidelines and look at the glamorous buildings being built by foreign companies.”  

David Howard suspects that Riverbend is spreading vile propaganda against poor Uncle Sam. Mr. Howard thinks he has the links to prove it:  

The Diyala bridge story seems to be an urban myth. I can't find the project listed anywhere. For example: http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/activities.html  

The U.S. Agency for International Development site list lots of contracts including many millions for construction (Bechtel) and - we think, quite laughably - a $167.9 million award to North Carolina’s Research Triangle Institute for "training programs in communications, conflict resolution, leadership skills and political analysis." As if the Americans were experts in these areas!

 

We replied to Mr. Howard:

You are very quick to jump to your conclusion, assuming that 1) the New Diyala Bridge is officially designated by that particular name, or would be listed as a discreet project of its own, 2) the process has reached the point at which it would appear in any form on this agency's lists, 3) this agency is the proper one to report the deal, by any name or at any stage in the process. There is also the distinct possibility that the bridge deal, like the rest of the Bush-Bechtel-Halliburton fantasy, has gone poof!!

The essential point of the piece is that the U.S. has no right to incur debts on the Iraqi people's behalf. If the Americans want to pay their corporations $50 million (or $1 million) for a bridge as a gift to Iraq, that's their business. However, UN designation as the "occupying authority" does not give the occupier the legal right to entangle the occupied nation in debt not reasonably related to its narrowly defined occupational responsibilities. The U.S. has no international legal mandate to "reconstruct" Iraq in any manner and at any price it pleases. That's what the current UN debate is about. That debate is not defined by the U.S. State Department, or Bush speeches, but by the participating nations and international law. Unless the U.S. is given a far larger mandate, a future Iraqi government can (and almost surely will) repudiate these illegal contractual arrangements. The UN has not recognized the current U.S.-selected Iraqi council's legitimacy. Thus, even if the council were to acquiesce in U.S. contracting decisions, their signatures carry no legal weight – significantly less, in fact, than the land sale agreements made in another time and place by drunken Indians posing as chiefs.

It appears you are incapable of perceiving the essential realities and, therefore, cannot understand the substantive questions involved in the global discussion. We suggest that you are caught up in a "myth" – that of the Manifest Destiny of the United States to rule the world.

The anti-Democrats of the DLC  

Gwen Nelson recently came upon Associate Editor Bruce A. Dixon’s June 12 commentary on the Democratic Leadership Council’s corporate machinations among Black party members (see “Muzzling the African American Agenda – with Black Help”). She writes:  

First let me say that your site, the quality of writing there and the selection of topics is wonderful and gives me great hope. Speaking as an unabashed and very pissed off liberal with no illusions about what we're up against, I am so grateful for your efforts.

I've been watching, researching and trying to inform people about the DLC for many years. At this point in time, because they are weakened, because they are alienating a majority of the people who still self identify as Democrats and because, man! have they lost the South, they are at the most vulnerable they've been for years and, because they genuinely loathe the majority of the Democratic base they have become particularly and openly vicious. Everything you say about these (mostly) men is true. And more.

Bruce A. Dixon has become a personal hero of mine. In his essay, Mr. Dixon says "the DLC, has seized institutional control of the Democratic Party and will not be dislodged easily, if at all." I want to see these people exposed, dislodged and working at a McDonald's alongside Dick Morris and Newt Gingrich. Because, according to the new Pew poll, a majority of Democrats are dissatisfied with the direction of the Democratic Party this seems a good time to let people know just why the party has become such a useless, spineless, and venal institution. We ”aberrations” need to take our party back.  

After properly genuflecting before Mr. Dixon, the rest of us took collective pleasure in reading this letter from Bernice Millin.  

Go on with your bad self.  I enjoy each and every commentary you email to me.  I share with fellow Blacks the need to read mind-opening comments about current events that affect our people.  Thank you for such candid information, and do keep up the good work!  

Greg Burns sends greetings, from Atlanta.  

Stumbled across your site from a link on the Atlanta Indymedia newswire and I can't believe I've missed your site for so long!  If we can just wean the people from the lies of corporate "news" we might be able to make a better world.

Thank you from my heart.  

Darryl M. Holmes knows something about the value of morale. He raised ours:  

As a retired professional soldier (1973-1995) and former locally elected official (Councilmember Killeen, TX, home of Fort Hood).  I salute you and thank you for your editorial contributions to the nation.  I look forward to the publication and share them with serious thinkers, including my parents in Chicago.  I think an informed public is the only way we can preserve and protect our republic.  We have many strengths and weaknesses, mostly in our selected leadership, we certainly did not elect the Bushman.  Keep up your important work.  

Bendib in Demand  

Counterpunch, the indispensable Internet destination, sent hordes of its faithful to peruse the collected works of Chairman… uh, Mr. Khalil Bendib, our esteemed cartoonist, last week. We are grateful to Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair for choosing Bendib’s compilation, “It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It” as “Book of the Weekend.”

Mr. Bendib may also have found a new customer in Jay Hochstedt.

A friend sent a link to the main article in the new Black Commentator, which was wonderful. But a picture paints a thousand words, and Khalil Benbib's cartoon depicting Bush as a playground flasher showing off his 'war budget' is the most courageous & brilliant cartoon I've seen in the past 32 months. It captures the essential moral character of Bush & the thugs & terrorists of this illegal regime.  

Keep Writing.  

gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for sending visitors our way during the past week:  

Counterpunch

Cursor

Black Planet

Black Voices

Democratic Underground

Take Back The Media

UN Observer

September 11, 2003
Issue 55

is published every Thursday.