sick or life: Half the Congressional Black Caucus Votes For More Afghan War

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Half the Congressional Black Caucus Votes For More Afghan War | Black Agenda Report

Posted by the ghetto intellectual on 3/21/2010

S-H-A-M-E on the Congressional Black Caucus! I am especially disappointed with Congresswoman Maxine Waters . My guess is that she traded jobs for war. This is yet another indicator that the Nobel Peace Prize President Obama has eroded progressive politics. What is worse, as Kevin Gray has pointed out, Black America's uncritical embrace of Obama has heightened our tolerance for war mongering. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be deeply disappointed with this turn of events. GI

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The advent of America's first Black president has resulted in Black congresspeople voting for wars that their constituents overwhelmingly oppose, which could lead to the conclusion that Obama is “a morally corrupting influence on some Black lawmakers.” More than half the Congressional Black Caucus sided with Obama – and war – last week. Three-fourths of all House Democrats did the same. George Bush should be green with envy.

Half of Black Caucus Votes for More Afghan War

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“When Obama surges in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Black lawmakers who purport to be for peace, retreat.”

Slightly less than half of the Congressional Black Caucus, 46 percent, broke with the Obama administration last week to vote for a bill to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. Given that the nation’s first Black president has made the Afghanistan/Pakistan theater of war his own – depicting the ever-expanding aggression as a “good war” – getting 18 Black votes for peace was probably as much as could have been expected. Black Democrats certainly behaved with more decency and sanity than Democrats as a whole, three out of four of whom voted with their war mongering commander-in-chief. Some progressive lawmakers felt it was a victory simply to have been permitted to hold a three-hour debate on the merits of war and peace, at this time of global imperial offensive, and disarray on the Left.

Nevertheless, the Black Caucus’s near-even split on Obama’s wars reveals the gross perversion of African American politics as it is filtered through a Democratic Party lurching steadily rightward under the weight of corporate money and the guidance of a president who is, if anything, more militarily aggressive in the region than his predecessor, George Bush. When Obama surges in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Black lawmakers who purport to be for peace, retreat.

The 18 Caucus members that voted “Yes” for withdrawal from Afghanistan reflect the overwhelming sentiments of a people that polls have for generations shown to be the most pro-peace demographic group in the nation. That 19 members of the Congressional Black Caucus would support U.S. wars against poor people half a world away, is evidence of deep moral and political corruption among the Black leadership class. (See breakdown of CBC vote, below.)

sick or life

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Half the Congressional Black Caucus Votes For More Afghan War | Black Agenda Report

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