No subject

re-sectarianization of the conscious Black nationalists after the murder of
Malcolm X and the degeneration-destruction process of the Black Panther
Party has been quite deep.  Key is the idea that a Black national movement
is not a movement of Black people as such for their goals as a people, which
would clearly and unmistakably include the civil rights movement as the most
powerful struggle to date.  Instead the movement is a movement of
nationalists, older generation ideologues supported by cores of "young
lions" they have been able to recruit or with whose outbreaks of struggle
they identify.

But the real national movement is not the movement of the nationalist
ideologues but the movement of rank and file Black working people whose
actions and expressions have a different form and content from that of the
ideologues. And their spontaneous response to the Obama campaign, to the
extent that it gets off the ground, is different than that of the
ideologues, although not ignorant or uncritical (which is the real reason
why the truth kit approach will have little impact on them -- they are under
fewer illusions about Obama than the ideologues would like to admit).

Ford's fact sheets on Obama are useful -- back in the US SWP we used to call
them truth kits, and I wrote the 1972 truth kit on the McGovern campaign.
But frankly, pure and simple "exposure" has a real but limited value right
now. Noone is going to reject Obama because we prove that he is a bourgeois
politician who tacks his positions to the prevailing ruling class winds.
This is really not news to most people.  The motion behind Obama comes from
elsewhere.

But I would like to ask some questions about Glen Ford and Black Agenda that
may help clarify where these apparently militant nationalsts come from.

1. What is their view of the right of women to abortion, which includes
Black women of course. I saw no mention of Black women or abortion rights on
their website.

2. What is their view of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe? I have no objection
to opposing any and all imperialist interference of intervention, including
sanctions.  But does Ford or Black Agenda present the thuggish Mugabe regime
as a model of Black nationalist struggle against imperialist domination in
Africa?

3. This may seem relatively trivial compared to the last two questions, but
did Glen Ford or Black Agenda have a position on the fight for control of
the Pacifica network and WBAI New York.  What did he or they think about the
firing of Amy Goodman and others for disagreeing with the "Black
nationalist" leadership.

4. Finally, I would like to know more about Ford's split from Black
Commentator, which I hardly idealize but see as a useful publication.  What
was the full range of differences?

I want to comment again on Cynthia McKinney who I see as a breath of fresh
air -- nationalist in a genuinely popular way that can reach beyond
sectarian Black nationalists  -- and the antisectarian Malcolm X trend is
almost invisible today in the official Black left vanguard -- to rank and
file Black workimg people and broader groups. I think that the Glen Ford
material -- which the sectarian left regards as the Magna Carta legitimizing
a sectarian course toward Obama and the idea of a Black president, also
represents sectarian pressure on McKinney and the Green Party to wage a
"Stop Obama!" campaign.  This is reinforced by concerns among some in the
party about the alleged "strategic" importance of getting 5 percent of the
vote to qualify for federal funding -- a goal that is very unlikely to be
reached whether or not Obama is nominated.

Personally, I think Clinton will still be the candidate, and that she will
win the election. I rather think the NH primary will firm up the Democratic
leaders considerably on their current course, because of the indications of
a strong resentment of a Black presidential candidate among white workers
and others 

Fred Feldman