The first time I encountered Glenn Ford, he was on Democracy Now debating a
very center left black guy whose name, of course, I can't remember just now,
but who has written several books which are on BARD. Ford was explaining why
Obama was not representing black people, as he claimed to be, how his policies
were often harmful to them. That was perhaps in 2012 or before, before
Democracy Now had started moving inexorably to the right. Ford was a Black
Panther, but that's all I know about his history. A long time ago, I was
getting email notifications with links to Black Agenda Report, but I remember
that in order to subscribe, I needed sighted help because they had a captcha as
part of the subscription process. Ford also was occasionally on The Real News
Network, but the nature of that news source has changed since Paul Jay was
tossed out.
I remember all of the protests in African American communities in the late
60's. What's happening now feels very similar.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2020 8:06 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Blue Plague and Black Death
The Blue Plague and Black Death
https://socialistaction.org/2020/05/29/the-blue-plague-and-black-death/
May 29, 2020
By GLEN FORD
George Floyd’s death by Blue Plague in Minneapolis was widely condemned by the
same parties that have encouraged and funded the spread of the fatal contagion.
“The Blue Plague is a serial killer that dates back to the slave patrols of the
pre-Civil War South.”
The pathogen that kills Black people at two and a half times the rate of
whites took the life of 46 year-old George Floyd , this week in Minneapolis.
Floyd’s last words were, “I can’t breathe,” much like the desperate utterances
of plague victim Eric Garner , struck down in 2014 in New York City. Unlike
the still raging Covid-19 virus, which is virulent among Blacks of both sexes,
the Blue Plague is especially lethal to Black males of all ages. According to
researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Michigan, 1 in every
1,000 black boys and men will be fatally stricken by the Blue Plague at some
point in their lifetimes – at ages ranging from 12 year-old Tamir Rice ,
snuffed out in Cleveland in 2014, to 50 year-old Walter Scott , who fell victim
to the pestilence in North Charleston, South Carolina in 2015.
Covid-19 is categorized as a “novel,” or new, virus, having mutated recently
from wild animals. But the Blue Plague is a serial killer that dates back to
the slave patrols of the pre-Civil War South. Indeed, the first vector of the
Blue Plague has been traced back to Charleston, South Carolina, which
established a paramilitary force called the City Guard in 1783, primarily to
“police” Black slaves – although the term police had not yet been invented. The
City Guard helped suppress the Denmark Vesey slave rebellion in 1822 – a
success that is believed to have led to the mutation of slave patrols into
full-fledged vectors of Black death in cities across the nation, not just the
South.
“The Blue Plague is especially lethal to Black males of all ages.”
Researchers are hoping to find a vaccine for Covid-19, possibly within the
year, but the Blue Plague only grows more deadly over time and enjoys a host of
immunities. Although Black people had hoped that the historic expansion in the
number of Black elected officials would create political antibodies to limit
the spread of the Blue Plague, the opposite has happened. In 2014, just months
before Michael Brown’s life was cut short by the Blue Plague, in Ferguson,
Missouri, 80 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus voted to continue
funneling billions of dollars in military weapons, gear and training to local
infestations of the plague, despite ample evidence that such infusions have
made the scourge even more toxic to Black life. Four years later, 75 percent of
the Black Caucus voted to classify the Blue Plague as a “protected class,”
further immunizing the disease from the possibility of cure. The Protect and
Serve Act of 2018 was “superfluous, since cops are already the most protected
‘class’ in the nation.”
More radical thinkers, steeped in the struggle against social pathogens, argue
that the virulence of the Blue Plague can be weakened, at least among
concentrated Black populations, through Black Community Control of the disease.
A number of plague control formulas have been put forward , but the Black
Misleadership Class, deeply embedded in the Democratic Party, fiercely resists
any curb on the blue contagion, and actively encourages the spread of the
disease among the federal secret police. In March of this year, two thirds of
the Congressional Black Caucus joined with a large majority of Democrats in
support of the wildly misnamed USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act, which has since
passed the Senate , as well. Only 17 of the 50 full-voting Black members of the
House voted against the law, which was supposed to expire this year along with
other provisions of the infamous Patriot Act. As reported in The Verge , the
Act allows the FBI “to collect ‘tangible things’ related to national security
investigations without a warrant, requiring only approval from a secret court
that has reportedly rubber-stamped many requests.” These tangible things
include spying on targeted peoples’ web browsing “without having to demonstrate
that those Americans have done anything wrong,” in the words of Oregon Sen.
Wyden.
“The Black Misleadership Class, deeply embedded in the Democratic Party,
fiercely resists any curb on the blue contagion.”
The Blue contagion has spread around the world as the United States deploys its
vast military as a kind of global police force, backed up by killer drones that
carry out White House authorized executions in the far reaches of the planet.
President Barack Obama authorized a regular schedule of snuff jobs on “Kill
Tuesdays ,” but President Trump’s timetable is probably more erratic.
This being an election year, George Floyd’s death by Blue Plague in Minneapolis
was widely condemned by the same parties that have encouraged and funded the
spread of the fatal contagion. The Democratic mayor of the city fired the four
cops involved in crushing Floyd’s neck, and Joe Biden, the presidential
candidate who brags that he “wrote” the Plague-proliferating 1994 Violent
Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, tweeted that “George Floyd deserved
better and his family deserves justice. His life mattered.” But Biden and his
party’s history as vectors of mass death say otherwise.
In the absence of an immediate cure, it is certain that some endangered Black
males – and sisters, who are not immune to the ravages of the Blue Plague –
will resort to home remedies to ward off the pestilence, as did Denmark Vesey,
Nat Turner and, more recently, some brothers in Dallas and Baton Rouge .
Glen Ford is Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report. This article was
originally published at BlackAgendaReport.com.
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On-the-ground report from a comrade in Minneapolis on the protests of
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#JusticeForGeorge
[Updated] The Plague of Racist Cop Murders: Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd
and the COVID-19 Pandemic
May 28, 2020
By JEFF MACKLER
George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and many more Black people
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--
___
Steven Pinker
“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer.
But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming
naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's
highest callings.
[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]”
― Steven Pinker