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Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 12, 2015 Syria and World War
Boundless American greed, warlike hubris and imperial muscle flexing are at the bottom of the wave of regfugees fleeing sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, at the roots of genocidal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, and behind the simmering crisis in Ukraine. For the world's only superpower there seem to be no limits, no counting of costs or consequences
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 16, 2014 Privatized Ebola
WHO actions and priorities are no longer the result of the consensus of the world's people but top down decision making from wealthy philanthropists.
(71 comments) SHARE Friday, September 11, 2015 Refugees Flee American Aggression
Americans are made uncomfortable by pictures of drowned refugee children, but most cannot accept that their own government's "unrelenting effort at regime change in Syria is the cause of this crisis." US media parrot Washington's lies, keeping tally of the displaced and doomed, but blaming Syria's government for defending itself against western-backed jihadists.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 24, 2020 Is Obama-gate Real?
Trump begat Ukraine-gate and got himself impeached thanks to his own stupidity. He can't be trusted to behave any differently this time around. He brought Obama-gate to public attention but if his past behavior is an indicator, he may manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
(27 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 18, 2018 Freedom Rider: Oligarch Jeff Bezos
Bezos may look like the villain in a James Bond movie but there is nothing funny about him. He is deadly serious and so are his intentions. In a Bezos-run world every worker will be impoverished, every level of government will subsidize corporations, and anyone who speaks out will be discredited and under surveillance.
(23 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 2, 2017 Freedom Rider: Is Trump the DNC Hacker?
If the Democrats are intent on living at the Vast Conspiracy Hotel, they ought to widen their list of suspects in the leaking of embarrassing Democratic documents. Roger Stone and Nigel Farage -- men much closer to Donald Trump's brand of politics than Vladimir Putin -- have had curious contacts with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Stone is "the champion Republican Party dirty trickster," while Farange, the British rightwing
(24 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 13, 2022 Biden Means What He Says
Despite all denials to the contrary, Biden is after regime change against the Russian government and his actions prove it.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 27, 2022 Ukraine and U.S. war propaganda
The 2014 U.S. sponsored coup against the elected government of Ukraine must be the starting point for any discussion of the current crisis..
(16 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 23, 2017 Is Trump a White Supremacist? Yes, But So is America
It is an error to be swept up in useless argument about whether the current president is a white supremacist without also discussing the racist underpinnings of American society. Trump made overt racism acceptable and that does change the precarious nature of black life in the country. But we always live on the edge, hoping to improve our lot as individuals without falling victim to the worst the system can mete out to us.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, December 23, 2019 Propaganda and the Defeat of Jeremy Corbyn
The politicians of Corbyn and Sanders ilk will always face an uphill battle. Denying this reality means that the scoundrels will stay in control in the U.S., the U.K. and the whole world.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 27, 2018 Freedom Rider: Vladimir Putin and War Propaganda
"Lies about the Russian government are war propaganda and they are meant to get public support for military action against Russia and its allies."
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 6, 2020 Black Misleaders Seek to End Protest
The revulsion caused by this latest killing caught on camera spawned protests in Minneapolis and all over the country. Black people are the angriest, knowing they are at risk of the same treatment and because most police killings rarely result in convictions.
SHARE Wednesday, October 24, 2012 Freedom Rider: Not Voting for Obama
The top Democrat and Republican have clashed face-to-face three times -- and emerged far more alike than different. "Given this degree of collusion, why would it be so terrible if Obama lost?" The presidential electoral exercise looks more like an exorcism in which both parties are the Devil.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 8, 2019 Why Liberals Love War, Too
The latest example of the liberal herd mentality comes in the form of love for the military. Liberals don't associate with this institution themselves. They wouldn't think of sending their kids to the army or the navy. But suddenly they have a love for senior officers if they voice disgust with Trump.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Economic Crisis Worsens
With state and federal governments effectively broke and the new president about to turn over the next round of bailout money to the financial services industry... Americans are stuck in a morass of apathy and ignorance brought about by corporate media disinformation.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 19, 2020 Goodbye, Columbus
The discomfort caused to elites is of no concern to anyone who wants to strike at the heart of racism. Goodbye and good riddance to Churchill, Columbus, Leopold and all of their ilk, writes Margaret Kimberley.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, June 3, 2011 Freedom Rider: The Obama Surveillance State
The state security apparatus which came into being during the Bush administration is now supported just as strongly, if not more so, under president Barack Obama. There has been no let-up, no change in course for a system which becomes stronger with each passing day and which faces almost no political opposition.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 25, 2018 Robert Mercer Rules
The corporate media have said far too little about Mercer's influence, preferring to create elaborate scenarios of Russian government interference. The Mercer story is a secret hiding in plain sight. It is the stuff of spy thrillers but it is all too real. An ultra-rich right winger put Trump in the White House and now controls the country's political agenda.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 8, 2016 Freedom Rider: The Panama Papers Problem
The Panama tax haven leaks reveal a lot about the lawlessness of the rich, as well as the ideological bias of the western press. "Vladimir Putin's name appears nowhere, but the corporate media used his image repeatedly to drum up interest in what is an otherwise newsworthy story." Americans are conspicuous by their absence from the story. That's because rich people in the U.S. can avoid taxes.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, August 26, 2016 Hillary and Colin: the War Criminal Charade
The gangsterish "no honor among war criminals" back stabbing shouldn't make anyone feel badly for Powell. As secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration Powell kidnapped Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and sent him into exile. Colin Powell made the most important public case for invading Iraq and the subsequent killing of one million people.
(12 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 18, 2016 Standing by Syria
Obama didn't start a proxy war with an expectation of losing, and Hillary Clinton makes clear her allegiance to regime change. The United States will only leave if Syria and its allies gain enough ground to force a retreat. They will call defeat something else at a negotiating table but Assad must win in order for justice and reconciliation to begin.
SHARE Wednesday, October 10, 2012 Freedom Rider: Why Romney Beat Obama
It is true that Barack Obama didn't have his act together when he went up against Mitt Romney, last week. In fact, he seemed to drop his Democratic act entirely, showing his true political self: a corporate politician who is in general agreement with his corporate Republican challenger. " Obama was caught unprepared and unable to state plainly how he differs from his opponent, mostly because he doesn't differ very much."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 1, 2017 It's All About Africom
Almost no one is asking about the fact that American troops are stationed in Africa at all. Few people realize that such a thing as the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) exists and that the military forces of most African nations have been under the de facto control of this country since the George W. Bush administration.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 8, 2015 Police Corruption Exposed
The awful truth which black people were well aware of is now out in the open for all to see. Police departments in the United States exist for the purpose of maintaining white people's prerogatives as the group in control of everyone else. Enhancing public safety is a secondary consideration.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 19, 2016 Obama's Hollow Legacy
The most obvious example of Obama's lack of substance was his relationship with black Americans. His disdain and contempt for the people who loved him the most was clear to anyone who paid attention. Jokes about "cousin Pookie" and parents serving fried chicken for breakfast should have been seen as the racist screeds they clearly were. But the desire to see a black face in a prominent place endures to our detriment.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 22, 2020 Trump: Republican Party's True Face
Nothing in American politics has been ordinary since Donald Trump entered the scene. He announced, via Twitter of course, that he concedes nothing and declared that the election was rigged against him.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 6, 2011 Freedom Rider: White Supremacy in 2011
The entire notion of the U.S. as a post-racial society is nonsensical, as even the most cursory review of the past year attests. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, sometimes mentioned as presidential caliber, "recently made headlines when he fondly reminisced about the old days of segregation" when "things weren't that bad." A well paid pundit says Michael Vick should be executed, and Black farmers can't find justice above or bel
SHARE Thursday, January 5, 2017 Obama's Propaganda Gift to Trump
The head of this Global Engagement Center will be appointed by the president and that means Donald Trump. On the one hand we are told that Trump's presence in the White House is a fundamental danger to democracy. But in true presidential fashion Obama has handed off to Trump what he thinks is most important to continue.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 19, 2012 Freedom Rider: Killing Children
If America fails to finally find compassion for the legions of "other people's" children it has killed, then it will never comprehend why its own, internal massacres occur with such frequency. "Indiscriminate violence made America what it is today."
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 7, 2016 Obama's Last Gasp Imperialism
A lot of damage can be done between now and January 20, 2009. There is no reason to mourn or rejoice Obama's departure because he will be followed by someone who likes his foreign policy as it is. That person will also like Americans as they are: mostly intelligent but uninformed even if they wish to know what is happening around the world.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 21, 2014 Ferguson Reverberates Around the World
The Pentagon's 1033 Program accelerated the supply of military equipment given to the police, but it was not a new experience for black Americans. Police on the beat, like Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, are a modern day slave patrol, using the slightest infraction or none at all to arrest, assault and even kill on a daily basis.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 24, 2016 Freedom Rider: How Not to Protest Trump
The awful Hillary Clinton should be inaugurated the 45th president of the United States because she won the popular vote. But for the second time in less than 20 years a Democrat preferred by the people will instead be an historical footnote. If nothing else the Electoral College is rightly condemned.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 21, 2021 Freedom Rider: The Palestine Litmus Test
The proof of atrocities is too easy to find and the deaths of little children are universally abhorred. Only those most slavishly devoted to the establishment are going along with the narrative of Israel's alleged right to defend itself by destroying homes and hospitals.
SHARE Thursday, April 9, 2020 Marginalized Populations Cannot Lock Down
There is an old saying that if America catches a cold, black people get pneumonia. The communicable disease reference is especially relevant now that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has created a crisis in this country.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 23, 2011 Freedom Rider: Wisconsin Assault on Workers
Only two years after the party supported by most of organized labor won a decisive national election, the Republicans are on the verge of crushing union power once and for all. But, the White House seems singularly uninvolved. "President Obama, who like all Democrats depends on labor unions to mobilize support, was at best lukewarm in his support of the protests" in Wisconsin".
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, July 26, 2013 The Corporate Media's Mass Hypnosis
We live in age when it is all but impossible to escape media influence. As with all things, the quality of that media varies greatly from one outlet to another, but the corporate media is most ubiquitous while also being the least informative.
SHARE Thursday, August 31, 2017 Freedom Rider: Joe Arpaio Is No Aberration
Arpaio is surely deserving of scorn heaped upon him. He referred to his jails as "concentration camps." He held prisoners outdoors in tents, a violation of national and international law. Arpaio was convicted of contempt of court because he continued to detain undocumented people without charge in violation of a judge's order.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 7, 2016 Fear Factor: Trump the Boogeyman
Trump's party doesn't want him and the "Stop Trump" clique know it. If millions of Democrats would say they don't want Hillary Clinton either then the fracturing of the two parties will continue and the American people will have a hope of real democracy.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 28, 2017 Killing Kaepernick's Movement
Kaepernick made police brutality his target. No one should claim to join with him unless they are completely onboard with that sentiment. Stand or kneel with Kaepernick against the police state or don't bother at all.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 23, 2017 Freedom Rider: The Corporate Media Enemy
Do the media report on the inhumanity of mass incarceration? Do they tell their viewers and readers that half of all Americans live on $31,000 per year or less? Do they reveal the devastation created by American regime change or give voice to its victims? They do none of these things. The media are in bed with the rulers and that makes them enemies of the first order.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 14, 2012 Freedom Rider: Farewell Congressman Kucinich
With the gerrymandered defeat of Dennis Kucinich, the Congress has lost its last, best progressive. "Called crazy or wacky, Kucinich is nothing more than what other Democrats ought to be." Kucinich stood firm, when all in the Progressive and Black Caucuses folded. "If there is no room for one, not even one true Democrat, then there should no longer be any allegiance to that party."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 3, 2018 How to Remember Lynching
Every visitor moved by the history displayed in the new Montgomery memorial should fight for an end to the system which gives us a violent police state. Any black person can be killed by police or caught up in the prison gulag. That means lynch law still lives.
SHARE Monday, July 5, 2021 July 4th's Terrible Origins
The July 4 holiday in the United States commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Those educated in this country have been propagandized with lies about patriotic colonists seeking freedom from a tyrannical British monarch.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 2, 2018 American Terror Is Not New
We always lived in a very dangerous nation. Trump makes it more difficult to be in denial. But we must fight against the crowd which averts its eyes until a racist buffoon enters the White House. There is nothing new about American terrorism. It can be found in high and low places regardless of presidential civility or lack thereof.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 6, 2020 Kamala Harris Negates Black Freedom Movement
On this episode of The Left Lens, co-hosts Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley analyze the record of Kamala Harris and why she represents a negation of everything that the Black liberation movement and U.S. political prisoners currently fighting for freedom stand for.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 11, 2018 Freedom Rider: Trump Love Endures
The panoply of republican orthodoxy was always meant to convey the goal of keeping white people on top and black people under foot. The book Fire and Fury won't sink Donald Trump. Neither will revelations that would damage others. The very thing that makes him so repugnant to half of the country gives him an appeal with the other half. That is the fire and fury that everyone must acknowledge.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 11, 2014 Freedom Rider: How Not to "Bring Back our Girls"
Hundreds of Nigerian girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram fighters, three weeks ago. The abductions got very little media coverage, so the wave of U.S. revulsion is only now surfacing. Americans urge their government to "do something," but know next to nothing about the Nigerian political crisis, since there has not been "a single television news story about Boko Haram in 2013."
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 31, 2013 Freedom Rider: Job Discrimination Lives On
For the masses of Black people, progress against job discrimination ground to halt decades ago. Even at the supervisory level, apartheid is the order of the day. "Black men and women are rarely hired to supervise white people. Black men supervise black men, black women supervise black women, and white men are in positions to manage everyone else."
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 4, 2018 King's Legacy Betrayed
The legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated 50 years ago today, has been cynically exploited by corporate and political leaders who care more for the needs of their rich donors than black constituents, comments Margaret Kimberley.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 3, 2015 Obama's Africa Hypocrisy
The president's visit to East Africa has been the occasion for the same kind of hypocritical finger pointing Barack Obama usually reserves for his frequent hectoring of Black America.
SHARE Saturday, December 10, 2016 Black Fear of Trump
The desire for self-determination brought people out of slavery and out of Jim Crow segregation. It can certainly save us from the alt-right, Donald Trump and an attorney general named Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. We survived the Confederates and we can survive anyone named after them. That will mean shaking off fear, the Democrats, and the black misleaders all at once.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 17, 2011 Freedom Rider: Occupy Wall Street, Denounce the Democrats
Mass action is the only way to prevent further inequality & further American aggression around the world. Occupy Wall Street can be the beginning of a great movement, or a lost opportunity.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 15, 2020 Freedom Rider - Left Out of the Debate
If the needs of the people aren't being addressed what is the purpose of putting Biden and Harris into office? It isn't hard to argue against Donald Trump but the full court press of Biden or bust is difficult to reconcile with reality.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 23, 2021 Freedom Rider: Why the Left Don't Protest
A Democratic president with control of Congress should be seen and treated as an adversary. Biden is not a friend, nor are the CBC or phony progressives who call themselves a squad.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 7, 2021 Freedom Rider: The Never Ending COVID Crisis
It was in early 2020 that the word COVID-19 entered the lexicon. In the past year more than 440,000 people in the United States have died from this disease
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, November 27, 2020 What If Fascism Won't Leave Washington?
The corporate media have joined the incoming administration in deciding what we can and cannot see and hear. The danger of fascism won't leave Washington with Donald Trump.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 8, 2011 Freedom Rider: Black America at the Bottom
The Obama phenomenon has silenced a people who were once the most likely to speak out against inequality and injustice. The death of movement politics has made black people the perfect victims of the descent of their nation's and the world's economies.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 18, 2013 Freedom Rider: Obama Moves on Iran
No allegation against Iran is too wild for the U.S. corporate media megaphone. The fact that Iran's modest arms industry makes a small proportion of the bullets floating around Africa is made to seem the equivalent of a mushroom cloud. "While the U.S. spins its AFRICOM web and plans to send troops to 35 different countries, Iran alone is accused of bringing violence to the continent."
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 21, 2021 Impeachment Managers as Media Stars
Democracy is hanging on by a thread not due to marauding Trumpsters -- but because of bipartisan support for neoliberal policies.
SHARE Thursday, November 19, 2015 Freedom Rider: Solidarity and the International League of Peoples Struggles
Free trade brings jobs -- or so we are told -- when in fact they do just the opposite. Workers instead are pitted against one another in the awful race to the bottom. Inevitably all of them suffer when corporations jump from country to country looking for the fastest route to chew up workers and spit them out.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 15, 2013 Freedom Rider: When Cops and Prosecutors are Criminals
The ironically named criminal justice system in this country is good at prosecuting and creating many criminals but not very good at producing any justice. The USA would not have the largest prison population of any other country on earth if it did not also have the harshest prosecution and sentencing system of any other country. America's addiction to racism and violence creates outright criminality among police & prosecutors
(60 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Progressives Cave to Obama
The stampede to Obama reveals the emptiness of the Democratic left.
The progressive movement is on its death bed, in critical condition for many reasons.
SHARE Thursday, December 3, 2015 Killer White Men and the People Who Love Them
It isn't surprising that Dear and his ilk feel entitled to kill. When they do they are called gentle loners. Their families are viewed sympathetically. The New York Times referenced his ex-wife's weeping blue eyes, just to make certain that readers didn't forget she is white. They also quoted her as calling him "an imperfect but good man."