A-Infos (en) US, ARA, Turning The Tide - Vol. 21, No. 4 (July / August) 2008 - Barack Obama and the New Afrikan "National Question:" Are We Free Yet? by Kali Akuno

A New Afrikan is a person of Afrikan descent, particularly those historically 
enslaved and colonized in the Southeastern portion of the North American 
continent, that presently live under the colonial subjugation of the United 
States government. New Afrikan is the connotation of the national identity of 
this Afrikan people that recognizes their political aspirations for 
self-determination and independence. ---- Since the stunning Iowa victory of 
Senator Barack Obama in January, a great deal has been said and written about 
the declining or ongoing significance of "race" and "racial prejudice" in US 
society, and about the prospect of a person of Afrikan descent being its 
President as proof of its substantive social transformation.

While this discussion must be regarded as an advance over the conservative 
moralistic and race-coded discussions that have dominated political debate in 
the US since the 1980's, we must acknowledge its critical limitations.
In the main, these discussions individualize the issues and only engage the 
behavioral and subjective aspects of inequality and oppression. What is 
fundamentally missing is a critical discussion of the structural and systemic 
nature of oppression and exploitation within the US and how the Obama campaign
"phenomenon" relates to these structures and dynamics.

This paper seeks to investigate the strategic relationship of the Obama campaign 
to the structural dynamics of oppression and exploitation within the US. In 
particular, it will focus on the question of New Afrikan or Black national 
oppression within the US and how the Obama campaign addresses this oppression. 
It also seeks to address certain strategic questions that progressive forces 
within the national liberation and multinational working class movements must 
struggle with over the course of the next six months in order to ensure that our 
demands and interests are advanced ­ regardless of whether Obama wins in November.

Some of the strategic questions this paper seeks to
address are:
1. What is Obama's organic relationship to the New
Afrikan or Black nation?
2. What class position, alignment and program does
Obama represent?
3. How do Obama's campaign strategy and program
relate to the historic interests and demands of the Black
nation?

What is the "National Question"?

In summary, from a dialectical materialist framework,
the "national question" refers to a) the unequal structural
relationship of colonized and oppressed peoples to
international capital, oppressor nations, imperialism,
and white supremacy and b) to the historic struggles of
colonized and oppressed peoples to liberate themselves
from these oppressive systems and forces, either in whole
or in part (as not all of these "people's" or "national
liberation" struggles have sought to remove themselves
from capitalist relations of production).
The inequalities between peoples produced by capitalism
are historic. They are rooted in the development of the
capitalist world system through the colonization and/or
subjugation of the globe and its non-European peoples
by the ruling classes of the western European states
(i.e. Portugal, Spain, France, England, the Netherlands,
Germany, Belgium, and Italy) beginning in the 15th
century.
In order to facilitate the process of capital accumulation
they initiated on a world scale, the ruling classes of
Europe developed a social system and ideology that
divided world production along several lines, some of
which predated capitalism, some of which developed
specifically to suite capitals historic needs. The pre-
capitalist social divisions that were exploited were
religion, ethnicity, nationality and patriarchy. The new
and fundamentally principal divisions developed by and
with capitalism are race and state-bound nationality.
The purpose of exploiting and/or developing these
inequalities is a) to facilitate the control of the land, labor,
and (material and non-material) resources of the subject
and oppressed peoples and b) to foster competition
between and among these peoples for the material
and social rewards conferred by this exploitative and
alienating system.
In the United States the "national question" specifically
addresses the structural relationship of colonized,
oppressed, and subject peoples to the European settler-
colonial project and the imperial national-state apparatus
that reinforces it. This project is premised on the
genocide and dispossession of indigenous peoples (the
First Nations); the enslavement and colonial subjugation
of Afrikan peoples and their descendents; and the
dispossession and colonial subjugation of Xicanas/os.
The New Afrikan National Question
Throughout the history of the US settler-colonial project
New Afrikans have fundamentally been concentrated
in the southeastern portion of the project's possessions.
The foundation of this concentration was historically
premised on the utilization of enslaved Afrikan labor
to produce cash crops like tobacco, cotton, rice, dyes,
and sugar, for international consumption. During the
early mercantile stages of capitalist development the
climatic conditions, soil quality, and strategic location
of these possessions facilitated them being incorporated
into the world-capitalist system as a zone of mono-crop
commodity production. This population concentration
and the relations of production exercised in this zone
facilitated the formation of the New Afrikan people as
a colonized diasporic Afrikan nation subject to will of
the European settler-colonial project and its capitalist-
imperialist regime between 1619 and 1865.
The mechanization of agriculture in the southeastern
portion of the settler-colonial state in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, combined with an intense program
of labor control and repression during this period,
displaced millions of New Afrikans. In the search for
refuge and jobs, displaced New Afrikans reconcentrated
in the urban industrial centers of the East Coast, Mid-
West, and West Coast between the 1910s ­ 1960s. In the
process of this resettlement, millions of New Afrikans
joined the ranks of the industrial working class. Howeve
they did so fundamentally on an unequal structural
basis. Exploiting the subject status of New Afrikan
people, capital, the labor bureaucracy, and the various
European settler communities relegated New Afrikans
to the lowest strata's of the working class, where they
were concentrated in the lowest paid and most hazardou
occupations that restricted their ability to earn and
accumulate. This process of development established
the social and economic terms of New Afrikan national
oppression throughout the entire expanse of the US
settler-colonial project.
Simultaneously, the vast majority of New Afrikans who
remained in the New Afrikan national territory (i.e.
the southeastern portion of the settler-colonial project)
became subject to a new regime of accumulation and
distorted national development. Reacting to the gains
made in the industrial "north" by the multinational
working class movement between the 1930's ­ 50's,
industrial capital "outsourced" production to New Afrika
to exploit the subjugated status of the New Afrikan
working class. Although the New Afrikan working class
was kept from effectively organizing itself into labor
unions, this development did expand the overall circuit
of capital within the New Afrikan nation, which helped
stimulate the rise of the civil rights movement and its
petit bourgeois program of civil inclusion within the
legalistic confines of the settler-colonial project.
The limited social and economic gains of the Civil
Rights and Black Power movements set the present
terms of national development for the New Afrikan
nation. New Afrika, like all nations and nationalities, is
a class stratified social formation. Like all the peoples
and nations subjugated and colonized by the European
colonial powers, capital and capitalist social relations
have articulated New Afrika's social development.
Throughout its nearly 400 years of development, the
overwhelming majority of New Afrikans have been
and are members of the working classes (either as
chattel slaves, peasants, or proletarians). However,
a very limited New Afrikan bourgeoisie has existed
since at least the mid-19th century. Throughout much
of New Afrikan history, this extremely small, typically
service based petit-bourgeoisie has tended politically
to be more progressive than reactionary in its political
outlook and program. In the main this bourgeois class
has provided leadership to and support for theprimary
historical demands of the New Afrikan national liberation
movement.
In summary these demands have been and are:
1. Land for self-determining or autonomous development
and accumulation.
2. Equal treatment before the law of the settler-colonial
state.
3. Equitable distribution of the social surplus distributed
throughout the settler-colonial state.
4. Self-determining political power.
5. Self-reliant and self-sustaining economic development.
6. Reparations.
However, the accumulation gains (meager as they
were) of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements
combined with major shifts in the relations of production
on a worldwide scale, transformed the relationship of
the NewAfrikan bourgeoisie to the whole of the New
Afrikan nation from the 1970's to the present. The two
dominant features of this process of transformation are
a)the phenomenal rise of the comprador bourgeoisie
in the 1970's and 80's, and b)the rapid transformation
of this comprador bourgeoisie into a transnational
bourgeoisie from the 1980's to the present. As will be
argued throughout this paper, this transformation not only
changed the overall structural composition of the New
Afrikan bourgeoisie, it has forever altered its political
worldview and program.

                 Part 1 ­ The Interrogation
s
           Interrogating the "National" Question

Barack Obama has asserted on several occasions a)
that race doesn't matter and b) that there is only "one"
America.
The implication of these statements, even if only stated
for strategic affect, is that the national contradictions
within the US settler-colonial project have been negated
and resolved. Even a cursory glance at the socio-
economic inequalities between the various nationalities
in the US reveals that these assertions are blatantly
false. However, the unprecedented success of Obama's
campaign and the ground it has broke as it relates to a
"Black" candidate appealing to white voters on a national
level revels that something qualitative has changed in this
country. The question is what is it?
I argue that the source of the qualitative change lies in
the changing composition of class throughout the US
settler-colonial project. The advance of global capital
and its transformation of production and accumulation
throughout the capitalist world-system generated
this compositional shift. I posit that the process of
transformation popularly called "globalization" has
created a transnational bourgeoisie and growing multi-
national or "cosmopolitan" transnational service and
working classes. It is my position that Barack Obama is
a member of and represents the political and economic
interests of the transnational bourgeoisie and the social
interests of the growing transnational classes. More
specifically, Barack Obama is a product of the New
Afrikan transnational bourgeoisie, which emerged in the
main from the comprador or neo-colonial sector of the
New Afrikan bourgeois class between the 1970's to the
present.
The fundamental question regarding this new class
composition for progressive and revolutionary forces
within the New Afrikan national liberation movement
is how to strategically relate to Barack Obama and this
transnational bourgeois class? Is this class (or class
fraction) a friend or a foe of the New Afrikan national
liberation movement? I argue three things:

1. That the material basis for the traditional class
collaboration theory of the united and/or national
liberation front strategy of oppressed peoples and nations
in general, and of its historic application to the New
Afrikan national liberation movement in particular, no
longer applies.

2. That the left has not developed a general or particular
theory of how to strategically relate to these new class
forces.

3. As a result, we are presently ill equipped theoretically
and programmatically to address the Obama phenomenon
and seize the historic opportunities it presents to advance
the interests of the national liberation and multi-national
working class movements.
How does the transnational bourgeoisie differ from other
bourgeoisie classes, particularly amongst oppressed
nations like the New Afrikan nation? The general theory
of national liberation maintains that there are two primary
fractions of the capitalist or bourgeois class (that is the
class that owns and controls the means of production).
These are 1) the national, progressive, or "anti-
imperialist" bourgeoisie and 2) the comprador or "sell-
out", "Uncle Tom", or neo-colonial bourgeoisie.
The national or anti-imperialist bourgeoisie is
theoretically a progressive force drawn from the organic,
inner driven life of the oppressed nation that is materially
compelled to promote the development of the productive
forces of the nation for its own self-interests, and to resist
the incursion of imperialism and its suppression of this
autonomous national development for these selfsame
interests.
The comprador or sell-out bourgeoisie is theoretically
a reactionary force also drawn from the organic, inner
driven life of the oppressed nation, which is conversely
compelled to collaborate with imperialism to retard the
autonomous or self-determining development of the
oppressed nation.
The fundamental difference between these two bourgeois
fractions and the transnational fraction is their organic
relationship to the oppressed nation. The national and
comprador bourgeoisies are dependent upon relations
of production within the social and political life of the
oppressed nation. Meaning they are both dependent on
the working masses of the oppressed nation for their
very existence, and hence can be held accountable
to the working classes within it in various ways. The
transnational bourgeoisie on the other hand, even though
it emerged primarily from the comprador fraction in New
Afrika and elsewhere, is not dependent for its existence
upon the oppressed nation and its relations of production.
The transnational bourgeoisie, as its name implies, is
not a national or national-state bound entity. Its basis
for existence lies in exploiting the peoples and working
classes of the globe. It is generally only accountable to or
held in check by its fractional partners and rivals (largely
through their financial control of various capital markets
as exhibited by their deflation of various national-state
markets like Mexico in the early-1990s; Thailand,
Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea in the late 1990s;
and Brazil and Argentina at the turn of this century).
Now, while I posit that this understanding of Obama's
positioning helps us to understand his relationship with
the New Afrikan nation and its historic demands, I argue
that we still do not completely understand at this point,
how it relates to his mass appeal to white voters in many
instances who are not part of this transnational formation.
This I argue, we as progressives and revolutionaries, have
to interrogate further to gain a deeper understanding of its
strategic potential.

                Interrogating the Campaign

Despite what one may personally think of Obama and
the principle merits of his campaign, what we have to
acknowledge is that his actions and his campaign are
deeply rooted in a particular analysis of how to address
national oppression in the US. This analysis is rooted in
the "integrationist" and "beloved community" narratives
of the New Afrikan petit bourgeois leadership of the Civil
Rights Movement and its white liberal bourgeois patrons.
The strategy behind this narrative appeal is to highlight
the commonalities between the oppressor and oppressed
peoples, rather than address their contradictions and
differences.
This strategy is rooted in the reality that the road to
victory goes through the white electorate and its sheer
numerical strength. Based on this reality, I argue there are
two historical dynamics that have fundamentally shaped
the Obama campaign and its strategy.
1. No Democratic candidate has won a majority of white
voters since 1964. For a Democratic candidate to win,
they are going to have to win a sizeable portion of, if not
the majority of, the white settler vote.
2. The Jesse Jackson campaigns of 1984 and 1988. These
two campaigns serve as the primary negative examples
for the Obama campaign. They illustrate what NOT to
do as an Afrikan candidate running for President, which
has determined key aspects of his strategy, particularly
his methods of appeal to white and Jewish voters in
particular. Based on these realities, the Obama campaign
made a deliberate and strategic choice NOT to base his
candidacy in the institutions (like the Black church, civic
organizations, unions, and the media) or historic demand
of the New Afrikan nation. In order to give himself the
opportunity to win, Obama must avoid being viewed as a
"Black" candidate by any and all means. This explains in
part, why he has distanced himself from the likes of Jess
Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Jeremiah Wright ­ the
"traditional" representatives of the "progressive" New
Afrikan bourgeoisie.
However, his campaign has also relied upon the staunch
support of the Democratic Party by New Afrikan people.
New Afrikans have been the most consistent base of
support for the Democratic Party since the 1964 election
of Lydon B. Johnson. In fact, New Afrikans have voted
consistently for Democratic Presidential candidates in
the range of 80 ­ 90% since 1956. This fact however,
should not be surprising. Democratic candidates can
and do take the New Afrikan vote for granted because in
the main, New Afrikans have no other genuine political
option to represent their interests. Knowing this, Obama
and his campaign know that they have to make few
special appeals to New Afrikans and most of the other
oppressed peoples within the "traditional" Democratic
Party coalition to garner their votes (certain "Latino"
populations it can be argued might constitute exceptions)
              Interrogating the Popular Forces
Regardless of how marginalized New Afrikan demands
and institutions are to the Obama campaign, the fact
is that since Obama's Iowa victory in January, New
Afrikans have turned out in near record numbers to
support his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
How do we explain this outpouring of support despite
his lack of engagement with New Afrikan demands and
institutions?
Further, how do we explain his victories in states like
Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Colorado, Connecticut, Nebraska
Vermont, and Wyoming where the vast majority of the
electorate are white settlers who are not substantively
incorporated into the transnational nexus of production?
Part of the answer I believe lies in the transnational class
developments spoken of earlier. The other part of the
answer I believe lies in the popular response to the last 7
years of the Bush regime. As a direct result of the failed
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the accumulation
of unprecedented debt, the partisan management of the
economy, the exposed lies and deceit, and the hostile,
belligerent, and dictatorial "style" of management, this
election is in many ways serving as a popular anti-Bush
referendum.
The popular, multi-national, multi-class forces engaging
the Obama campaign are clearly clamoring for a change
of management. This was first evidenced in the elections
of 2006 and has been further illustrated in several off-
term Congressional elections in Illinois, Louisiana, and
Mississippi where Democrats took elections in long-
held Republican districts. Barack Obama, for reasons of
personal history (including his newness to Capital Hill),
style (particularly his cultivated charisma and flair for the
optimal, however programmatically empty it may be),
and strategy (including a tacit exploitation of cultural
stereotypes about New Afrikan people being good
listeners and empathizers) has thus far demonstrated that
he would be a profoundly different manager than either
of his remaining Democrat or Republican rivals.
What I think progressives and revolutionaries have to
be clear on in relating to these popular forces is that a
clamoring for a change of management does not equate
to a clamoring for a fundamental change of program.
It is on the question of program that I would argue that
the national question strongly reenters the fry and could
perhaps fracture the broad multi-national, multi-class
alliance thus far mobilized by the Obama campaign.
For instance, the historic demands of New Afrikan
people are not going to goaway without a revolutionary
transformation of the US settler-colonial state. In fact,
as the mortgage crisis deepens over the course of the
next 2 to 4 years, some of the demands, like economic
development and reparations perhaps, are only going to
become stronger.
Likewise, the transnational capital interests supporting
Obama's campaign have no intentions of stopping
their accumulation mission. Rather, they are trying
to expand it through the application of a friendlier
management approach of their primary regulating
instruments ­ namely the US military, treasury, and
Federal Reserve Bank. And further, many of the white
service and working class voters who are supporting
Obama are not demanding an end to imperialism and
globalization, but a return to the high standards of living
they are accustomedand feel entitled to as settlers, i.e.
"Americans".
                  Interrogating the Moment
This is an extremely unique moment in human history,
one that should not be slept on by progressives and
revolutionaries anywhere, let alone in the US.
There are three general things that make this moment
particularly unique:
1. The rapid collapse of the ecological systems that
support human civilization as a direct consequence of the
capitalist world-systems need for constant growth and
expansion and its dependence on a petrochemical driven
system of mass industrial production to stimulate and
sustain this growth.
2. The declining hegemony (in both its geo-political and
Gramscian connotations) of the US imperial state and the
shift to a multi-polar geopolitical world order.
3. The comparative weakening of the US national
economy and the deepening of transnational production
and accumulation.
In order to be properly contextualized, the Obama
campaign and corresponding "phenomenon" must be
situated as a direct response to this unique moment in
history. As has been argued earlier, his campaign is
clearly a factional response, one fundamentally serving
the interests of the transnational bourgeoisie and its
means and instruments of accumulation and rule.
The two fundamental questions stemming from this
assessment are, 1) is this class and the alliance of forces it
has amassed strong enough to contain the contradictions
it has unleashed and 2) can it continue its accumulation
program and political project without a major
transformation away from petrochemical dependent
production?
I argue that the answer to both questions is emphatically,
NO. Returning to our focus of analyzing the Obama
campaign in relation to the New Afrikan national
question, there are several examples that clearly illustrate
why.
The transnational program of accumulation is
fundamentally driven by afinance driven post-Fordist,
intelligence dominated system of production. The
intense mechanization of this production regime is
rapidly dislocating millions, if not billions, of workers,
worldwide. The New Afrikan working class was
one of the first and most devastated sectors of the
international proletariat hit by this accumulation regime.
Since the 1970's, millions of New Afrikans have been
economically dislocated and physically displaced by
this transformation, which is only set to worsen with the
crisis of finance (witnessed with the mortgage crisis that
robbed millions of New Afrikans of their merge capital
equity) and the deepening of global production. What
is also clear is that the options of absorbing this surplus
labor into the low-wage service economy or warehousing
(i.e. incarcerating) it, is reaching its political and financial
limits.
The likely outcomes of the escalating crisis are:
1. More intense economic dislocation
2. More intense physical displacement and forced
relocation (New Orleans being a clear precedent)
3. More intense and concentrated New Afrikan resistance
4. An escalation of the demands made on the state and
capital by New Afrikans.
As a representative of the transnational bourgeoisie, its
production regime, and the US imperial state, how would
Obama be compelled to address these contradictions?
I argue that he would fundamentally have to exercise
the Nixon option as it related to the New Afrikan nation
(and other oppressed nations within and beyond US
national-state boarders). Plainly stated the Nixon option
is the calculated employment of "carrot and the stick"
stratagems. Obama's carrot would be to ameliorate or buy
off a sectors of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie and working
class by offering a set of concessions, primarily in the
realm of loan forgiveness (for the mortgage crisis) and
job training programs (more than likely for "Green Jobs"
and the like). The stick would be the strategic application
of state repression against resistant and non-compliant
forces within the New Afrikan working class.
   The purpose of the Nixon option now, as during his
Presidency in the late 60's and early 70's, would be to
fracture the political unity of the New Afrikan nation
against the transnational bourgeoisie and its program.
Staying with our analysis, it is also clear that the Green
transformation option is a dead end for the transnational
bourgeoisie and its program. Although elements of the
transnational bourgeoisie are clearly leading the charge
for the development of "green" capitalism, it is not, and
in fact cannot, advocate for the transformation of scale
needed to curb the production of greenhouse gases to stall
or reverse climate change without bankrupting itself. As
a result, it cannot and will not generate enough "Green
Jobs" to reincorporate the millions of New Afrikans
that have been economically dislocated by transnational
production.
Yet and still, what we can posit with confidence at this
moment is that capital is going to go to extreme lengths
to extend its life and barbaric domination over human
civilization. Conversely, as the events of the last 7 years have
illustrated, we should also expect to see an escalation and
diversification of resistance.
   Part 2 -Outlining a Framework to Seize the Moment
So, how should the New Afrikan and multi-national
liberation and working class movements strategically
engage this historic campaign and critical moment?
One of the first priorities of engagement is theoretical
development. One of the principle things the New
Afrikan and multi-national left movements must figure
out is how to engage to the transnational bourgeoisie. As
stated earlier, as of now, our movements do not have a general,
let alone united, perspective on this question. In fact, I would
argue that most of our forces are still utilizing the traditional
united or national liberation front theory to determine their
positions and courses of action.
I argue that because the transnational bourgeoisie cannot
be easily pressured by the national liberation and working
class movements within the US setter-colonial project,
these movements should not invest the majority of their
time and energy engaging an "inside" strategy of critical
engagement with the Obama campaign. I argue that
thinking strategically, these forces should concentrate
their energy on building autonomous political movements
and institutions (like the Reconstruction Party) within the
US national-state that seek to build a broad multi-national
united front of oppressed peoples and workers that makes
a principle of building strategic links and alliances with
the autonomous national liberation, international working
class, global justice, and environmental movements
throughout the world. As the transnational bourgeoisie
thinks and acts globally, we must also think and act globally to
advance our own interests.
However, as the vast majority of our peoples and forces
are going to support the Obama campaign and potential
Presidency, in the short-term we tactically have to invest
a critical degree of time and energy engaging them, if
only to try and win a considerable portion of these forces
to a left perspective and program.
    And it is here that we need theoretical clarity. How do
we offer a radical critique of Obama, his class position,
interests, and program without alienating ourselves from
the popular masses? How do we move these forces to
engage in autonomous self-determining action outside
of the Democratic Party? How do we educate and move
the white settler forces mobilized by Obama to actively
engage an anti-racist-determining action outside of the
Democratic Party? How do we educate and move the
white settler forces mobilized by Obama to actively
engage an anti-racist, anti-imperialist perspective and
program?
To these ends, a hard-pressed counter campaign against
Obama I would argue is not the most effective or
productive way to engage these popular forces from
this point forward. Rather, I think the multi-national left
must seek to highlight the contradictions of Obama's
campaign and program through a combined "outside-
inside" strategy that seeks to advance a coherent set of
principle demands and push him and the forces he has
mobilized sharply to the left. Again, I think the formation
of an autonomous "outside" political force should be
primary. However, what is perhaps most tactically
critical is that both the "outside" and "inside" forces
aggressively promote and propagate these common
demands; vigorously dialogue and debate in a principled,
non-sectarian manner; and openly communicate and
collaborate whenever and wherever possible.
Some of the primary strategic demands that must be
raised are drawn from the historic demands of oppressed
peoples, particularly New Afrikans, combined with the
demands of the multi-national working class, women's,
and environmental justice movements. The combination
of these demands will expose not only the limits of the
transnational bourgeoisie and its production regime, but
of US imperialism itself and its inability to make good
on its democratic promises, either at "home" or abroad.
Some of the most critical of these demands include:
1. The full and immediately ending of the occupations of
Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. The full and unqualified support for Palestinian self-
determination and the Right to Return.
3. The full and immediate Right of Return for the
more than 250,000 New Afrikans displaced from their
homelands in New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coast.
4. The repeal of the "war on drugs" and mandatory
minimum sentencing that has resulted in the
imprisonment of more than 2.5 million people, the vast
majority of whom are New Afrikans.
5. The full support for the rights of women and the
LGBTQ communities, including full support for
initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment and "gay"
marriage.
6. The full and immediate repeal of the various Patriot
Acts and other undemocratic anti-terror laws and
Executive Orders.
7. The full, complete, and unconditional amnesty for the
millions of migrant and displaced workers in the US.
8. The full and unqualified commitment to reduce the
carbon imprint of the US by 80% or more by 2016 to
  stem the production of climate changing greenhouse
gases.
9. The commitment to the public financing of alternative
solar, wind, aquatic, and organic energy to sustain the
economy, and the elimination of all nuclear energy and
hard metal extraction.
10. Reparations for Indigenous, New Afrikan, Xicano,
Puerto Rican, Hawaiian and other peoples and nations
colonized by the US (including Guam, Alaskan natives,
etc.).
(See also the demands articulated in the "Draft Manifesto
for a Reconstruction Party" by the National Organizing
Committee for a Reconstruction Party.)
                     By Way of Conclusion
Although the road ahead may not be clear, and the
outcome of our actions far from certain, the New Afrikan
national liberation movement, and the movements of all
oppressed and exploited peoples, must seize this critical
moment. The survival of humanity demands that we must
act, and act in our own interests. Barack Obama nor any
other bourgeois messiah is going to liberate us. We must
liberate ourselves.
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9. "The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third
World", by Vijay Prashad. The New York Press, 2007.
10. "A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class,
and State in a Transnational World", by William I.
Robinson. John Hopkins University Press, 2004.
12. "Global Capitalism: the New Leviathan", by Robert J.
S. Ross and Kent, C. Trachte. SUNY Press, 1990.
13. "The Transnational Capitalist Class", by Leslie Sklair.
Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
15. "A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka and Black
Power Politics", by Komozi Woodard. University of
North Carolina Press, 1999.
For a full list of references and resources, and to give
feedback and commentary, write to:

                      kaliakuno@gmail.com.
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