Black Americans are historically the most peace-minded major U.S. political constituency, yet this is seldom reflected in the voting behavior of Black Democratic legislators, who apparently answer to a Higher Power (White Capital). Of the 48 full voting House members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 20 last week voted Nay on a bill that would have cut Pentagon spending by ten percent across the board – a modest and symbolic reduction. Listed below are the Twenty Black Legislative Minions of (White) Corporate Warlords:
*Alma Adams (FL)
Colin Allred (TX)
Sanford Bishop (GA)
* Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE)
Anthony Brown (MD)
G.K. Butterfield (NC)
*Andre Carson (IN)
James E. Clyburn (SC)
Antonio Delgado (NY)
Val Butler Demings (FL)
* Steven Horsford (NV)
* Brenda Lawrence (MI)
Al Lawson (FL)
Lucy McBath (GA)
Cedric Richmond (LA)
Bobby Scott (VA)
David Scott (GA)
Terri Sewell (AL)
Lauren Underwood (IL)
Marc Veasey (TX)
Usually, the Black Caucus vote closely follows that of House Democrats as a whole, under Nancy Pelosi’s whip. But this time the Black members lined up 58 percent for military cuts versus only 40 percent among all House Democrats. Could it be that the “Defund the Police!” demands of street “non-politics” had some small influence on Black Democrats? If so, it was far too weak a response to overwhelming Black public sentiment historically favoring domestic spending over the military.
Please note the asterisks in front of Alma Adams (FL), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Andre Carson (IN), Steven Horsford (NV), and Brenda Lawrence (MI). These Black Reps. are also members of the Progressive Caucus , but they voted to please the Pentagon and to preserve domestic spending austerity -- the policy pillars of the Dictatorship of (White) Capital.
Eighty percent of the Black Caucus voted to continue the Pentagon’s program to militarize local police, in 2014, and 75 percent of Black House members supported making police a “protected class,” in 2018. The cops have never been popular in Black America: 89 percent of African Americans told pollsters that the criminal justice system is unfair to Blacks in 2014, when most of the Black Caucus supported militarized cops, and a phenomenal 97 percent of Blacks feel victimized by the “protected class” of cops, today. Clearly, the Democratic Party is the mechanism that spawns and nurtures Black politicians answerable to the Dictatorship of (White) Capital.
The Black liberation movement ended half a century ago with the capture of Black “politics” by the Democratic Party, and can only be revived when the Party is exposed and opposed as an enemy institution in our midst.