Trump’s Most Artful Performances

Leading the Kennedy Center and The Institute of Peace

by Dan Lieberman / April 1st, 2025

The Donald Trump salvage corporation has started to dismantle the neo-liberal structure that guided United States’ economic, foreign, and political policies for decades. To complete their destructive agenda, the Trumpsters are dismantling the social and cultural fabrics that accompanied the neo-liberal agenda, starting with gutting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) social programs and continuing on to reconstitute the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts and The U.S. Institute of Peace.

After Trump used presidential authority to purge his opposition from the Kennedy Center board, and the newly appointed board voted unanimously to elect him as its new chairperson, self-cancellation culture came into effect. In response to the changes, administrators, stars, and artists, including Board Treasurer Shonda Rhimes, National Symphony Orchestra Artistic Advisor Ben Folds, Artistic Advisor-at-Large Renée Fleming, and Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter severed connections with the Kennedy Center. Performances have been cancelled.

The abrupt changes in the social and cultural atmosphere parallel the political changes ─ the public has become wary of a liberal establishment that shapes its customs, habits, and lives. Not unique and chilling ─ the German populace of 1932 expressed similar attitudes to the Weimar Republic and, because the leaders of the Weimar Republic would not recognize their growing detachment with the populace, the totalitarian Nazis accommodated citizen wishes.

I suspect the rearrangements that Donald Trump prepares for the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts and The U.S. Institute of Peace will highlight American exceptionalism, clean and wholesome living, and a superior American culture. Nothing controversial on the stages. Too bad! I have several arguments with both institutions and looked forward to a day my arguments could be resolved. Doubtful the Trump contingent will fulfill the expectations, which makes me wonder what they will accomplish. Unlike the decimated federal government bureaus that consist of personnel and office space, these institutions are housed in buildings of architectural merit and on prime real estate that cannot be easily disposed.

Before I describe my arguments with the operation of the Kennedy Center, I’ll mention one captivating aspect of the Kennedy Center ─ walkways around the building.

Surrounding two floors of the cavernous building are a lower walkway and rooftop terrace that provide captivating views of Washington D.C., the Potomac River, and Northern Virginia. It is worth a trip to Foggy Bottom, just to take a walk around the building.

My gripes with the Kennedy Center are personal reflections, to which many will not agree. Nevertheless, I consider it relevant to expose another example of a small cadre of pseudo intellectuals imposing their persuasions on the public and arousing the wrath of those who sense a liberal imposition, one of several that unknowingly paved the road to Trump’s victory.

(1) The Kennedy Center is a clean looking, well proportioned, and architecturally sound building on the outside that is mismatched by a solemn and confusing overkill of unapparent cultural activity on the inside.

The building has six large, and hidden theaters, dozens of unused rooms, and several smaller theater spaces somewhere in the cavernous building, if you can find them and reach them before you run out of breath. It is attractive from afar, overwhelming up close, and bewildering inside; nothing to see but carpets, walls, chandeliers, and ceilings; a false elegance that makes the patron feel impoverished and insignificant; no feeling of a center for performing arts.

Much nicer to have richly decorated and stand-alone theaters for each cultural activity, similar to New York’s Lincoln Center. Stand in the outside court of the Lincoln Center and have the feeling you are somewhere.

Stand in the corridors of the Kennedy Center and just keep walking until you find one of the outside walkways and start breathing again.

(2) Started out as a National Center for the Performing Arts and gravitated to becoming “a living memorial for President John F. Kennedy.”

John F. Kennedy (JFK) served as president for less than four years. His administration had its “ups” and “downs,” and a proper discussion of its merits needs more than can be contained in this article. I trust a neutral opinion can objectively conclude that Kennedy was not one of our greatest presidents and does not warrant more attention than the large number of less than great presidents. However, for some strange reason, JFK has been honored with identification to a massive amount of memorials, schools, roadways, plazas, avenues, statues, stadiums, transit facilities, buildings, and institutions. Similar to public relations efforts that keep Rudolf Valentino, Greta Garbo, and George Gershwin alive, the public relations effort that created a “Camelot” for Kennedy’s administration extends to eternity. I recognize that JFK was assassinated and deserves a sympathetic look, which he can and should have in memorials. More than a few memorials for a less than great president is bewildering.

New York’s Idlewild airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport; Cape Canaveral Space center was renamed JFK Space enter; and Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy, before a referendum passed by Florida voters in 1973 reverted it to its original name. The John F. Kennedy Expressway in Chicago is one of many roadways named after the former president.

In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation creating a National Cultural Center in the nation’s capital. Two months after Kennedy’s assassination, an Act of Congress designated the National Cultural Center as The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The JFK Center opened its doors in 1971.

Recognized as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy did not mean The Center for the Performing Arts operates to popularize the Kennedy name and the Kennedy presidency. For decades, I found minor references to President Kennedy within the building and only recently have I been alerted that the building, as an institution for the performing arts, has been reconstituted as a living testimony to President John F. Kennedy and his presidency. In the huge entranceway, known as the Hall of States, photos of JFK, plastered to the walls in a haphazard and awkward manner ruin the quiet elegance the hall attempted to achieve.

On the top floor, a space has been dedicated for a Kennedy museum. The museum consists of a collection of photographs, sound recordings, newspaper clippings, posters, and video presentations, has no coherence, provides little insight into the Kennedy mystique, and resembles an arcade.

Lacking information, artefacts, and research, it is a poor tribute to the thirty-fifth president of the USA and a dud when compared to The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum at Columbia Point, on the UMass campus, Boston, MA. With coherent information, artefacts, and extensive research, the latter records Kennedy’s history, his rise in politics, his successes and failures, his rivalry with Lyndon Johnson, and the ultimate reversal in fortunes for the two major politicians of their times.

(3) Has disagreeable sculptures that may fit other public places but do not have a place in a building that houses a National Center for the Performing Arts.

In a plaza facing the two entrances to the Kennedy Center are bas-reliefs by the German sculptor, Jurgen Weber — “Amerika” and “War or Peace,” both gifts by the Goethe Institute to the Kennedy Center.

“Amerika” with a “K’ is fashionable with those who are not raptured with America. Add an angry “statue of liberty” and know the artist is not partisan to American life. I don’t understand how the unrelated juxtaposition of naked people, lips without faces, faces without bodies, objects without meaning, and non-descript buildings describes Amerika, at least it is not clear.

An angry and masculine statue of Liberty, one of America’s most treasured possessions, does not resonate with the public. An artist can be excused for challenging many of the U.S. hypocritical symbols, but nobody extinguishes the lady’s torch.

The tableau is gruesome, disturbing, unimaginative, and without composition or balance. Any comment on Amerikan society is only recognizable by the title. Nor is it original; paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1500, had similar motifs.

The sculpted “War or Peace” is more incomprehensible. Some indications of violence, no indications of war, unpleasantly whimsical, and nothing peaceful. One positive quality ─ the performing arts are represented.

A preferred tittle is “Apollo and Pan,” a variation of the musical contest between the god, Phoebus Apollo, competing in a music competition against the satyr-god, Pan, a derivation of a painting by Hendrik de Clerck, circa 1600. Major variation is the emphasis on the sexes — masculine in Jurgen Weber’s rendition; feminine in Hendrik de Clerck’s interpretation.

Give the bas-relief a name that better identifies the import of the artistic work and I can understand having a renamed and whimsical “War or Peace” on the grounds of a performing arts institution. With little artistic merit, is there a reason for “Amerika and its modern rendition of a previous painting being situated on the grounds of a Center for Performing Arts? More baffling is that neither have been placed in areas where much of the audience walks. “Amerika” is in a plaza that few pass through before entering the building. “War or Peace,” is on a wall that cars pass by before entering the garage. Nobody walks there. There is no reason to walk there and no walk that goes there. I may be the only person who has carefully observed the bas-relief and found a spot to take a picture.

A preview of the cleansed and sanitized Kennedy Center has appeared. Enter the Hall of States and you are welcomed by our majesties, a grim presidente, an archaic black and white photo of Mrs. Trump, and photos of VP JD Vance and his wife; all set in cheap frames from a Michaels store.

What happens next is a mystery. The Kennedy Center will lose much of its audience, the Washington DC area citizens who are the most liberal in the nation, some of its grants from philanthropists, a part of its $46 million federal contribution, and many of the artists and programs that filled up its spaces. Fiscal year 2023 showed revenue of $286,438,548, with the main sources being $140,861,307 in contributions — grants and donations, which made up 49.2 percent of the total revenue) and $129,917,134 from program services — ticket sales and subscriptions, making up 45.4 percent of revenue.

Programs, contributions, and audience will slide, which means revenue will slide. Losses will increase dramatically (claims are made by Interim executive director Ric Grenell that the Kennedy center is already broke) and to where? Will artistic spaces remain empty, and if so, why will they be needed? Not easy to disassemble without demolishing parts of the building; similar to chopping off an arm to gain weight.

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP)
Writing about the USIP may be similar to writing about the pyramids ─ past history. In a short time, the Trump administration removed George E. Moose, the organization’s president, fired most of the USIP board, and left Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Defense University President Peter Garvin as three remaining board members. The unholy trinity appointed Kenneth Jackson as acting USIP president, who fired almost the entire staff of the crumbling U.S. Institute of Peace. Since then, access to website usip.org receives a notice, “Sorry, you have been blocked.”

Established in 1984 by congressional legislation and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Congress funds the USIP and governs it “by a bipartisan board of directors with 15 members, which must include the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the president of the National Defense University. The remaining 12 members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.” Purpose — an independent, nonprofit, national institute tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide.

From my perspective, the USIP contains some eager and valiant persons, working diligently to achieve a peaceful word. Unfortunately, powers to be have prevented the efforts in achieving peace. The Board of Directors who frame the agenda are those who receive the recommendations that shape the government’s legislative and executive agendas. They are not independent and talk to themselves. Similar to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial museum, which has shown no effort in preventing holocausts, both institutions exist to delude the public into believing they represent the better nature of an America that promotes war and genocide.

This was confirmed in 2008, when the U.S. Institute of Peace, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the American Academy of Diplomacy jointly convened the Genocide Prevention Task Force to “spotlight genocide prevention as a national priority and to develop practical policy recommendations to enhance the capacity of the U.S. government to respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities.” Since then, we have had the Rwanda genocide, the Rohingya genocide, and the ongoing, most severe and most obvious Palestinian genocide. The latter exposes the hypocrisy of the USIP and its cronies.

Where goeth USIP has big problems. Congress authorized $100 million for construction of its headquarters, and private donors raised another $86 million to satisfy its construction. Who owns the building and what will be its new charter are unclear. How, or will the private donors be repaid? A war will be raging at the Institute of Peace.

What and who are next on the chopping block of the 21st century “reign of terror?” Careful, Miss Statue of Liberty, who has the effrontery to welcome those lazy, dirty, and criminal immigrants to our vibrant, antiseptic, and uncorrupted shores.

Watch out, you may be next.

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Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com.  He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.

 

The Struggle for Western Sahara

by Black Alliance for Peace / April 1st, 2025

The struggle for Western Sahara stands as one of Africa’s longest-running battles against colonialism and neocolonial occupation. Since Spain’s withdrawal in 1975, the Sahrawi people have resisted Moroccan annexation, enduring forced displacement, repression, and the theft of their land and resources. Today, as Morocco consolidates its illegal occupation with U.S., French, and Israeli backing, including through AFRICOM-linked military exercises, the Polisario Front has reignited armed resistance, refusing to let Western Sahara remain the last colony in Africa.

This fight is not isolated. It mirrors the broader contradictions of imperialism on the continent, where puppet regimes collaborate with foreign powers to suppress liberation movements while looting Africa’s wealth. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), recognized by the African Union, embodies Pan-African resistance, drawing solidarity from socialist and anti-imperialist forces worldwide. Yet, Western powers continue to prop up Morocco’s occupation, just as they back Israel’s genocide in Palestine, exposing the shared enemy faced by oppressed peoples globally.

The Sahrawi struggle is a litmus test for anti-imperialists. As they reclaim their land through armed resistance, their fight echoes a universal truth: liberation is never given. It is taken.

U.S. Out of Africa: Voices from the Struggle

AFRICOM Watch Bulletin spoke with India Pitts, who is an artist and organiser with the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party and its women’s wing, All-African Women’s Revolutionary Union, based in occupied North Carolina.

AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: The Sahrawi people have been struggling politically for independence from first Spain and then subsequently Mauritania and Morocco since at least the late 1960s.   For those who are just coming to be aware of your fight, who are the Sahrawi people and what is the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic’s (SADR) national liberation struggle?

India Pitts: The Sahrawi people are made up of strong, beautiful, courageous, and determined Africans and Arabs who are waging a legitimate struggle for our land, in the Western Sahara territory. Being there on the ground, we identify politically as Africans, understanding the overall struggle for a United States of Africa.  Similarly to other African countries, the Sahawari people have defeated colonialism and now are struggling against neocolonialism and the puppets who take on traits of the enemy.  After the struggle for independence from Spain the Europeans, always choosing to be delusional,  gave Western Sahara to Mauritania and Morocco.  Like it was ever their legitimate land to give away!  In 1979 Mauritania withdrew, leaving France/Spain/US/Israel backed Morocco to illegitimately occupy 70% of the Western Sahara territory.  After showing three decades of patience waiting for Morocco to abide by the UN resolution to recognize Western Sahara’s sovereignty, the Sahrawi people were forced back into armed struggle in 2020. That brings us to the present day, where the armed struggle continues, as they gain more and more of our land back from western neocolonialist puppets and patriarchal governments like the Kingdom of Morocco.

In 1976 The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was established by the Polisario Front as an independent state. The masses of Western Sahara chose the Polisario Front to represent us in the struggle for sovereignty in Western Sahara.

In character, the SADR, the Polisario Front, and overall Western Sahara’s evolution is Pan-African. The Polisario Front was established in 1973, and three years later proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.  Between those years, in 1975, the honorable El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed and other revolutionaries from the Polisario Front gathered the leaders of the Sahawari Tribes to unite them in a national council and move them from a tribal bonding to national bonding.  The tribal leaders responded and declared that they chose national unity under the leadership of the Polisario Front with Kwame Nkrumah’s (the founder of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party) understanding that independence is meaningless without African Unity.

At this time we would like to remind everyone that the Polisario Front is a revolutionary movement, a socialist national liberation movement, anti-colonial, anti-zionist, anti-capitalist, and pan-African in orientation. The Polisario Front is not a political party,

AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: We were surprised on January 7 with the announced suspension of relations between the Republic of Ghana and the SADR.  Could you shed some light on this development please and also speak on the SADR’s relationship with other fresh political developments in the sub-region?

India Pitts: Similarly to Palestine, the Western Sahara struggle is a litmus test where neo-colonist puppets can’t hide their true colors. Ghana’s decision did not surprise us at all given Nana Akufo-Addo’s legacy. This is the same person who saddled Ghana with loans from the IMF up to 1.92 billion dollars, and commended western puppet William Ruto for sending police officers into Haiti, one of Africa’s 1st republics.

We are disappointed that many see this as representing the whole of Ghana. The masses of Ghana see this as a betrayal not only to the Pan-African movement, but to Kwame Nkrumah’s legacy of recognizing SADR since 1979 which reaffirmed Ghana’s commitment to justice and decolonization. We know Ghana has historically held a torch for the causes of anti-colonialism and sovereignty, extending support to movements in Africa and beyond.  In the 2000s we saw this same trend of western puppets backing out on their support of SADR.  This political development in Ghana is no different.

SADR in the present day continues to maintain relations with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Yemen, North Korea, occupied Azania, Iran, Mali, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Additionally Algeria has been a vital brother and sister to Western Sahara, providing aid, land and education to the Sahrawi people.  Even with the US blockade and the occupation of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba still manages to provide doctors, medical supplies, and education to the Sahawari people, and many have attended university in Cuba as well.

Also we must mention that during the late 60’s, even before Algeria was backing Western Sahara, Pan-Africanist Gaddafi’s Libya supported our legitimate struggle in Western Sahara, including with tents which still stand today in our refugee camps in Algeria.  Support also came from Pan-African, socialist, and anti-imperialist movements like those of Cuba, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Venezuela, Columbia, Ghana, and Kenya.

AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: Can you please speak to the analogies between your struggles and those of the Palestinian people and discuss the impacts of Operation Al Aqsa Flood and the subsequent genocide in Palestine for your people?

India Pitts: The relationship between the Sahrawi and Palestinian causes dates back to the last century when the Polisario Front began coordinating with liberation forces in the region and across the Global South.  Upon its establishment, the Polisario Front declared that the strength and continuity of the revolution depended on building relationships and establishing a joint struggle among peoples to confront imperialism and capitalist colonialism.

The Polisario Front implemented this revolutionary methodology immediately after its formation. The leader and martyr El Wali Mustapha Sayed made sure to visit Libya, Vietnam, Algeria, and Cuba, and coordinated with African leaders from various liberation movements. He also visited Beirut where he met with the Palestinian leader George Habash, alongside leaders and members of the Palestinian Liberation Front. This meeting marked the beginning of a long-standing relationship that continues to this day between the Palestinian and Sahrawi causes.  George Habash visited Sahrawi refugee camps a year after the martyrdom of El Wali Mustapha Sayed in 1976.  During his visit, George Habash emphasized that the fate of the two peoples are interconnected not only in fighting imperialism, but also in combating puppet regimes that represent colonial interests and perpetuate colonialism in the region.  Of course foremost among them was the Moroccan regime.  During that visit George Habash praised the struggle of the Sahrawi people and thanked them for fighting the Moroccan regime which poses a threat to the Palestinian cause.  He also recalled the history of conspiracy and normalization initiated by Morocco with the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people. This relationship continues into the current phase where the Al-Aqsa Flood marks a new beginning for all struggling peoples living under the oppression of imperialism and colonialism.  This phase is not merely a legendary armed struggle against a deeply entrenched colonial entity fortified with technology and the generous support of the U.S. empire.  Rather it is a rewriting of revolutionary history and the decriminalization of armed resistance.

Since the 1980s American and European imperialism have pursued a strategy of ideological warfare by controlling the media, spreading the toxins of liberalism, and portraying liberation as an internal issue with dictatorial regimes that can be resolved through concepts of human rights and democracy delivered on the back of U.S. tanks, World Bank and IMF loans, blockades, and sanctions.

This approach contributed to the draining of the revolutionary spirit that accompanied national liberation wars.  By funding movements and social justice organizations in the Global South, as well as criminalizing armed struggle and linking it to terrorism, imperialism ended decades of revolutionary work, political organization, and education that clarified to people their true enemy and equipped them with the necessary tools to confront it.

The Al-Aqsa Flood operation removed this veil and contributed to strengthening and enhancing the resistance of entire peoples, including the Sahrawi people who had resumed armed struggle against the Moroccan monarchy, a puppet of colonialism, on November 13, 2020.  The Al-Aqsa Flood reinforced this path and marked the end of a phase in which our peoples were enslaved under the ideology of colonialism.  The Zionist genocide in Gaza also exposed colonial conspiracies and the hypocrisy of the slogans they raised, revealing that the only lives that matter are those of the colonizers.  The masks have been removed from the international community, the United Nations, and humanitarian organizations.  It has become a firm conviction among the Sahrawi people, the Palestinian people, and oppressed peoples across Africa and the world, that the path to liberation lies in adhering to the option of armed resistance, allying with the peoples of the Global South, and strengthening revolutionary ties among all movements fighting against the U.S. empire of colonialism and European imperialism.

AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: There have been sporadic bursts of support for SADR positions from unlikely voices such as Condoleeza Rice or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  What do you make of these oscillations and how do they impact your assessment of what to expect from a new administration that contains both tendencies?

India Pitts: This question is closely related to a point mentioned in the previous question regarding the colonial conspiracy carried out by imperialism since the 1980s.  When imperialism failed to defeat the revolutions against colonialism in the Global South and when oppressed peoples organized themselves under a socialist and revolutionary ideology that raised arms, theory, and practice, to repel capitalist imperialism (gaining popular support and engagement from all segments of society,) and when it failed to break the resolve of these peoples, it resorted to the most cunning forms of circumvention.  It spread the toxins of liberalism and wielded the weapon of terrorism accusations and sanctions.  It attempted to resurrect clownish figures and agents representing the U.S. system to deceive struggling peoples and movements into believing that it had changed its nature and was now concerned with their problems—problems that the U.S. itself had created.  However it became clear to everyone that what the U.S. had changed was merely the snake’s skin, while its venom, fangs, and tail remained intact, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Approaching the Sahrawi cause was a malicious U.S. strategy after the United Nations falsely promised the Sahrawi people a self-determination referendum once they laid down their arms against the Moroccan occupation and signed a ceasefire agreement.

The aim of this agreement was to exhaust the liberation movement, cut off its fighters’ breath, corner it, and prevent it from liberating the remaining parts of its land.  To achieve this strategy the U.S. beast oversaw the negotiations and played the role of a concerned party seeking to end this conflict, which it had created, making Morocco the occupying proxy on behalf of imperialism to retaliate against the Sahrawi revolution.

The revolution had declared war on Spain and France and announced itself as an anti-colonial, socialist revolution with a unifying orientation toward the peoples of the continent, which was a declaration of war on the U.S.

The U.S. intervened in 1975 through Henry Kissinger to engineer the Madrid Accords which divided the Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania as retaliation against this revolution.  Subsequently the U.S. armed Morocco, its loyal ally in North Africa, and has continued to support it with weapons and political backing to this day.  Therefore we always say that the truth of the Moroccan occupation is revealed by who supports it.  Morocco is supported by France, the U.S., the Zionist entity, Spain, and European imperialism, while the Sahrawi people are supported by liberation movements in Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean, and all oppressed peoples and revolutionary consciences worldwide.

What these malicious U.S. figures did to the Sahrawi cause, they also did to the Palestinian cause.  The U.S. consistently attempted, through the faces of its puppets, to project an image of neutrality while simultaneously arming and supporting Israel.  The same applies to its limited stances on the Sahrawi issue.

As for the Sahrawi people and the Polisario Front, they were never deceived regarding the U.S.’s true nature. There was always a sense of wariness towards these maneuvers even though some individuals associated with the movement engaged in relationships with U.S. organizations as is the case in most African countries.

The decisive response to the reality of the conflict with the U.S. came in 2020 when Donald Trump, before the end of his term, recognized the sovereignty of the Moroccan occupation over Western Sahara through a Twitter post.  Subsequently the Biden administration continued to silently support Morocco as had been the case before.  Therefore the Sahrawi people expect no good from the U.S. colonial system, neither from the face that wears a mask to hide its true nature nor from the current fascist face led by Trump.  The Sahrawi people have always known their friends and allies:  the revolutionaries against colonialism, the free, and all those who fight against the U.S., Europe, and their agents.

AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: From a popular uprising standpoint, the Sahrawi self-determination struggle has been widely regarded as not only legitimate but inspiring.  Also it is worth noting that the Black Alliance for Peace has a Shutdown AFRICOM campaign that is ironically implicated as both the United States and Morocco have used the Moroccan location of the annual African Lion Exercise (the largest AFRICOM exercise) as a bargaining chip to attempt to strongarm concessions in one direction or another.  While we are clear in our U.S. Out of Africa perspective, do you have any thoughts on these relativities and any message or requests to the grassroots?

India Pitts: We encourage everyone to educate themselves on international affairs.  There you will see the interconnectedness of our enemies.  Not only is Morocco allowing the U.S. to host the annual African Lion Exercise but Morocco has Israel drone companies in the Western Sahara occupied territory.

Each company and government cooperating with Morocco, including in the integrated waters off the coast of Western Sahara that Morocco put into its maritime territory, have not tried to obtain permission to do so from the people of the Western Sahara.  Instead they make agreements with these illegitimate settlers.  This violates our right to self-determination in the Western Sahara occupied region.

Our enemies work together, historically and in the present day, similar to the US backing Israel in occupied Palestine.  We saw this with our own eyes when we were commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the National Union of Sahrawi Women in the refugee camps. There we saw the army resources that Spain, the US, and France had provided for Morocco to continue to occupy the Western Sahara territory that the Polisario Front captured during our armed struggle.

We want the grassroots including the organizers everywhere to understand their responsibility to the international struggle against imperialism because our enemies and the enemies of nature, organize together to destroy humanity.   Africans, everywhere, must understand our responsibility to Africa because our destiny is tied to Africa.  We cannot continue to commemorate these flag independence days with Western Sahara occupied and Africa’s islands still being colonized.  It is imperative that we organize against neocolonialism governments, all occupations, and European settlers! 

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The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. Read other articles by Black Alliance for Peace, or visit Black Alliance for Peace's website.

 

The United States of Tyranny: America Is Becoming a Constitution-Free Zone

by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / April 1st, 2025

It’s no joke: America is becoming a Constitution-free zone.

Little by little, our rights are being whittled down in the name of national security.

Where do you draw the line?

How much tyranny will Americans tolerate in the name of national security?

At what point does this slippery slope of power grabs lead to dictatorship?

Will we let border police trample on the rights of everyone they encounter, including legal residents and citizens? Turn a blind eye when men, women and children are forcibly detained by gangs of plainclothes agents and made to disappear? Will we accept a national ID card that enables the government to target individuals and groups it deems undesirable? Will we tolerate AI-powered surveillance cameras and drones that track us more effectively than they protect us? Will we censor ourselves, fearing that any expression of dissent will mark us as anti-government?

Will we abandon the constitutional principles our founders fought for? This is the bargain the police state demands of us.

Take immigration, for example.

President Trump wants us to believe that the nation’s security is so threatened by illegal immigrants that we should tolerate roving bands of ICE and border patrol agents disregarding the Constitution at every turn.

But these government agents aren’t just disregarding it—they’re trampling it with the blessing of the man who swore to “preserve, protect and defend” that very same Constitution.

First Amendment rights to free speech, assembly, and protest. Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Fifth Amendment guarantees of due process. Sixth Amendment protections ensuring a right to legal counsel. Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishments. Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law.

All of these and more are being imperiously swept aside in the Trump Administration’s pursuit of an America “for Americans and Americans only.”

Trump has invoked wartime powers under the Alien Enemies Act to justify the expulsion of illegal immigrants, whom Trump has likened to terrorists, killers, criminals, and enemies of the state.

However, with national security being used as a pretext to strip away rights on a larger scale than just criminals, the individuals targeted by the Trump Administration’s overreach represent a broader cross-section of American society: immigrants, both documented and undocumented, who live and work in the mainland of the United States. (It is estimated that undocumented immigrants paid nearly $97 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, contributing $59.4 billion to the federal government, including payments for federal income tax and federal social insurance such as Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Insurance. In other words, they are paying for entitlement programs for which they do not receive benefits.)

Individuals whose visas allow them to legally reside in the U.S. are also being rounded up and made to disappear without due process.

The reports of how these round-ups are being carried out—with ambushes on city streets, in broad daylight, at the hands of masked, plainclothes officers, and without any charges being levied, court hearings or defense attorneys notified—are beyond chilling.

Some are being targeted based on their nationality. Some are being racially profiled. Some are being classified as criminal based solely on the fact that they have tattoos. Some, like Abrego Garcia, are being mistakenly snatched up and deported to private prisons in foreign countries, beyond the physical reach of U.S. courts.

As Garcia’s attorney warned, the Trump Administration seems to have adopted the mindset that “the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”

And then there are the scientists, doctors, academics and students who are being rounded up because at some point they voiced their concerns about the mounting death toll in Palestine.

With the Trump Administration now equating even the perception of antisemitism as terrorism, that puts anyone in the government crosshairs who even dares to suggest that the killing of civilian women and children in Palestine is wrong.

For example, Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk wrote an op-ed calling for the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel. That’s all it took for her to be placed on the government’s enemies list, stripped of her visa without warning or notice, surrounded on the street by a small army of masked agents, and whisked out of state to a detention center 1500 miles away without any family or friend knowing her whereabouts.

These arbitrary roundups and deportations are not just violations of the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections. They also trample the First Amendment’s right to free speech and assembly, particularly for those who speak out against government policies.

These actions are not limited to just immigrants or perceived enemies—they extend to anyone daring to challenge the status quo. Whether it’s activists, academics, or everyday citizens, being targeted for political expression is an assault on the very essence of free speech.

In this way, these round-ups represent the beginning of the slippery slope, leading not just to arbitrary detentions and the expansion of private prisons as an extension of the police state but to an eventual authoritarian regime where dissent is suppressed, and constitutional rights are discarded.

This is not just happening at the southern border.

These round-ups are increasingly occurring in cities like New York, Boston, and northern Virginia, with many U.S. citizens also being swept up in warrantless searches, surveillance, and overreach from federal and local law enforcement.

Where once the nation’s border constituted a thin line, it is becoming an ever-thickening zone dominated by authoritarianism and an utter disregard for the rule of law.

This zone impacts millions of Americans who have never been near a border—citizens who live in everyday places, like urban and suburban areas, yet are subject to government overreach.

As journalist Todd Miller explains, that expanding border region now extends “100 miles inland around the United States—along the 2,000-mile southern border, the 4,000-mile northern border and both coasts… This ‘border’ region now covers places where two-thirds of the US population (197.4 million people) live… The ‘border’ has by now devoured the full states of Maine and Florida and much of Michigan.”

Nearly 66% of Americans (2/3 of the U.S. population, or 197.4 million people) now live within that 100-mile-deep, Constitution-free zone.

In this authoritarian reshaping of America, no one is safe, not even in their own homes.

The government’s ever-expanding, Constitution-free zone translates to greater numbers of Americans being subject to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of the borderlands.

From facial recognition software to mass data collection, surveillance technology is being used to monitor immigrants and ordinary citizens alike who are not suspected of any crime.

With Trump considering plans to turn a portion of the southern border into an expansive military installation policed by active-duty troops, we’re going to see even more of these assaults on our freedoms. As Trump promised after Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil was arrested because of his anti-war activism, “This is the first arrest of many to come.”

Miller explains:

“In these vast domains, Homeland Security authorities can institute roving patrols with broad, extra-constitutional powers backed by national security, immigration enforcement and drug interdiction mandates. There, the Border Patrol can set up traffic checkpoints and fly surveillance drones overhead with high-powered cameras and radar that can track your movements. Within twenty-five miles of the international boundary, CBP [Customs and Border Protection] agents can enter a person’s private property without a warrant.”

Across the nation, local police forces are becoming militarized extensions of federal agencies like CBP and DHS, routinely receiving federal funds and training to act as armed enforcers of national security policies. By the time you add the military into that equation, you’ve got all the necessary ingredients for martial law.

The CBP, with its more than 60,000 Customs and Border Protection employees, supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S. military, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies.

Just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to local police agencies in the form of grants to transform them into extensions of the military.

As Miller points out, the government has turned the nation’s expanding border regions into “a ripe place to experiment with tearing apart the Constitution, a place where not just undocumented border-crossers, but millions of borderland residents have become the targets of continual surveillance.”

In much the same way that police across the country have been schooled in the art of sidestepping the Constitution, border agents have nearly unlimited discretion to stop, search, interrogate and arrest anyone they “suspect,” based on arbitrary factors such as:

• Driving an unusual vehicle.
• Passengers appearing “suspicious.”
• Having a dusty or modified car.
• Avoiding eye contact or looking too long at an officer.

These arbitrary and broad criteria make it easy for any citizen to be targeted without just cause, turning everyday travel into a potential confrontation with law enforcement. In other words, anything goes when it comes to the police state’s justifications for undermining our rights.

These troubling developments at the borders are just one part of a broader erosion of constitutional rights that has been underway for decades in the name of national security.

When we look back at history, we see a consistent pattern of political power grabbing in the name of national security. From the Alien and Sedition Acts to the War on Terror, the price of security is always paid by our freedoms—and each step we take brings us closer to a system where those in power determine the limits of our liberty by using national security as an excuse to curtail fundamental freedoms.

Fast-forward to the present, and Donald Trump capitalized on this historical pattern by claiming that the only way to keep America safe from dangerous immigrants was to build an expensive border wall, expand the reach of border patrol, and enlist the military to “assist” with border control.

Continuing this trend, Joe Biden sent thousands of active-duty troops to the southern border, in anticipation of more than 10,000 illegal crossings per day—reinforcing the military presence and fortifying the unchecked power at the border.

And now Trump is doubling down on everything he and his predecessors have done to fortify this unchecked power.

This pattern of exploiting national security fears for authoritarian control has continued into the present day with Trump’s immigration crisis becoming a pretext for greater control, a strategy to stoke fear and justify authoritarianism.

Yet despite the propaganda coming from the White House, the looming problem is not so much that the U.S. is being invaded by hostile forces at the border, but rather that the U.S. Constitution is under assault from within by a power-hungry cabal at the highest levels of power.

Before long, the only Americans qualified to live freely in Trump’s America will be those who march in lockstep with the Deep State’s dictates, and even absolute compliance is no guarantee of safety.

It used to be that the Constitution was our only reliable safety net, but that is being systematically dismantled.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the government is now the greatest threat to our safety, and there’s no border wall big enough to protect us from these ruffians in our midst.

The answer to this growing tyranny begins with us—“We the people.”

The Constitution should not be negotiable. Freedom is not negotiable.

You want to make America great again? Start by making America free again.

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John W. Whitehead, constitutional attorney and author, is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He wrote the book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015). He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Read other articles by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.