Cynthia McKinney's Anti-War Tour Comes to Philadelphia

by Ron Ridenour

Leading black-skinned representatives of the “hegemon”, as Cynthia McKinney calls President Barack Obama and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, could hardly expect to win any votes from the standing-room-only crowd at her anti-war tour Friday night at Calvary Church in Philadelphia.

Speaking before nearly 300 people--two-thirds of them black, the remainder white and hispanic--in her T-shirt proclaiming that “war kills”, the former U.S. congresswoman said: 

“We need someone in the White House who thinks like us and not just one who looks like us. We have to act like we’re free if we want to be free. We have to liberate ourselves from war-mongering political parties.”

Philadelphia was one of the last cities on McKinney’s International Action Center-sponsored “Report from Libya: Impact of U.S. war in Africa” tour, which hit 21-plus cities. The Philadelphia meeting was co-sponsored by several community groups and left-wing political parties, including the Green Par,ty which ran Mckinney as its candidate during the last presidential campaign.

In addition to McKinney, representatives of the community and Sara Flounders, co-director of the IAC, spoke. Pam Africa of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal said, “This meeting is about action to stop the wars over there and here at home. And Amy Goodman [Democracy Now anchor] needs to stop ignoring the word brought to us by Cynthia McKinney.” A brust of applause reenforced this viewpoint.

A representative of an anti-police brutality group encouraged people to vote for Diop Olugbala for mayor as the only anti-imperialist running against the pro-corporate Mayor Michael Nutter. 

McKinney led a delegation to Libya last May-June in opposition to the US-NATO assault on that country, which began in March and destroyed much of Tripoli and other cities that were controlled by the government of Muamar Gadsafy. She witnessed some of the bombing and its destruction of life and of the country’s infrastructure.

“I speak with a heavy heart, knowing that places I visited no longer exist. Migrant workers camped out in tents close to ‘The Door to Africa’ as Gaddafi’s residence, Bab al-Azizia, is known. They are gone now, many split into pieces; only rubble remains,” said McKinney...

For the rest of this article by RON RIDENOUR in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/745