As Colombia approaches presidential elections next year, the US decision to decertify the country in the war on drugs plays into the hands of its allies on the political right, writes NICK MacWILLIAM

PEOPLE rejected in the past — African-Americans, Latinos, poor whites, women and workers — “are the cornerstones who can rebuild America,” the Reverend William Barber declared in his latest sermon in Washington DC about the New Poor People’s Campaign.
“The rejected must lead a revival of love and justice” in the US, the veteran North Carolinian minister told a near-capacity crowd in the largest church in the capital, Washington National Cathedral.
Barber’s hour-long sermon before almost 4,000 people featured references, from both the Torah (the Old Testament) and the Holy Scriptures (the New Testament) about how the downtrodden of history, written off, rejected or ignored by “leaders,” rose up to lead the masses to reclaim nations and moral values.

The US could imminently return to the Wild West days of widespread and sometimes violent corporate repression of workers, says MARK GRUENBERG


