Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of May 14, 2012
15 May 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

NATO to Plan More War in Chicago

This week’s NATO summit meeting, in Chicago, “will be full of aggressive activities: plans for energy wars around the world, new decisions about how the U.S will maintain hegemony in the oil-rich Middle East and Afghanistan,” said Chris Gavreau, spokesperson for UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. Thousands of demonstrators are expected to converge on the city.

Boycott the Two Major Parties

“We know him as a war president, we know him as an anti-civil liberties president, we know him as an austerity president – that’s the record,” said Dr. Tony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia, speaking of Barack Obama. “The same goes for Mitt Romney.” Progressives and the Black Left should “boycott the two major parties” this election cycle.

Obama the Militarist

The president proclaims his militarism “proudly, with repeated references to ‘taking out’ al Qaida operatives through the most illegal methods imaginable,” said political analyst Paul Street, author of The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power. Street noted that Obama called his own health care program “centrist,” while admitting that it is modeled on a plan developed by the rightwing Heritage Foundation in the Nineties.

Derivatives Wreak Havoc at Banks

JP Morgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, gambled away billions because neither party made any real “effort to crack down on derivatives in general,” said Doug Henwood, editor of Left Business Observer. “It’s remarkable how little has changed since the financial crisis” of 2008, said Henwood. “This is precisely the sort of thing that was supposed to be stopped.”

Cap Earnings of Rich

The U.S. should return to President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1942 proposal to use tax policy to cap wages at $25,000 a year – $364,000 in current money – said Johnny E. Williams, associate professor of sociology at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. Prof. Williams recently authored the article “Toward a Maximum Wage,” published in Counterpunch. A maximum wage should be linked to the minimum wage, he said. If the max goes up, so would the minimum, creating “a sense of community.”

Obama’s Allegiances

President Obama’s “policies are similar to the Bush administration but, in my opinion, are far worse, because he presented himself in 2008 as a change agent,” said Abayomi Azikewe, editor of the Pan African Newswire. Today, people see Obama as he really is, “a representative of the banks, the transnational corporations and the Pentagon – pure and simple.” Azikewe spoke with host Solomon Commissiong on Your World News, broadcast on WPWC Radio, in Washington, DC.

 

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Tuesday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.


More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Eric Adams and the Death of Black Politics
    09 Oct 2024
    The indictment of New York City mayor Eric Adams is the latest example of moribund Black politics. Rich donors and corporate media decide who will be elected to office, while the people’s needs go…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    October 7th, The Election and Capitalist Crisis, A Conversation with Ajamu Baraka
    09 Oct 2024
    Margaret Kimberley and Ajamu Baraka discuss the US upcoming presidential election, and the historic events unfolding in Western Asia - where Israel continues its onslaught of the region with an…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Rethinking Race, Rethinking Class, Charles W. Mills, 1995
    09 Oct 2024
    “We need to give greater theoretical centrality to the fact that European conquest of the world has established what is in effect: global white supremacy.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Social Media Beyond Corporate Control
    09 Oct 2024
    ​​​​​​​Social media bans on African Stream should remind us that corporations will never facilitate anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist narratives and stir us to look for alternatives.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    Britain Cedes Control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius While Maintaining Pentagon Base
    09 Oct 2024
    After nearly six decades, the right to self-determination and independence is still being denied to the Indigenous people as the United States prepares for expanding imperialist wars in Asia and…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us