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.
In this month’s Afghanistan News Update, the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee includes an interview with Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American…
Reproductive justice in the wake of SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade, campaign to free Mumia Abu Jamal, and Frederick Douglass speech "What to the Slave is the 4th of July" read by Ossie Davis.
We discuss reproductive justice in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling which overturned the Roe v. Wade decision. Loretta Ross is co- author of the book Reproductive Justice, and co-founder of…
Gwen Debrow of the Campaign to Free Mumia joins to tell us what we can do to go all out for Mumia during the July 3rd nationwide actions.
On July 5, 1852 Frederick Douglass was asked to speak on the topic of the nation’s independence celebration. Now known as What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, the speech was a stinging…
