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


  • BAR Book Forum: Catie Coe’s Book, “The New American Servitude”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Catie Coe’s Book, “The New American Servitude”
    31 Mar 2021
    Senior care puts care workers into racialized, gendered, and age hierarchies, making it difficult for them to achieve social and economic mobility. 
  • BAR Book Forum: Jayna Brown’s “Black Utopias”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Jayna Brown’s “Black Utopias”
    31 Mar 2021
    I am hoping my call will provoke/inspire us to practice forms of life and liveliness differently.
  • We Say Quite Clearly: 'U.S. Out of Haiti!'  
    BAP Haiti Committee
    We Say Quite Clearly: 'U.S. Out of Haiti!'  
    31 Mar 2021
    While Biden is telling Haitians “Don’t come over,” Haiti and its allies have been saying “U.S. Out of Haiti.”
  • The author unpacks the tired trope of “poor rich Haiti,” highlighting the role of foreign capital and local elites in the destruction of life in the countryside.
    Lautaro Rivara
    “Poor Rich Haiti” or How Imperialists and Local Oligarchy Have Sought to Destroy Agriculture in Haiti
    31 Mar 2021
    The author unpacks the tired trope of “poor rich Haiti,” highlighting the role of foreign capital and local elites in the destruction of life in the countryside.
  • Oil Fuels Guyana’s Internecine Conflict 
    Arif Bulkan and Alissa Trotz
    Oil Fuels Guyana’s Internecine Conflict 
    31 Mar 2021
    Guyana’s historically oppressed peoples direct their hostility at each other while neo-imperial powers hide in plain sight and reap the country’s wealth.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us