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 10/28/13
29 Oct 2013
🖨️ Print Article

Bankers and State Owe Detroit

Instead of figuring out ways to strip Detroit of its assets to pay banks, the courts should force bankers and the state to repay the city hundreds of millions owed. “Some of the main creditors have been bogus, complicated interest rate swaps by banks who overcharged hundreds of millions of dollars of interest,” said community activist Debra Taylor. “If anything, that needs to be renegotiated.” Taylor said the city was also denied $224 million in revenue sharing funds when the state arbitrarily changed the payment formula.

Obama Schemes to Cut Social Security

President Obama has “enabled” the assault on Social Security and other entitlement programs since his first days in office, said independent journalist Arun Gupta, a co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal. The president has long sought an austerity “Grand Bargain” with Republicans, but has been stymied by GOP reluctance to cut a deal. “The U.S. has become so dysfunctional, in terms of its political system,” said Gupta, “it seems the most you can hope for is gridlock.”

Who Stopped Stop-and-Frisk?

Opposition to stop-and-frisk is now all but mandatory among New York City Democrats. But, that wasn’t the case two years ago, when Carl Dix and others began a civil disobedience campaign under the Stop Stop-and-Frisk banner. “Things like stop-and-frisk were not front-burner issues” back then, said Dix. “The question of torture in prison was something hardly anyone knew anything about. We thought that waging a mass resistance movement was a key way to bring these issue front and center.”

Hi-Tech Corporations Behind National Surveillance State

A new study shows the high-tech industrial sector uses its campaign contributions to bolster congressional and White House support for the national surveillance state. “It’s really a giant interest-group issue,” said Dr. Thomas Ferguson, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, at Boston, and an author of the report. “These are industries that we’d already identified as uniquely friendly to Obama,” based on campaign contributions.

U.S. Facilitates Congo Genocide

Six million Congolese have died since neighboring Rwanda and Uganda invaded the country in 1996, said Maurice Carney, director of Friends of Congo. Speaking at the 7th anniversary celebration of Black Agenda Report, at New York City’s historic Riverside Church, Carney said “these crimes could not be committed without the backing of the United States and the protection of its allies, Uganda and Rwanda.” How could Washington call for military action in Syria and Libya, where thousands were at risk, Carney asked, “when you’re not even willing to take diplomatic action in Congo, where we’re talking about millions?” It all depends on whether “one values Black life, or not.”

“Organize!” says Danny Glover

Actor and political activist Danny Glover called for a “reinvigoration of the idea of democracy.” Speaking at a fundraiser for Benton Harbor, Michigan’s Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), the TransAfrica Forum chairman said: “It is important that people are active in the process. We need to organize!”

 

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: One hour.


More Stories


  • The Crisis of White Squatters Rights
    Too Black
    The Crisis of White Squatters Rights
    20 Jan 2021
    The white ruling class is evicting the squatter-in-chief (Trump) for violating the class collaborative agreement.
  • Police Shouldn’t Tag Students as Potential Criminals 
    Priyam Madhukar
    Police Shouldn’t Tag Students as Potential Criminals 
    20 Jan 2021
    When cops create lists of kids “at risk” of falling into crime, it becomes a self-fulfilling indictment.
  • Activists Are Mobilizing to Create an Eviction-Free United States
    Eleanor J. Bader 
    Activists Are Mobilizing to Create an Eviction-Free United States
    20 Jan 2021
    Rent strikers are doing all they can to stop the violence of evictions and promote a vision of collective and community ownership of housing for everyone.
  • End SARS and Fanon’s Mission
    Kehinde Alonge
    End SARS and Fanon’s Mission
    20 Jan 2021
    What is the direction of the mission that falls upon each generation of young Nigerians?
  • Venezuela Sends Oxygen Tanks to Brazilian Amazon State
    Peoples Dispatch Staff
    Venezuela Sends Oxygen Tanks to Brazilian Amazon State
    20 Jan 2021
    Despite being deeply-sanctioned by the US, Venezuela is sharing medical resources with its neighbor. “Latin American solidarity above all!”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us