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 12/23/13
24 Dec 2013
🖨️ Print Article

NSA Spying Recommendations

Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, was surprised at the scope of a presidential panel’s recommendations to limit spying by the National Security Agency. Some of the 46 proposals reached “beyond the NSA, to also suggest measures to curtail FBI abuses,” said Buttar, who noted that lots of agencies spy on Americans, “including the Postal Service.”

Detroit as Model for Urban Subjugation

A federal bankruptcy judge’s ruling could allow bankers and corporations to “go after pension funds around the United States,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, Detroit community activist and editor of the Pan African News Wire. Judge Steven Rhodes ruled that retiree pensions deserve no more protection than any other creditors. “We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, that are tied up in these pension funds,” said Abayomi.

People’s lawyer Thomas Stephens said “capital is facing a catastrophe, that it created, in Detroit and everywhere else. Where better than Detroit to work out the model” for subjugating urban America?

Vast Inner City Land Grab

A new breed of Wall Street-backed mega real estate companies has been spending $100 million per week for over a year – for a total of $7.5 billion – buying up foreclosed homes to turn them into rental properties, said journalist and author Laura Gottesdiener. One firm, the Blackstone Group, has purchased more than 40,000 homes in 14 cities. The volume is such that “not only are they controlling home prices in these cities, pushing them up, but it’s very likely they’ll be able to price-fix the rental rates, as well.” Gottesdiener is author of A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home.

New Oscar Grant Book

Five years after Oscar Grant was killed by a transit police officer, journalist Thandisizwe Chimurenga is publishing a new book on the subject. The Murder(s) of Oscar Grant “takes a look at the way the media and the court system also murdered” the young Oakland father, said Chimurenga, founder of the Ida B. Wells Institute. “I’m also looking a police murder in general through the lens of this case.”

 

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


  • Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan Clash as River Waters Fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan Clash as River Waters Fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
    15 Jul 2021
    Three nations share the same water, but not the same foreign connections, which makes for a dangerous mix.
  • Pigment of your Imagination: Black magic mascots, props and sops?
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Pigment of your Imagination: Black magic mascots, props and sops?
    15 Jul 2021
    Could the pigment of your imagination cause Black magic mascots, props, sops— Black faces in high places— to short-circuit electrical gray spaces?
  • Defend the Cuba Revolution and Struggle for More Socialism, Not Less!
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Defend the Cuba Revolution and Struggle for More Socialism, Not Less!
    15 Jul 2021
    Millions have turned away from the illusions and corruption of capitalism toward the possibility of organizing a society informed by the values of cooperation, equality, community, peace, and life.
  • The Assassination of Jovenel Moise: What Next for Haiti?
    Seth Donnelly
    The Assassination of Jovenel Moise: What Next for Haiti?
    15 Jul 2021
    Expect the Biden Administration to provide ongoing funding for Haiti’s brutal security forces.
  • The Julian Assange Media Blackout Must End
    Branko Marcetic
    The Julian Assange Media Blackout Must End
    15 Jul 2021
    Embarrassed by revelations, the Biden administration has now offered several “assurances” they would allow Assange to apply for transfer to a prison in his home country of Australia to serve out hi
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us