Black America and the Empire in Crisis
Black Agenda Report at Left Forum
President Obama “sounds more and more like Bush, who left office so unpopular that Republican marketing is still damaged by it,” said editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley at BAR’s Left Forum panel, “Black America and the Empire in Crisis.” In his West Point speech, Obama “told the world there will be no freedom, no democracy, no self-determination,” said Kimberley. “Any nation, any state, any people who try to make their own decisions is in danger of being crushed by the United States.”
Internet’s Days are Numbered
FCC proposals to allow “market” pricing for the Internet would smother Left political discourse. “The fast-lane, slow-lane thing will result in the total privatization of the Internet, restricting our ability to communicate with each other, forever,” said BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon. “If you think our conversation [on the Left] has no power, why are they going to all this trouble to shut it down?”
Obama’s Most Effective Evil
In one key arena, Barack Obama “has done more damage than any white president could possibly inflict,” said BAR executive editor Glen Ford. “He has caused Black people to behave like white people – or even worse than white people – on issues of war and peace.” Polls showed Blacks were more supportive than whites of Obama’s threats to bomb Syria, in 2013. When Obama is gone, “we will have to rebuild the Black consensus for peace all over again,” said Ford.
A “Secure Drop” for Whistleblowers
There’s a new and safer way to alert the public to government crimes, said Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, renowned whistleblower and BAR editor and columnist. “People are afraid to step forward, for fear of getting the Chelsea Manning life imprisonment response from the government,” she said. ExposeFacts.org has unveiled a “drop-box” system that is encrypted and anonymous. “We’re looking forward to people taking advantage of this opportunity to get the information out without having to put their neck on the guillotine,” said Coleman-Adebayo, who serves on the new organization’s advisory board.
A Salute to General Baker
General Gordon Baker Jr., the legendary co-founder of League of Revolutionary Black Workers, died in Detroit at the age 72. Black Agenda Radio co-host Nellie Bailey spoke with Cleo Silvers, an organizer under General Baker for most of the Seventies. “He taught us the importance of understanding the need for unity between all the sectors of the working class,” said Silvers. Racism was rampant in organized labor. “U.A.W. meant ‘You Ain’t White,’” Silvers remembered. “The U.A.W. didn’t take on the issues that were specifically related to the needs of the Black workers who were in those plants, who were becoming a majority in Detroit.”
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.
El Jones is a poet, journalist, professor and activist in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Shaquille Fontenot is a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba and a co-founder of the Low Country Action Committee in Charleston, South Carolina.
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