Green Party Black Caucus Endorses Roseanne Barr
Based largely on name recognition and a nod from former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party’s Black Caucus has thrown its support to celebrity Roseanne Barr for president. “The reality is, to break through the mainstream media, a person has to have that type of recognition,” said Black Caucus spokesman Thomas Muhammad. “The more attention she gets, the more attention the party gets, and that’s the reality of politics.” The heads-up from McKinney, the party’s 2008 presidential candidate, was key, said Muhammad. “It was very critical because, without that, some of our party members were going to look elsewhere.”
UNAC Says “No” to Intervention or Sanctions Against Syria and Iran
“We need an anti-war movement that is really against all U.S. wars – that simple,” said Sara Flaunders, of the International Action Center, at the Stamford, Connecticut, conference of UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. “How does any U.S. official lecture any other country on prisoners, on human rights, or on democracy? This country has the largest prison population in the world.”
Margaret Kimberley at UNAC: Choose Peace or Obama
“You cannot be anti-war and pro-Obama,” said Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report. “The United States, France and the UK conspired to bring down a sovereign nation’s government, kill its leader, spread a race war and lynch law, and divide Libya into weak fiefdoms incapable of stopping their collaborators from turning over their resources to NATO and the G-8 countries,” said Kimberley. “These people will not be happy until the people of the world accept their rule without protest.”
Glen Ford at UNAC: U.S. Society is Organized Around Racial Oppression
“One out of every eight prison inmates on the planet is an African American,” said Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda report. “That statistic alone serves to illuminate” that the U.S. is “a society that is largely organized around race and racial oppression. That’s what the Black American Gulag means.”
Nellie Bailey at UNAC: Obama A “Servant of the 1%”
In 2007, “when the U.S. imperialists introduced Barack Obama to us,” many “comrades and activists” succumbed to “our blind spot” and decided, “this is our man – when, in fact, Obama is a servant of the 1%,” said Nellie Bailey, Black Agenda Report editor and director of the Harlem Tenants Council. But resistance to Obama continues among African Americans, “and will not roll over to his disdain and disrespect.”
Bruce Dixon at UNAC: The “Bipartisan” Prison State
“The prison state is very much a bi-partisan thing,” said Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report managing editor. Corporations and their philanthropic arms, like the United Way, “present a lot of opportunities for hijacking and containing the anti-prison movement within the universe bound by the two political parties.” The movement “against mass incarceration has to be led, in large part, by the formerly incarcerated, themselves.”
April 19: Day of National Resistance Against Mass Incarceration
The Trayvon Martin killing is reminiscent of the 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision, that Black have no rights that whites are bound to respect, said Carl Dix, of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. Dix urged folks to “go from your anger around the injustice at the murder of Trayvon Martin, to anger around all of the abuse that the criminal injustice system is bringing down on Black and brown people.” For information, call 866.841.9139 x 2670.
Minneapolis Demo for Trayvon
“As long as we can come together to show that we’re not going to stand for it, were going in the right direction,” said Sam Ndely, a student organizer of a protest that drew 5500 demonstrators to the University of Minnesota.
A “Second Phase” for Occupy?
The newly launched National Occupy Washington campaign of public education and direct action hopes to launch a “second phase” of the Occupy Wall Street movement, said organizer Kevin Zeese. “This is our view of the American Spring.” Preventive detention legislation is “a sign of the elite becoming afraid, and starting to put in place the powers they need to control the people. The only response we have is to get more active.”
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.
Dr. Gerald Horne joins us to discuss US/Israeli policy driving the war crimes and genocide in Gaza. We also discuss the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine and other international issues.
Jemma Decristo joins us to discuss the passage of Proposition F in San Francisco and the criminalization of poverty and drug use.
Haiti has been the "laboratory of neo-colonialism" since at least 1915. At the moment, Haitians are again revolting and striving to shake off the yoke of European and American oppressors. Listen to…
The TikTok social media platform is an indicator of U.S. imperialist angst and an incentive for greed. First China was a political target and now Zionists are on the attack in an effort to suppress…
Legendary Pan-Africanist and Marxist journalist, Samori Marksman provides a powerful archive of the scale and scope of nefarious US actions in the Caribbean region.
