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
07 Dec 2010
🖨️ Print Article

Grand Juries as Political Weapons, Police Agents Provocateurs, and Privatized Wars

The grand jury process in the U.S. is “an incredibly repressive instrument, says Joe Iosbaker, one of 14 anti-war activist subpoenaed to appear before grand juries probing alleged “material support” to foreign “terrorists.” Iosbaker is a spokesperson for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. He says “the grand jury is an undemocratic tool of repression” that has been used in the past to repress “the Puerto Rican liberation movement, the anti-war movement and Black liberation movement of the 1960s” and in “every decade since the founding of the Republic.”

The case of the 19-year-old Somali-American charged with planning to bomb a public gathering in Oregon is yet another example of police manufacture of “crimes that might never have existed, even as thoughts, without the instigation of police provocateurs," says Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce Dixon.

War is a Lie author David Swanson says U.S. wars and occupations have become largely privatized affairs, which has increased profits, dramatically. “That’s become a huge motivation for corporate dollars [flowing] into political campaigns…to keep the wars going.”

Hands Off Social Security

Social Security doesn’t belong in any deficit reduction package, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of Taking Economics Seriously. Baker says the deficit is a “response” to the housing bubble-induced collapse of the economy, “not a cause.”

“The whole hysteria around the deficit and the debt is misplaced,” says Jonathan Tasini. The real crisis facing the nation is “how do we stop the robbery of Americans and giving the top one percent all of our wealth?” Tasini is author of It’s Not Raining, We’re Getting Peed On: The Scam of the Deficit Crisis.

 

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 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.


More Stories


  • The US “Left” Has Repositioned Itself on the “Right” – Aligned with Capital, War and Repression
    Riva Enteen
    The US “Left” Has Repositioned Itself on the “Right” – Aligned with Capital, War and Repression
    08 Jul 2021
    The most dangerous component of ‘MSM’ fake news is arguably propaganda by omission.
  • The Responsibilities of Caribbean Intellectuals
    Aaron Kamugisha  
    The Responsibilities of Caribbean Intellectuals
    08 Jul 2021
    Caribbean thought gives us more conscious control over ideas in the pursuit of human freedom.
  • Venezuela Immunizes Its Population Against COVID-19 with Cuban Vaccine
    Peoples Dispatch Staff
    Venezuela Immunizes Its Population Against COVID-19 with Cuban Vaccine
    08 Jul 2021
    Venezuela signed an agreement with Cuba for the purchase of 12 million doses of Abdal after the country announced and celebrated the success of its locally developed anti-COVID-19 vaccine.
  • Decolonization and Communism
    Nodrada
    Decolonization and Communism
    08 Jul 2021
    Under settler colonialism, the colonizers seek primarily to eliminate the indigenous population rather than exploit them.
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of July 5, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of July 5, 2021
    07 Jul 2021
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of July 5, 2021 “Black Liberals” are Aligned with the US Police State
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us