Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 28, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 28, 2016

29 Nov 2016

🖨️ Print Article

GOP Plans Stealth Attack on Medicare

Republicans in Congress have “never really liked Social Security or Medicare” because the programs “work and they completely go against the ideology that the private sector is always better,” said Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works. The GOP will act “in the dead of night, so the people don’t know what’s happening,” and sneak a privatization bill into a “reconciliation” measure that “the Democrats can’t filibuster,” Altman predicted. “They want to give seniors and people with disabilities a check and say, ‘Good luck, go out and get private insurance.’”

What Do You Mean by Identity Politics?

Lots of people talk about how “identity politics affected the election, but the term is never specifically defined,” said Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston. “As you tease out the rhetoric, it appears to suggest that organizations like Black Lives Matter is identity politics, and people protesting against being shot down in the streets by officers of the state is identity politics.” The only good news to come out of the election, said Horne, “is that Donald J. Trump will probably prove to be the Gorbachev of the United States of America” by accelerating the decline of U.S. imperialism and white supremacy.

2016 was Bound to be a Bad Year

The “panic and hysteria” of some Hillary Clinton supporters “is really very childish,” said Diana Johnstone, author of Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton. “The fact is, there wasn’t going to be a good outcome to that election, anyway; you had two terrible candidates, so you should have been prepared for that.” The Democrats crazily search for Russians behind every web site. “The idea that Russia interfered with the election is absolutely absurd,” said Johnstone, speaking from her home in Paris. “It sounds to me like they’ve decided they’re going to make war against Russia -- and they’re all into that,” including the media.

President Obama’s Hollow Legacy

Barack Obama was “beloved” by large numbers of Black people, but it was a one-way affair. “Politicians score points with white people by assuring them they’re not going to do anything for Black people, and Obama was no exception,” said Black Agenda Report editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley. “In order to win, Black people have to be thrown under the bus.” Obama “gave white people a message that he would not in any way upset the status quo,” said Kimberley, speaking on the Taylor Report on CUIT radio, in Toronto, Canada. “His is a hollow legacy.” Hillary Clinton lost because “you can’t transfer one person’s popularity to another.”

Peltier on Standing Rock Protests

One thousand people took part in the 47^th annual Native American National Day of Mourning, last Thursday, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Placards declared “We Are Not Vanishing” and “We Are Not Conquered,” as an Elder read a message from political prisoner Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement activist who has been locked up for the past 41 years. The Standing Rock protests “are the greatest gathering of our people in history, and has made us more connected than every before,” said Peltier. “Water is life, and we cannot leave this issue to our children and grandchildren.”

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.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/blackagendaradio_20161128.mp3

More Stories

Michael F. Brown
Israel Lobby’s Black Allies Aim to Unseat Rashida Tlaib
15 Jun 2022
Bakari Sellers is the most prominent supporter of a new PAC dedicated to defeating Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. The Urban Empowerment PAC has a goal of "electing pro-Israel Black democrats" and…
Chelli Stanley
War on Palestine: The Battle for Masafer Yatta
15 Jun 2022
A twenty year battle in Israeli courts ended with a decision to evict more than 1,000 Palestinians from Masafer Yatta. Settler attacks on Palestinians escalated even before the ruling, which allows a…
Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley
Remembering the 2020 Black Lives Matter Uprising/Cuba and Venezuela in Focus w/Jacqueline Luqman
10 Jun 2022
Journalist and activist Jacqueline Luqman joins the Left Lens to discuss the two year anniversary of the BLM uprisings and her recent trips to Cuba and Venezuela.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Black Agenda Radio June 10, 2022
10 Jun 2022
The UK sends asylum seekers to Rwanda, the number of police killings in the U.S. continue unabated, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is threatened by U.S. client states and comprador, neo-…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The UK Will Send Asylum Seekers to Rwanda
10 Jun 2022
The United Kingdom is paying the Rwandan government $150 million to accept asylum seekers. The UK is accelerating deportations and denial of legal rights to Global South immigrants. Fiona of the…