Obama Would Prefer To Face Most Virulent Right-Wing Opponent
President Obama would prefer that Republicans nominate one of their most right-wing hopefuls “so that the Democrats can move further and further to the right and become completely indistinguishable from the Republican Party,” said political analyst Paul Street. “The further right the enemy they have in the general election, the more they can scare their liberal base.” Street is author of The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power.
Both Parties in Flight from Poor People’s Issues
“There has been a bipartisan flight from working people and from poverty,” said Chicago-based labor activist and writer James Thindwa. “The words ‘poor people’ don’t even feature in the political discourse. Both parties are captive to corporate interests. There may be some variance here and there but, fundamentally, they are here to serve capital.” Thindwa is author of the recent In These Times article, “Why Conservatives Can’t Fix Poverty.”
Obama Military Cuts Don’t Lessen War Costs
The administration’s plans to create a leaner military “simply take us back to the very inflated level of 2008 – and that’s not really very much of an achievement,” said Catherine Lutz, editor of The Bases of Power: The Struggle Against U.S. Military Posts. The proposed cuts affect only the “base,” or basic military infrastructure budget. “The war budgets,” such as “the additional trillion dollars allocated for the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan, are not even included in these numbers. Those are off the table for the purposes of these discussions,” said Lutz. “With all the threatening words being exchanged about Iran and the articulated fears about China, we have to worry that there will be a new theater of war before we know it, and then that money will be added on top of” the base military budget.
Drone Warfare Will Lead to Blowback Against U.S.
“We’ve opened up this Pandora’s Box of bombing people all over the world and it’s definitely going to come back on us – blowback,” said Alice Slater, New York director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. “We’re bombing seven countries right now with drones – totally unauthorized by Congress.” The U.S. also pursues policies that discourage nuclear non-proliferation. “If Gaddafi had nuclear weapons, we wouldn’t have bombed Libya. It’s a signal to people on the other end of our aggressive power that they have to protect themselves as best they can.”
New Student Group Against Mass Imprisonment
Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI), created early last year at Washington DC’s Howard University, has since expanded to Morgan State University in Baltimore, western Massachusetts, and Columbia University, according to SAMI founder Benjamin Woods. “The prison-industrial complex is a direct outgrowth of the capitalist system,” said Woods, a doctoral candidate. “We want to see people who are most affected” by the repressive apparatus of the state, including political prisoners, providing leadership in the Black community.
P.O.P. Passes Halfway Mark in Newark Protest Marathon
The People’s Organization for Progress (P.O.P.) this week passed the 190-day mark in its daily demonstrations in Newark, New Jersey. “We understood more than a year ago that sporadic protests were not enough,” said P.O.P. chairman Larry Hamm. The grassroots community group has vowed to continue daily demonstrations for at least 381 days, the duration of the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. P.O.P.’s seven core demands include a federal jobs program, an end to U.S. wars abroad, protection of workers’ rights to unionize and bargain, a moratorium on home foreclosures, universal health care, and programs to preserve public education and make college affordable to all.
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.
In response to campus repression tactics, a coalition of students and faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) held coordinated disruptions during a university gala.
In another step toward the achievement of its national sovereignty, Niger recently declared the United State's military presence in the country illegal.
The trial of the New York Panther 21 was the moment in the Black liberation movement that ushered in an era of intensified state repression and violence and increasingly aggressive tactics…
Three members of the Uhuru Movement were recently indicted on charges related to operating as "unregistered foreign agents." This attack has huge implications for free speech everywhere.
After months of social unrest, the youngest leader in the West African state’s history will take office pledging a progressive program.
