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 – Week of February 6, 2012
07 Feb 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

U.S. Pursues War, Chaos in Middle East and North Africa

“If there is a substantial military strike on Iran, it is going to create mayhem in the region,” said Dr. Vijay Preshad, director of International Studies at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. “And that is precisely what the Gulf Arabs and the United States would like to see. The last thing they want is a proper Arab Spring germinate into new, democratic regimes in North Africa and Est Asia.”

McKinney: America Guilty of “Sociocide”

The U.S. is engaged in “sociocide” – the “wholesale destruction of entire societies,” said Cynthia McKinney, the former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate. “One can honestly say that sociocide has occurred in Iraq and Libya,” she said. “This is purposeful behavior, to go into these countries and destroy all aspects of the infrastructure.”

Obama Outdoes Bush in Power-Grab

“Obama has claimed vastly more power than Bush did,” said peace activist David Swanson, publisher of the influential web site WarIsACrime.org. “He has gone to great lengths to protect and cover up and provide immunity to his predecessors and, in doing so, claimed greater powers of secrecy than his predecessor ever claimed.” Of 35 article of impeachment drawn up by Rep. Dennis Kucinich against President George Bush, in 2008, 27 would also apply to Obama, said Swanson. “Many of these are offenses that a great many people would be outraged about – if Obama were a Republican.”

DemoPublicans Speak with Forked Tongue

Organizers of the Occupy encampment at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, expect large numbers of protesters to gather for month-long activities in April, including direct actions. In addition to protests, said Dr. Margaret Flowers, “we also need to build something that will replace the power structure.” The Democratic and Republican electoral rhetoric amounts to “a false conversation that’s limited by their corporate funders. The real conversation will be happening in the Occupy movement.”

Stop Stop-and-Frisk

“Spying on communities has got to go, stop-and-frisk has got to go,” shouted Kalfani Nkrumah, leading the chants at a Bronx, New York, demonstration by Stop Stop-and-Frisk. “If our elected officials refuse to stand up for us, then they have to go to, too.”

Michelle Authenticates Obama

Attendees at a recent conference on “African Identities in the Age of Obama,” at Virginia’s George Mason University, “were outright frank about why they voted for Obama, in 2008: “because he was married to a ‘sister.’” Conference organizer and professor of history Benedict Carton said President Obama “didn’t come from a historical trajectory of slavery in Ameriva and post-slavery dynamics.” African Americans “needed to root him through his wife.”

In the Spirit of Lumumba

The election of Patrice Lumumba as prime minister of newly independent Congo, in 1960, was that country’s first and last free election, said Luwezi Kinshasa, secretary general of the African Socialist International and a Congolese. In the spirit of Lumumba, Africans must “struggle to overturn all compromises made with imperialism,” and take ownership of the continent’s resources.

Lynn Stewart’s Appeal

On February 29, imprisoned movement lawyer Lynn Stewart appeals her 10 year sentence on charges of aiding “terrorists” – in her defense of “blind sheik” Obama Abdel Rahman, convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. “If there were the rule of law” in the United States,” said Stewart’s husband, Ralph Poynter, “Lynn would not be in jail.”

 

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.


More Stories


  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    March, March, March… (For Million Worker March and Brother Ray Quan)
    30 Apr 2025
    "March, March, March… (For Million Worker March and Brother Ray Quan)" is the latest from BAR's Poet-In-Residence.
  • Kai Cash
    Planting Seeds of Sovereignty: Lessons from the Sahel and Beyond
    30 Apr 2025
    When the West slaps on tariffs, it’s 'economic security'—but when the Sahel rejects exploitative deals, it’s called a threat. From Cuba to Burkina Faso, countries have fought for self-sufficiency:…
  • Sean L. Malloy
    How the creation of the ‘New Antisemitism’ was used to shield Israel and attack the Left
    30 Apr 2025
    Challenges to Zionism in the late 1960s and 1970s sparked an effort to redefine antisemitism focused on defending Israel while attacking the political Left. This resulted in the IHRA definition and…
  • Dave DeCamp
    Sixty-Eight Reported Killed by US Airstrike on African Migrant Facility in Yemen
    30 Apr 2025
    The detention facility appears to be the one that was previously targeted by the US-backed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
  • Red Malunga
    Red Malunga Denounces Institutionalized Violence Against Haitian Migrants in the Dominican Republic
    30 Apr 2025
    As the Dominican Republic escalates its brutal crackdown on Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent, Red Malunga condemns the racist policies fueling systemic violence and human rights…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us