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 January 7, 2013
08 Jan 2013
🖨️ Print Article

 

Both Parties Sabotaging Entitlement Programs

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid “have been set up to take the fall for the nation’s deficit,” said Dr. Maya Rockeymoore, president of Washington-based Global Policy Solutions. President Obama “views it as his legacy to rein in entitlement programs while creating this grand bargain” with the Republicans. Those who expected a more progressive Obama in his second term are mistaken. “I think that the president did not make a Freudian slip in his first debate when he said that he and Mitt Romney actually agree on Social Security.”

EPA Chief Used Alias

Lisa Jackson was forced to resign as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency because she conducted some of her public duties under an alias, said famed whistleblower Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, of the NO FEAR Coalition. Jackson was “extremely upset” with the Occupy Movement, which staged demonstrations against “her cowardly behavior” as guardian of the environment. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo believes Jackson used her alias to cloak her role in government spying on movement activists.

End Stop-and-Frisk

“We feel that 2013 has to be a year of rising resistance to stop-and-frisk in the streets and in the courtrooms,” said Carl Dix, a founder of Stop Mass Incarceration Network. “We’re not talking about mending an injustice; we’re talking about ending it.” The capitalist system is incapable of providing a “future for millions and millions of young people growing up in the urban areas of the country,” said Dix. “You can put Black faces in high places, but if it’s the same system that has oppressed and exploited you, it’s not going to change. Revolution is the solution.”

Big Brother Obama Hears All

President Obama has shown himself to be a more aggressive foe of civil liberties than George Bush. “Absolutely, we’ve seen this to be true from the FISA authorization, to the use of drones, and with the NDAA” preventive detention bill, said Samantha Peetros, spokesperson for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Just before New Years, Obama signed a five-year extension of legislation allowing warrantless phone and email surveillance.

Charters Crowding Out Public Schools in Philly

“I think that there is a growing movement among decision makers to shut the door on public education,” said W. Curtis Thomas, a Black state lawmaker from Philadelphia. The city has targeted 60 public schools for closing, while expanding charter schools by 5,000 seats. “The decision to move kids towards these charter schools is really an effort to resegregate a system that was never totally integrated, anyway,” said Rep. Thomas.

 

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.


More Stories


  • Book Review: Bringing Police Torture in Chicago to the Full Light of Day
    Carl Davidson
    Book Review: Bringing Police Torture in Chicago to the Full Light of Day
    05 Jun 2019
    A new book reveals Chicago as a racist police state where the entire criminal justice system was complicit in torture.
  • The Bankers’ “Power Revolution” -- How the Government Got Shackled by Debt
    Ellen Brown
    The Bankers’ “Power Revolution” -- How the Government Got Shackled by Debt
    05 Jun 2019
    There is no reason for the government to borrow trillions from capitalists – except to enrich the financial classes and enforce austerity.
  • The Scandal of Puerto Rico’s Botched Disaster Relief
    Mark Weisbrot
    The Scandal of Puerto Rico’s Botched Disaster Relief
    05 Jun 2019
    The US government appointed a board of fat cats to oversee the “debt” of its mostly black and brown colony, Puerto Rico.
  • Confronting Monetary Imperialism in Francophone Africa
    Ndongo Samba Sylla
    Confronting Monetary Imperialism in Francophone Africa
    05 Jun 2019
    Frances’ former African colonies are still tied to Paris by the chains of the CFA Franc, which makes them neo-colonies of Europe.
  • How US Foreign Policy Spawned Terror and Trump
    Rod Such
    How US Foreign Policy Spawned Terror and Trump
    05 Jun 2019
    The end of the Cold War allowed the US to use its military with impunity, including support for Islamic jihadists against targeted countries.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us