The “Sick, Anti-Democratic” Corporate Plan for Detroit
“They want to pour all the resources into a little corridor of 7.2 square miles of downtown and on the river,” instead of “the 139 square miles of Detroit where the people live,” said Tom Stephens, a people’s lawyer who has submitted briefs to the bankruptcy court overseeing the city. Wall Street is pulling the strings – and pulling the plug – on the mostly Black metropolis. “They want to have their own little transit and their own little police force and office buildings and luxury condos, at the expense of the people that live in the neighborhoods,” said Stephens. “You have this brainless, sick, and anti-democratic policy that they’re trying to force down our throats.”
Socialist Surge in Seattle
Kshama Sawant, the Socialist Alternative Party candidate for Seattle city council who garnered 30 percent of the vote in a race for the state legislature, last year, said “the word ‘socialism’ is not so much an obstacle” in electoral politics as in the past, especially among young voters. “What’s really an obstacle is for people to feel that changes can actually happen.” Sawant has picked up endorsements from local chapters of the postal union, AFSCME, the AFT and CWA, on a platform of a $15 minimum wage, affordable housing through rent control and expanded public transit, paid for by taxes on the rich.
Obama’s Long List of Lies
President Obama prevaricated from beginning to end during his speech to the United Nations, last week, said anti-war activist David Swanson, publisher of the influential website WarIsACrime.org. For example, Obama said that national sovereignty cannot protect someone who commits wanton murder. “This, from a man who on Tuesdays goes through a list of men, women and children and picks which ones he wants murdered,” said Swanson. The president’s speech was “absolute hypocrisy, and much of the world hears it that way, just as much of the world heard Colin Powell” in 2003.
Send Killer Kagame to International Criminal Court
Demonstrators in Toronto demanded that Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame be tried by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where six million people have died since 1996. “It is one of the worst dictatorships in the world,” said Christopher Black, a criminal justice lawyer who has argued for 13 years before the Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal. Much of Congo’s wealth has been looted by Kagame’s military. “Rwanda is nothing more now than a sort of pirate haven where these gangsters steal resources and take the biggest cut,” said Black.
Happy Birthday Lynne Stewart
October 8 is the 74th birthday of people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart, who is serving ten years in prison for zealously defending her client. Celebrations will be held around the country, including a grand affair at St. Mark’s Theater, in New York City, said Ralph Poynter, her husband and partner in struggle. Stewart is suffering Stage Four breast cancer, but the Obama administration continues to deny her compassionate release. “Al Capone got out, when he was dying from syphilis,” said Poynter. “As far outside as he was, he was still a part of the system. It’s only the people who say the system must change who become the public enemy.”
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.
The ceasefire agreement between rival military factions in Sudan was extended on May 29 as it was on the verge of collapsing. Civilians are suffering, and the Sudanese Communist Party is under attack.
The Dominican Republic continues its policies of deporting Dominicans of Haitian descent, and discriminating against Black Dominicans, and it does so with the permission of the United States. The…
This Black Alliance for Peace Afghanistan update provides analysis of media coverage of the US role in Afghanistan and also links to many news sources.
Black Women's Alliance in Brazil, expunging criminal records, and the Durham Report and the FBI.
Members of Brazil’s Black Women’s Alliance will be in New York at the United Nation’s forum on Afro Descendants.
