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

Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 10, 2015
11 Aug 2015
🖨️ Print Article

One-Fifth of Pennsylvania Prisoners, Including Mumia, Need Hep C Treatment

Lawyers for Mumia Abu Jamal have filed suit against the State of Pennsylvania for refusing to treat the nation’s best known political prisoner for Hepatitis C, a serious liver disease. “Mumia has severe symptoms that are consistent with, and almost certainly caused by, his Hepatitis C,” including a rash that sometimes covers as much as 80 percent of his body, said Atty. Bret Grote. Pennsylvania has refused to treat any of its prisoners with Hepatitis C, citing costs. In June of this year, a class action suit was filed on behalf of all inmates infected with the virus, which could involve “as many as 20 percent” of the total prison population – “and that’s likely a conservative estimate,” said Atty. Grote.

Mumia: Trump Channels Resentments of the “Other”

Although health problems have somewhat diminished his broadcast output, Mumia Abu Jamal continues to contribute essays to Prison Radio. His latest, titled “Donald Trump and the Politics of Resentment,” describes the real estate and casino mogul as “plugging into the live-wire of American resentment of the Other.” Trump’s constituency is “the thousands, and perhaps millions, who rage at Latino immigrants,” and who “also worship the rich.” In Donald Trump, said Abu Jamal, “they have found their voice, and he has found the energies of resentment.”

Min. Farrakhan Seeks 10,000 Avengers

On a tour to gather support for the 20th anniversary of the historic Million Man March, October 10, in Washington, Nation of Islam Min. Louis Farrakhan said: “I’m looking for 10,000, in the midst of the million – 10,000 fearless men...who say death is sweeter than continued life under tyranny.” The Koran teaches that “retaliation is prescribed in the matters of the slain,” Farrakhan told the Mount Zion Baptist Church, in Miami. “So, if the federal government will not intercede in our affairs, then we must rise up and kill those who kill us.”

Nation’s Most Respected Movement Couple Speak Out on Criminal Injustice

“The police are a top-down army of occupation in our communities,” said veteran activist Ralph Poynter, a member of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, which holds its national conference in Philadelphia, August 22 and 23, with a focus on Black community control of police. “Let’s begin to talk about changing the army of occupation to an army of people who support the community,” he said. Poynter’s wife, Lynne Stewart, the people’s lawyer who spent four years as a political prisoner until her compassionate medical release, said President Obama’s recent visit to a federal prison “was just a photo-op.” Obama promised to commission a study of the effects of solitary confinement – but that’s nothing more than a cynical ploy, said Stewart. “Everybody knows that solitary confinement, as practiced in the United States, is torture.” On any given day, 80,000 U.S. inmates languish in isolation from human interaction.

Nwangaza: Obama Playing Dumb

Efia Nwangaza is also a veteran people’s lawyer, who has been instrumental in persuading United Nations panels to denounce U.S. treatment of prisoners. “Barack Obama not that long ago signed the bills to create a 400-plus solitary confinement unit in the state of Illinois, and I cannot believe that he expects anybody to think that he just discovered solitary confinement and the abuses that go along with it,” said Nwangaza, director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination and WMXP community radio, in Greenville, South Carolina. “Barack Obama is a Manchurian Candidate,” she concludes.

U.S. Empire Weakening, But as Dangerous as Ever

The rulers of the United States “can’t be the bullies that they been have in the past” because U.S. corporate economic power is waning, said Sara Flounders, of UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. The recently concluded deal to end sanctions against Iran was necessitated by the fact that Russia and China had already served notice they would soon cease complying with the embargo, said Flounders. However, “powerful forces” may “use their proxies in Syria,” numbering at least 100,000 mercenaries, to sabotage the Iran agreement and draw the world deeper into war.

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.

 



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/web/mc4ayq/BAR_081015.mp3

More Stories


  • Ali Abunimah
    Hasan Nasrallah Died on the Road to Liberate Palestine
    02 Oct 2024
    Israel's recent assassination of Hasan Nasrallah came as part of a terroristic campaign it unleashed on Lebanon, culminating in the bombings that leveled whole city blocks. Shock and awe has been…
  • Travis Ross
    Imperialist feminism: Canada funds compliance from Haitian human rights groups
    02 Oct 2024
    Canada uses Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to exert soft power and maintain its interests in Haiti. Its "feminist" foreign policy promotes an imperialist neoliberal agenda that funnels money…
  • Noah Shachtman
    The Secretive Alliance Between the New York Post and Eric Adams
    02 Oct 2024
    Rupert Murdoch’s paper helped elect Adams and hasn’t quite given up on him yet.
  • Natasha Lennard
    Meet the First Tenured Professor to Be Fired for Pro-Palestine Speech
    02 Oct 2024
    Maura Finkelstein was terminated by Muhlenberg College for an Instagram repost.
  • Jemima Pierre
    Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and Contributor
    Haiti and the Crisis of Imperialism in the Caribbean
    02 Oct 2024
    Dr. Jemima Pierre delivered these remarks during her keynote address at the Launch of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series on June 9th, Trinidad and Tobago, sponsored by the Emancipation Support…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us