Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 16, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 16, 2016

17 May 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Black Brazil Will Resist “Soft Coup” Against Workers Party

Dilma Rousseff, of the Brazilian Workers Party, was removed from her office as president, last week, and put on trial by the nation’s Senate on charges of manipulating the budget. Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific author and professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston, predicts the Workers Party will mount waves of protests, sit-ins and occupations against what they call a “soft coup” encouraged and abetted by the United States. “I think that during the Olympics, when the global spotlight will be on Brazil, there will be an exhibition by poor, working class folk to express their disapproval of what’s going on in their country,” said Dr. Horne.

Jill Stein: “I’m Not Holding My Breath” Waiting on Bernie

Kshama Sawant, of the Socialist Alternative Party, is circulating a petition asking Bernie Sanders to either run for president on the Green Party ticket, or pave the way for a “new party of the 99%.” The Green Party is already a party of the 99%, and will be on the ballot in most states, said presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein. She said the Greens have been “reaching out to Bernie Sanders since 2011, looking for ways that we might collaborate, and Bernie has always declined our invitation for dialogue by not responding. I’m not holding my breath,” said Stein. “He regards third parties as renegades and threats to political order.”

Alabama Prison Work Stoppages Wind Down

Inmates at prisons across the state of Alabama trickled back to work after officials filled their jobs with people on work-release and starved the protestors of needed calories. “They were getting bird-fed, meaning they were getting real low portions of food because of the peaceful strike,” said Pastor Kenneth Glascow, who negotiated with state officials on behalf of the inmates. Glascow is the half-brother of Rev. Al Sharpton, and a former inmate, himself, who heads the prison reform group TOPS, The Ordinary People Society. Prisoners earn as little as 17 cents an hour at for-profit prison enterprises, and are not paid at all for kitchen and laundry work.

The strike was called by inmates of the Free Alabama Movement. “We already have a Free Mississippi Movement, there’s a Free California Movement, there’s a Free Pennsylvania Movement,” said inmate activist Bennu Hannibal, of the St. Clair prison. Brothers and sisters behind bars have to organize “because the system is organized, and the only way we’re going to have an impact against them is if we organize in a likewise manner.”

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR BLACK AGENDA RADIO

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.

listen

https://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/play/dmbyqp/BAR_051616.mp3

More Stories

Marjorie Cohn
Samuel Moyn’s Unprincipled Attack on Human Rights Giant Michael Ratner is Shameful
22 Sep 2021
Michael Ratner and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) were intimately connected to the Black Liberation Movement representing a number of activists in the crosshairs of state repression
Nick Estes
Indigenous People of Brazil Fight for Their Future
22 Sep 2021
Brazil's indigenous people struggle against an entrenched oligarchy determined to drive them from their lands and a right wing president who is supported by the U.S.
Rosa Miriam Elizalde
The Money That Never Arrives in Cuba
22 Sep 2021
The United States has cut off channels for sending remittances to the island, leaving families who rely on the help – especially during the pandemic – without desperately needed resources.
Julie Yixia Cai, Dean Baker
Black and Asian American Workers Falling Behind in Getting Back Jobs
22 Sep 2021
Economic recovery is uneven, with Black workers least likely to be employed in the wake of the covid pandemic.
Peoples Dispatch
Latin American and Caribbean Leaders Approve Historic Agreement at CELAC Summit
21 Sep 2021
The heads of state of the regional block agreed on a 44-point declaration which addressed the strategy against COVID-19 and climate change and took a stand against the blockade on Cuba.