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 May 30, 2016
31 May 2016
🖨️ Print Article

Jill Stein: U.S. Electoral “House of Cards” Coming Down

Presidential candidate Jill Stein has an answer tor those Democrats that accuse the Greens of offering themselves as “spoilers” who would throw the election to Donald Trump. “I will be horrified if Donald Trump gets elected, and I will be horrified if Hillary Clinton gets elected,” Stein told a panel at the Left Forum conference, in New York City. “I’m most horrified by a political system that gives us two lethal choices and says, ‘Pick between them, and that’s it.’” The two-party duopoly electoral arrangement is in trouble because of the “inherent disfunction of the system, and the fact that the house of cards really is coming down.”

Blacks Will Be Slow to Abandon Democrats

Bernie Sanders has no interest in creating a new political party to the left of the Democrats, because he “wants to strengthen the leftish faction within the Democratic Party,” said BAR executive editor Glen Ford, speaking at the same Left Forum panel as Jill Stein. However, Ford predicted that millions of Sanders’ followers will choose to join or help form such a party. Although Blacks are the most left-leaning constituency in the country, they will be slow to support any new, “social democratic” political formation, for fear of helping the “White Man’s Party” – the GOP. Blacks will only break out of the Democratic “trap” in large numbers, said Ford, when they perceive that the Republicans are no longer “a kind of monolithic threat” to Black America.

Charter Schools Take Chicanery Online

Charter school companies are now operating so-called “virtual schools” that have no physical classrooms, but only exist on the Internet. David Cohen, executive director of the advocacy group In The Public Interest, said California Virtual Academies, run by K-12 Inc., graduates less than half its students and is accused of counting pupils as “present” if they log online for as little as one minute a day. The charter’s teachers are paid only about $30,000, said Cohen. The company “needs to make a profit, they need to pay their CEOs, they also need to do whatever they need to do for their shareholders on the stock exchange,” he said. The profits are produced by paying teachers less, hiring fewer administration people, and squeezing every way they can,” he said.

Rich Countries Drain Trillions from Developing World

Global banking expert James Henry said rich countries siphon more than $12 trillion a year from China, Russia and other developing nations. “Collectively speaking, the world has to worry about this because it means that, oddly enough, the developing world is actually a net creditor of western Europe and the United States.” Much of the huge cash outflow is diverted to secretive offshore banking outlets, but soon finds it way back into rich western portfolios. The loss of wealth is disastrous for the developing world, said Henry. “It’s a tremendous opportunity cost for developing countries.”

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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
https://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/play/v69vpf/BAR_053016.mp3

More Stories


  • “Zero Degree Rage” Focuses Black Minds
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    “Zero Degree Rage” Focuses Black Minds
    22 Jun 2020
    Nicholas Brady, professor of Africana Studies at Bucknell University and author of an article titled “Zero Degree Rage,” sees massed popular emotion as a liberatory weapon.
  • A New Generation, Same Struggle
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    A New Generation, Same Struggle
    22 Jun 2020
    Despite an interim of more than 30 years, the current wave of protests shares similar goals to the 1989 student rebellion at Howard University, said Josh Myers, a professor of
  • Community Control of the Police – and a Whole Lot More
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Community Control of the Police – and a Whole Lot More
    18 Jun 2020
    Abolition of the police begins with community control, in which community representatives not only hire, fire and oversee the cops, but decide the nature of the policing that is necessary and accep
  • How Che Guevara Taught Cuba to Confront COVID-19
    Don Fitz
    How Che Guevara Taught Cuba to Confront COVID-19
    17 Jun 2020
    Cuba uses its decades of experience to create an example of how a country can confront the virus with a compassionate and competent plan.
  • Freedom Rider: Churchill, Columbus and Leopold Fall Down
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Churchill, Columbus and Leopold Fall Down
    17 Jun 2020
    Millions of white people glorify mass murderers because their sense of identity and place in society is deeply tied to white supremacy.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us