Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 16, 2017 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 16, 2017

17 Jan 2017

🖨️ Print Article

The Democrats: Serving the One Percent, Blaming the Russians

The Democrats are using the Russians as a scapegoat to avoid confronting “the rightwing Wall Street-captive party that they’ve become,” said activist and educator Paul Street, author of several books on President Barack Obama. Essentially, Democrats are saying, “It’s not that we’re a rightwing, corporate, neoliberal party beholden to the nation’s unelected dictatorship of money and empire. It’s not that we abandoned the working class and the causes of social justice and peace decades ago.” Speaking at the Open University of the Left, in Chicago, Street said Donald Trump did not ride to victory on a “big rust belt rebellion of the white working class.” The real story “is that the Democrats lost those voters to non-voting.”

When Capitalism Gets Sick, the Democrats Get Mean

The Democratic Party’s sharp turn to the right is its response to the “existential crisis at the core of capitalism,” a global phenomenon that has left the ruling class and its servants with “hardly any space to reform the system,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Philadelphia-based Duboisian scholar and activist. With “no room to maneuver,” the capitalists resort increasingly to war and repression. “Monopoly capitalism must be undone, the banks broken up, and a large part of them nationalized,” said Monteiro. “In other words,” there must be “a profound and fundamental end to the neoliberal order, globally; a retreat from empire and war; and a seizing of the military budget and turning it towards economic development, jobs and a green economy.”

Political Prisoners Under Pressure in Indiana

Khalfani Malik Khaldun, serving time at Wabash Valley prison, in Indiana, said officials have carried out “a series of raids on targeted political prisoners,” including himself. Khaldun was told by “top brass” that they consider him to be the facility’s “most influential” inmate and are pressuring him to use that influence to “stop the proliferation of meth, a synthetic drug spreading throughout the prison.” Otherwise, “they had orders to put me and ten of my comrades in solitary confinement,” where he is now housed. Khaldun said prison officials “are making me out to be running some form of drug ring, in an attempt to destroy my political credibility as an activist on the inside.”

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

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/black_agenda_radio_20170116.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio May 24, 2024
24 May 2024
This week, we discuss the International Criminal Court's decision to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli government leadership and the 2024 U.S. presidential election. But first, we hear from a…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Repression of Palestine Solidarity at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Part 2
24 May 2024
In part two of our interview, Austin Cole joins us to discuss his suspension from MIT due to his participation in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and his own experience with the attack directed by the…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
International Criminal Court Action Falls Short in Addressing Israeli War Crimes
24 May 2024
Ajamu Baraka joins us to discuss the International Criminal Court, the ICC, and the announcement by Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan that he is applying for arrest warrants for both Israeli and…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Biden Struggles in the 2024 Presidential Election
24 May 2024
Margaret Kimberley recently joined Sputnik News program, Fault Lines, and discussed why incumbent president Joe Biden is struggling to make the case for a second term.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Western Arms Supplies to Ukraine Prevent Peaceful Solutions
22 May 2024
Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, was invited to brief the United Nations Security Council on May 20, 2024, as a civil society representative. The subject of the meeting…