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

Travis Ross
Canadian Imperialism in Haiti
21 Jun 2023
Canada joins the U.S. in imperialist interventions all over the world, including in Haiti. Canada, the U.S. and the rest of the Core Group interfere in Haitians' efforts to secure sovereignty…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio June 16, 2023
16 Jun 2023
Dr. Cornel West announcement that he is seeking the Green Party nomination as a presidential candidate, and a discussion of the political implications of Donald Trump’s indictment which charges…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
The Politics Behind Trump's Indictment
16 Jun 2023
A discussion of the recent indictment of Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling of classified documents.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Cornel West Discusses His Presidential Campaign
14 Jun 2023
Scholar, author, and activist Dr. Cornel West recently announced his 2024 presidential campaign. He discussed his platform and decision to be a candidate for the Green Party nomination.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Trump Indictments Subvert the Legal and Political System
14 Jun 2023
The recent indictments of former president Donald Trump are political acts intended to keep him from becoming president again. But the impact of dubious legal precedent should be of greater concern…