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 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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

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

More Stories


  • The US Is Determined to Drive a Wedge between Ethiopia and Eritrea
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    The US Is Determined to Drive a Wedge between Ethiopia and Eritrea
    23 Nov 2022
    The US seems willing to accept Ethiopia’s defeat of its former puppet, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), if it can just drive a wedge between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
  • Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”
    23 Nov 2022
    Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”
  • BAR Book Forum: Cristina M. Visperas’s Book, “Skin Theory”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Cristina M. Visperas’s Book, “Skin Theory”
    23 Nov 2022
    This week’s featured author is Cristina Mejia Visperas. Visperas is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California. Her book is Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the…
  •  Haiti in the Caribbean: A Political Economy Perspective on the Urgent Crisis of Imperialism
    Tamanisha John
    Haiti in the Caribbean: A Political Economy Perspective on the Urgent Crisis of Imperialism
    23 Nov 2022
    If Haiti is "the poorest country in the hemisphere" it is because imperialist policies continue to impoverish and destabilize that nation. 
  •  Ethiopia Peace Deal: U.S. Proxy War By Other Means?
    Hermela Aregawi
    Ethiopia Peace Deal: U.S. Proxy War By Other Means?
    23 Nov 2022
    The people of Ethiopia are understandably relieved that a peace agreement now exists between their government and the TPLF. But aspects of the agreement may allow the U.S. to continue the conflict…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us