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

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor , John Philpot
Sanctioning the Horn of Africa
07 Oct 2022
Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia have suffered from a variety of U.S. interventions over many years. Proxy wars and unilateral coercive measures, sanctions, are the tools used to prevent these nations…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio October 7, 2022
07 Oct 2022
A national survey reveals that the criminal justice system neglects the needs of crime survivors, an October 19, 2022 hearing determines whether Mumia Abu Jamal may be able to appeal his conviction,…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Criminal Justice System Does Not Meet the Needs of Crime Survivors
07 Oct 2022
Aswad Thomas is Vice President of the Alliance for Safety and Justice. He joins us from Atlanta to discuss the Alliance’s recently released report, Crime Survivors Speak: A National Survey of Victims…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Mumia Abu Jamal Appeal Hearing on October 19
07 Oct 2022
Gwen Debrow is a member of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home and the #LoveNotPhear Campaign. She joins us from New York City to discuss mobilizing for the next stage of Mumia Abu Jamal’s…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
U.S. Sanctions Against Russia Create Unrest and Risk Hot War
07 Oct 2022
Margaret Kimberley appeared on The Critical Hour with co-hosts Garland Nixon and Dr. Wilmer Leon. They discussed the U.S. drive to sanction Russia which is causing economic damage and…