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


  • Imperialism and the Horn of Africa
    Salome Ayuak
    Imperialism and the Horn of Africa
    06 Oct 2021
    Speech by Salome Ayuak given at the International Month of Action Against AFRICOM launch event.
  • Let Haiti Breathe – CORE Group Out of Haiti
    Kevin Edmonds
    Let Haiti Breathe – CORE Group Out of Haiti
    06 Oct 2021
    Dismantling the unelected and colonialist CORE Group is the first step to loosening the imperialist stranglehold over Haiti.
  • Africa's COVID-19 Vaccine and the Scandal of the Centuries
    Salimah Valiani, PhD
    Africa's COVID-19 Vaccine and the Scandal of the Centuries
    05 Oct 2021
    African nations might have produced a patent free vaccine that would have benefitted the whole world.
  • In a California Desert Sheriff Deputies Settle Schoolyard Disputes and Black Teens Bear the Brunt
    Emily Elena Dugdale, Irena Hwang
    In a California Desert Sheriff Deputies Settle Schoolyard Disputes and Black Teens Bear the Brunt
    02 Oct 2021
    Deputies in California’s Antelope Valley are disproportionately citing Black teens for minor infractions that lead to criminal records and incarceration.
  • Systemic racism is built into Canada’s prison system, but federal parties have little to offer incarcerated Black Canadians and their families.
    Simon Rolston, Nora Demnati
    Anti-Black Racism in Canadian Prisons Remains Rampant, Despite Government Pledges
    02 Oct 2021
    Systemic racism is built into Canada’s prison system, but federal parties have little to offer incarcerated Black Canadians and their families.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us