Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 10, 2017

11 Apr 2017

Trump Hopes to Get Democrats Off His Back with Syria Attack

The U.S. attack on a Syrian air base last week was designed to “prolong the war” and ultimately “destroy secular government in the Arab world,” said Margaret Kimberley, an editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report. The claim that Syria used chemical weapons against civilians is bogus, said Kimberley, speaking on Sputnik radio. The U.S.-backed Islamic jihadists stand to benefit most. “It’s interesting that these attacks always occur at some moment that is very opportune for them,” she said. President Trump hopes to increase his approval levels and ward off Democratic attacks. “Because he’s been accused of being under Putin’s influence, carrying out an attack against a Russian ally gives him some protection from those charges.”

Trump No Better for Haiti than Clinton

Many Haitian-Americans took an “anything but Hillary Clinton” position during the 2016 election, because of her role in rigging Haitian elections. However, U.S. policy towards Haiti has not changed under the Trump regime, said Dahoud Andre, a Brooklyn-based Haitian community activists and radio host. “Were Donald Trump to have been the one in the Clinton’s position” in Haiti, said Andre, “he would not have given the hold mine contracts of Haiti to Hillary’s brother, but he would have probably given them to his son-in-law.”

All-White Brazil Regime Guts Programs for Blacks and the Poor

The right-wing regime that took removed the Workers Party from power in Brazil is forging ahead with plans to put a 20-year freeze on social spending and gut programs for the poor, despite abysmal public approval levels. “There’s a sense from the big banks in Brazil, and from the national and multinational corporations, that they need to push through all of their agenda while they have this golden opportunity,” said Alexander Main, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington. The Workers Party’s political base “comes from the North of Brazil, the Blacker parts of Brazil,” said Main, while the “entire government is white and male and pushing to dismantle” the progress made by Black Brazilians. Afro-descendants make up a majority of the population.

Happy Birthday to Philly Free School

April 15 marks the 5^th anniversary of the Saturday Free School, located in the historic Church of the Advocate, in Philadelphia. “We base our method and theory on the works of W.E.B. Dubois and James Baldwin, because they explicitly rejected academia” and found the truth in “the lives of poor and working people,” said Nandita Chaturvedi, a student-teacher-organizer at the school. Last year’s national conference on the Black Radical Tradition, in Philadelphia, was largely the brainchild of activists with the Saturday Free School. A conference and birthday celebration is scheduled for this Saturday, the 15^th.

Mumia’s Liver Severely Damaged

“In prison, money is the master; the ill are all but ignored,” said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, in a commentary for Prison Radio. Abu Jamal won a two-year battle to force the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to treat his hepatitis-C, a virus that infects thousands of other inmates. New tests show “not only that I have advanced hepatitis-C, I have cirrhosis of the liver, because the DOC didn’t want to spend the money to treat my infection,” he said. “The DOC said it would cost them $600 million. It may only cost me my life.”

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.

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