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 May 22, 2017
23 May 2017
🖨️ Print Article

U.S. Healthcare is Profiteered to Death

Only a single payer system can bring U.S. health care into the 21st century, said Dr. Susan Rogers, of Physicians for a National Health Program. Private insurance corporations drain society of health care resources. “If you look at a large hospital, I bet they’ve got more billing clerks than they do nurses, per patient,” said Rogers. “That tells you where the money is going; it’s not going to health care, it’s going to billing.”

The Democrats’ Formula for Losing Elections

The Democrats “know what they need to do to get out the vote,” said Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report. “They need to raise wages, stop the student loan debt, and protect people’s homes. But none of these things are acceptable to their patrons” among the 1 percent,” said Kimberley, who recently authored an article titled “The Democratic Party Death Spiral.” The Democrats “cannot depend on corporate money and do what the people want them to do.”

U.S. Can’t Rule World by Force

Despite its massive military, the U.S. cannot rule the world by force of arms, said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Duboisian scholar from Philadelphia. China’s regional neighborhood includes “three of the five largest economies in the world,” said Monteiro. Therefore, a war with China “would be like the U.S. shooting itself in the head.” A war with Iran, on the Persian Gulf, “would throw the world into a recession or depression.” These are “wars that the United States can’t win; wars that the American public don’t want; and wars that most of humanity would condemn as wars of aggression,” he said.

Mumia: Back to the Bad Old Days

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, recalled being beaten up by cops, as a 14 year-old, in 1968 Philadelphia. It was “a little taste of [former mayor and police chief] Rizzo, and “an introduction to Trump,” Abu Jamal told journalist Chris Hedges, host of the RT program “On Contact.” “I lived in the ‘bad old days,’” said Mumia. “They were ugly days, and they’re ugly days, today.”

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.

 


More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Racism and the American University, Addison Gayle, Jr., 1971
    16 Apr 2025
    The appraisal of American universities as liberal institutions remains one of the purest examples of the elasticity of the English language.
  • nato protest
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    NATO Was Founded to Crush Communist, Socialist, and Anti-colonial Movements Worldwide
    16 Apr 2025
    NATO was never a good idea gone wrong. It was founded to crush communist, socialist, and anti-colonial movements in Europe and around the world.
  • Jon Jeter
    The Dog Whistle Heard ‘Round the World: How Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City Bombing Birthed the Trump Era
    16 Apr 2025
    Thirty years after Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing, his legacy lives on in the racist mass shooters, anti-government extremists, and MAGA reactionaries who continue to target Black…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Claudia O'Brien Moscoso , Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    A Snapshot of the Global War Against African People: Reflections From Ecuador
    16 Apr 2025
    Defying Ecuador’s attempt to bar international monitors, election observers documented how Daniel Noboa’s contested victory, secured amid militarized polling stations and state violence, escalates…
  • Too Black , Rasul Mowatt
    Bootleg Rehab: Still Laundering Black Rage
    16 Apr 2025
    DEI isn’t dead—it was never alive to begin with. A corporate pacification project dressed as progress, it launders Black rage into diversity statements while police budgets grow and material…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us