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


  • Isaac Saney
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Canadian and U.S. Partnership in Settler Colonialism, Enslavement, and Imperialism
    16 Oct 2026
    Isaac Saney is a Cuba and Black Studies specialist and historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He discusses the U.S./Canadian partnership in settler colonialism,…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    European Vassal States' Self-Destruction Endangers the Entire World
    14 Oct 2026
    European puppet states have undermined themselves and their peoples' needs at the behest of the U.S. Now, that subservience may lead to war.
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    From Capitalist Crisis to Crisis of Whiteness: Rubio, Western Decline, and the Defense of White Supremacy
    14 Oct 2026
    Marco Rubio's appeals to Western civilization, Christian heritage, and the defense of Western dominance are fundamental to the consolidating global fascist project, functioning to transform a crisis…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: Elections and economic crisis in Guyana: Interview with Working People's Alliance leader Eusi Kwayana, 1986
    14 Oct 2026
    “So we started to preach the doctrine of self-organization. And we made it very clear what we were after — the genuine multiracial and democratic power of the working people.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Trump Terrorizes Ilhan Omar and Somali Americans in Minnesota
    14 Oct 2026
    Trump is terrorizing Minnesota’s Somali Americans in a desperate xenophobic and racist appeal to voters in the state’s white farming and mining communities.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us