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 June 12, 2017
13 Jun 2017
🖨️ Print Article

Democrats Don’t Even Pretend to Want Change

“Dumping the Democrats for good is the only way to resist Trump,” said Black Agenda Report editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley, addressing BAR’s panel at the Left Forum, in New York City. “What have they done since Election Day?” Kimberley asked. “They have refused to give even the appearance that they are willing to push for even meager reforms. We have to talk about replacing them and having a true workers party, a true peace party.”

Political Elite Use Russia-Baiting to “Medicate” U.S. “Crisis of Governance”

The U.S. is engulfed in a “crisis of governance” that has been “intentionally misunderstood” by the corporate media and the political elite, said Danny Haiphong, a contributing political analyst at BAR. Anti-Russian hysteria has been whipped up “to medicate political consciousness.” “They don’t want to discuss how Russia has absolutely nothing to do with the millions of incarcerated people in the U.S., or the fact that it is the U.S. monopoly capitalist economy, not the emerging capitalist economy of Russia, which has automated many of the jobs and siphoned much of the wealth that once belonged to a privileged sector of U.S. workers,” said Haiphong. “This system has run its course. War is all the system has left.”

The Ugly Americans

According to Dahoud Andre, the radio host and Haitian community activist who spoke at the BAR panel, Haitians wonder, “What’s the difference between Trump and the Democrats?” “From the perspective of our country, from the time we became independent we have been equally attacked by Democrats and Republicans. And, sometimes it is very difficult for us to understand the notion of ‘progressive Americans,’” said Andre. Solidarity is sorely needed. “It’s one struggle, whether its in Haiti, in Africa, in the Middle East, Asia, and also over here.”

A Real Left Would Demand Peace

“If you are resisting Russian collusion with Trump, then what you are resisting is a fantasy,” BAR executive editor Glen Ford told the opening plenary of the Left Forum. “And, if you are simply resisting Trump, the idiot in the White House, then you are simply a tool of a Democratic Party strategy.” Ford said the nation needs a rejuvenated anti-war movement, “or else we are defenseless against this kind of strategy on the part of the Democrats, who pretend that they are an alternative to the fascist-sounding and definitely virulently white nationalist forces in the Republican Party, but are themselves intent upon a war policy that can mean the extinction of the human race.”

Next week on Black Agenda Radio: Left Forum presentations by BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon, BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka, the 2016 Green Party vice-presidential candidate, and Duboisian scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro.

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


  • Stable working class neighborhoods are the bane of speculators, developers and capitalist politicians.
    Raymond Nat Turner , BAR poet-in-residence
    Cranes and Tents
    05 Dec 2018
    Lording over the landscape like giant Insects sucking soul, blood, chocolate into multi-colored mushrooms Metastasizing citywide. Officers ordering vacant storefronts,
  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: Time to De-Colonize Human Rights!
    Ajamu Baraka , BAR editor and columnist
    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: Time to De-Colonize Human Rights!
    05 Dec 2018
    The post-WW II promise of human rights was a compact meant for white people only, but a People-Centered Human Rights framework seeks global liberation and transformation.
  • #LandWithoutLandlords in Black Oakland: An Interview with Noni Sessions
    Ann Garrison , BAR contributor , #LandWithoutLandlords in Black Oakland: An Interview with Noni Session
    #LandWithoutLandlords in Black Oakland: An Interview with Noni Sessions
    05 Dec 2018
    A dynamic new community project has been launched to halt the push-out of Black and brown people from Oakland by taking land and housing out of the speculative market.
  • Freedom Rider: Mueller, Manafort and Assange
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Mueller, Manafort and Assange
    05 Dec 2018
    The Mueller investigation much more resembles a propaganda campaign whose goal is neither truth nor justice, but vilification of Russia in the pursuit of endless war.
  • Pierre Omidyar: A Dangerous Billionaire-Backer of the “Resistance”
    Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
    Pierre Omidyar: A Dangerous Billionaire-Backer of the “Resistance”
    05 Dec 2018
    The eBay billionaire’s project is to stabilize an imperial system in crisis by luring “progressives” into corporate dominated “Big Tent” against Trump.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us