Republicans

What's More Important For Black Leadership? Turning Off Fox News? Or Stopping the President's Cat Food Commission?

Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:57 — Bruce A. Dixon

While black political leaders and activists focus on turning off Fox News, and clownish disputes with Tea Partyers and the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, are they missing something more important? Can any good come from a Democratic president reaching across the aisle to team up with Republicans for a bipartisan “fiscal reform” that targets “entitlements,” meaning Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security? Is the silence of black leadership on the president's Cat Food Commission still more evidence of their irrelevance?

Tea Partyers, Fox News, "Negativity" Against the President? Are These Really Black America's Most Pressing Problems?

Wed, 07/21/2010 - 10:36 — Bruce A. Dixon

montage 199 From the established civil rights organizations like the NAACP to legions of elected Democrats and preachers and even people like our good friends at Color of Change, the main activity these days is an endless circling of wagons around the president, defending him against the flood of racist bile that spews daily from the likes of Fox News, the Tea Partyers and naysaying Republicans. But is that really where so much of our energy and creativity should be going? Aren't there other urgent matters more deserving of the attention of black America's political leadership, our pastors and spokespeople and self-described activists? Matters like black mass incarceration, record unemployment, and the sinking of vast resources into multiple wars abroad?

NAACP Confronts Tea Party, But Will It Challenge Obama?

Tue, 07/20/2010 - 19:13 — Glen Ford

naacp vs tea party

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The nation's oldest civil rights group claims it is ready to confront militarism and demand that Obama supporters get the “change they voted for.” So do Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who is virtually an administration operative. So does Big Labor. We'll believe it when we see it. But, the Tea Party is another story.

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Black Rage; Lynne Stewart Sentenced; a Red Black & Green Party; Counting Black Jobs; Southern Black Co-ops – Black Agenda Radio on PRN, the Progressive Radio Network

Mon, 07/19/2010 - 21:48 — Nellie Bailey a...

Rage in Black America

Killer cops are the most powerful agents of Black enragement. As in the case of Oscar Grant, not even the presence of live witnesses and cameras seems to deter the hit men in blue. BAR’s Dr. Jared Ball reminds us that Malcolm X “once said that simply being Black in America ‘radicalizes you.’ We hope so because it certainly does continue to enrage.”

People’s Lawyer Sentenced

Lynne Stewart has been “made an example of” because she defends the people’s “right to resist – the ultimate human right,” says activist and educator Ward Churchill. Stewart was re-sentenced to ten years in prison for allegedly providing “material support” to her client, an accused terrorist.

Towards a Red Black & Green Party

Blacks have given blind allegiance to the Democratic Party over the last 75 years, just as they did with Republicans in the previous 65 years since Emancipation, says BAR’s Bruce Dixon. “Our 1870 political strategy makes us unable to discern an enemy when he is a professed Democrat, all the more a Democrat with a black face.”

Black Jobs by the Numbers

Steven Pitts, of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, at Berkeley, worries that “we begin to pit low wage workers against the unemployed” at times of economic trouble, and “put unemployed workers into bad jobs.” Pitts and his colleagues have recently begun issuing monthly reports on Black employment prospects.

A 43-Year Cooperative Venture

Since 1967, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has helped Black farmers achieve self-sufficiency. The federation celebrates its work with 30,000 families in 75 cooperatives across the South with festivities in Birmingham, Alabama, August 19-21, says executive director Ralph Paige.

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 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.

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Black American Politics in the 21st Century: Is It Time For A New Plan?

Wed, 07/14/2010 - 09:28 — Bruce A. Dixon

We all love and respect our ancestor and freedom fighter Frederick Douglass. But in the 21^st century, nobody is trying to imitate his haircut or wear his 19^th century clothes. So why is 21^st century black America still stuck with Frederick Douglass's political strategy, 140 years later? And how's that old stuff working out for us, anyway?

No Facts, No Peace in Rwanda, No More Free Elections in California, No Blacks on Juries in the South, & Prison Gerrymandering -- Listen to BA Radio on the Progressive Radio Network

Tue, 06/15/2010 - 23:06 — Nellie Bailey a...

Nader: Proposition 14 Has Killed "Free Elections" in California

The passage of Prop 14 in California last week, Ralph Nader explains to BAR, locks down the electoral process for everyone but celebrities and the wealthiest business-backed candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties. It's the end of free elections in California.

Rwanda Regime is “Dictatorship, a Totalitarian State,” Says Colleague of Jailed American Lawyer

With Rwanda now a close ally of the US in East Africa, raising fact and evidence-based questions on the Rwandan genocide story can earn you prison or worse in that unhappy land, says Christian Davenport, a young black professor of Peace Studies at Notre Dame who has conducted research in Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Northern Ireland, Turkey and beyond. The “Hotel Rwanda” story doesn't begin to tell the whole tale of what went on in Rwanda in those days, Davenport tells BAR.

Black Exclusion From Juries is Endemic in the U.S.

Atty Jacqueline Jones-Peace outlines how the how Blacks are rejected from juries for reasons ranging from appearing “arrogant,” to having a goatee. Atty. One prosecutor rejected a Black juror because he “shucked and jived when he walked,” according to a study of eight southern states done by the Equal Justice Initiative,

NAACP Legal Defense Fund: Prison-Based Gerrymandering Resembles “3/5s Man” Rule

LDF attorney Dale Ho told BAR “the parallels between prison-based gerrymandering and the three-fifths compromise are strong and eerie.” The practice counts prison inmates as “residents” of the jurisdiction in which they are incarcerated, rather than their home cities.

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. Click the player below to listen. About 50 minutes.

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Rand Paul Tells On Self and Fellow Tea Partyers

Thu, 05/27/2010 - 13:47 — Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

It was like pulling teeth, but Tea Party star Rand Paul finally blurted out his core, racist ideology in front of national TV cameras. Property rights trump Black rights, every time. "White supremacy is the connective link that holds the 'Tea Party' together - that, and relentless media coverage."

Click here to download the MP3 of this BA Radio commentary.

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Can Democrats Avoid a Populist Health Care Rebellion?

Mon, 10/19/2009 - 22:54 — Anonymous

by Kevin Zeese

Democratic leadership is committing political suicide by attempting to force all Americans to buy shoddy insurance policies from profiteering private corporations. Already, activists who worked hard for Obama are putting their bodies on the line to halt the White House capitulation to corporate healthcare. Medicare for All is the only alternative.

Creating A Third Force In American Politics

Wed, 04/29/2009 - 09:55 — Dr. Ron Daniels

by Dr. Ron Daniels

Progressives should create a ‘third force’ in American politics – an independent political organization that focuses on developing and advocating reformative and transformative policy proposals and actively educates, agitates, organizes and lobbies to enact its agenda.” The Left should have learned by now “that the change President Obama believes he can achieve is incremental, not fundamental.” There’s a problem, however. Although “the crucial task is creating a third force as a 21st century version of the Rainbow Coalition… the left tends to be too fractious and contentious to build this kind of umbrella formation.”

Freedom Rider: No Better Off with the Democrats

Wed, 04/15/2009 - 07:23 — Margaret Kimberley

spare change by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

A wise political analyst once said that the United States didn't have two parties, just two wings of a single party, the Party of Business. The Bush-McCain wing might have been the oil companies and Wall Street. The Obama wing might be just Wall Street, a distinction without a great deal of difference, unless you include symbolic factors, like the first family's skin color and the ability of the president to speak off the cuff in complete, grammatical sentences.

Among Republicans, Who's The Man? Limbaugh or Steele?

Wed, 03/18/2009 - 09:02 — Glen Ford

who's da man? To hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the flash player above. To download an MP3 copy for broadcast or personal use, click here.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

While Democrats stirred the pot "like kids egging on a schoolyard fight," premier right-wing radio propagandist Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele, the Black chairman of the Republican Party, duked it out over who was the "real" voice of the GOP. If having to say you're sorry means surrender, Steele lost. Among Steele's defenders: Chip Saltsman, the guy who crafted the campaign parody song "Barack the Magic Negro."

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The Most Important Presidential Election Ever. Again. No, Really!

Wed, 10/29/2008 - 04:43 — Bruce A. Dixon

by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon,

with video by Billy at www.slepton.com.

First check out this exclusive 60 Minutes interview with brother Billy of SleptOn.com.

And to read more about the importance of this year's presidential election, click the link below.

Freedom Rider: Ruling Class Bailed Out

Tue, 09/23/2008 - 18:00 — Margaret Kimberley

FR_WallStreetPeople by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

The "worst criminals in the nation," who answered to no one as they daily stole billions from financial institutions and the society at large, would be given dictatorial powers in the trillion dollar attempt to clean up their mess of crimes. Major party opposition hardly exists. "The Democrats endlessly repeat the grotesque mantra that the sky will fall unless the people who cooked up schemes to enrich themselves at the expense of humanity are let off with impunity." In the end, "Barack Obama will act in the same way as McCain. He has said as much."

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The Palin Propaganda Machine

Tue, 09/16/2008 - 18:00 — Sikivu Hutchinson

Palin by Sikivu Hutchinson

Middle-American (i.e., white) moral hypocrisy is in graphic relief this campaign season. "Had the Palin family soap opera played out in the Obama household his bid for the presidency would have been gutted by right wing hysteria about promiscuous black welfare mothers in training and irresponsible baby daddies." Yet the V.P. candidate from the Great White North is a hit - so far. "The Palin choice was a transparently racist bid for the votes of white women enraged by the prospect of a black man in Hillary's White House."