Black Agenda Radio Week of March 16, 2015 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio Week of March 16, 2015

17 Mar 2015

🖨️ Print Article

Rand Paul is Ally in Fight to Repeal Patriot Act

Congress will consider a bill to completely repeal the Patriot Act, which is up for renewal, this spring. President Obama campaigned on a platform to rein in U.S. intelligence agencies, but “will soon leave Washington in even worse shape than he found it” in terms of civil liberties, said Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Buttar said GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul and elements of the Tea Party are more willing than most Democrats to stand up to the CIA and NSA.

A Multi-Generational Movement

“We need to create an intergenerational dialogue between those who represent the older movement and those who are representing the newer movement,” said Nyle Fort, a young minister from Newark, New Jersey, and contributor to the latest issue of the journal Socialism and Democracy. The journal is sponsor of a public forum on “Mass Incarceration, Police Violence and Political Imprisonment” at the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Center in New York City, March 20.

Mumia: What Was “Unsaid In Selma”

“Selma is a vivid example of an evil that still lives with us: that of police immunity for their violence,” said Mumia Abu Jamal. President Obama’s speech at the 50th anniversary ceremonies in Selma was a “masterwork” of oratory, said the nation’s best known political prisoner. The president “could have addressed police immunity, but that would have shattered his ‘we’re all better’” off than we used to be speech.

A 20-Year Cap on Prison Terms

No one should serve more than 20 years in prison, no matter what the crime, said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project. About 3,000 people sit on death rows in the U.S., while 160,000 are serving life sentences – comprising one out of every nine inmates, said Mauer. Sentences are a lot shorter in Europe, where “some countries have found life sentences to be unconstitutional, and those that still maintain it generally have only a few dozen people serving those kind of terms,” he said.

Obama goes Reagan on Venezuela

President Obama last week invoked the same language against Venezuela that President Ronald Reagan deployed against Nicaragua, in the Eighties, when the U.S. waged a proxy war against that country. In imposing economic sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials, Obama declared the country an “extraordinary threat” to the national security of the United States. Obama is attempting, like President George Bush, “to inoculate Latin America from the contagion that Venezuela represents in terms of social and political change,” said Miguel Tinker Sala, professor of history and Latin American Studies at Pomona College, in Claremont, California. However, all of Latin America has denounced U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said the U.S. foreign policy establishment doesn’t under “that the hemisphere has changed drastically in the last 15 years, and is truly independent of the United States for the first time in 150 years.”

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. Click here to download the show. Length: One hour.

listen

http://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/web/9kdcjt/BAR031615.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio May 24, 2024
24 May 2024
This week, we discuss the International Criminal Court's decision to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli government leadership and the 2024 U.S. presidential election. But first, we hear from a…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Repression of Palestine Solidarity at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Part 2
24 May 2024
In part two of our interview, Austin Cole joins us to discuss his suspension from MIT due to his participation in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and his own experience with the attack directed by the…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
International Criminal Court Action Falls Short in Addressing Israeli War Crimes
24 May 2024
Ajamu Baraka joins us to discuss the International Criminal Court, the ICC, and the announcement by Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan that he is applying for arrest warrants for both Israeli and…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Biden Struggles in the 2024 Presidential Election
24 May 2024
Margaret Kimberley recently joined Sputnik News program, Fault Lines, and discussed why incumbent president Joe Biden is struggling to make the case for a second term.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Western Arms Supplies to Ukraine Prevent Peaceful Solutions
22 May 2024
Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, was invited to brief the United Nations Security Council on May 20, 2024, as a civil society representative. The subject of the meeting…