Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 22, 2017

Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford

23 Aug 2017

Doctors Back Single Payer

A new survey shows 56 percent of U.S. doctors now favor establishment of a single payer healthcare system. Only a minority of physicians opted for single payer back in 2008. Dr. Margaret Flowers, of Popular Resistance, said other studies have shown even greater support among physicians. “What all this reflects,” said Flowers, “is that the current healthcare non-system is driving health professionals to search for an alternative that would actually allow them to focus on their patients’ needs and not the ‘business of medicine.’”

Black Political Class “Illegitimate”

Veteran activist Kamm Howard, speaking at the national conference of the Black Is Back Coalition, in Chicago, said data show Black peoples’ two main “desires” are reparations and self-determination, which he described as “Black people governing their own communities, independent of the Democratic Party. Our political leadership is supposed to mirror these desires,” said Howard -- and when they fail to do so, that renders them illegitimate.

Blacks More Vulnerable Than Ever

“We are, in essence, a redundant population” that is “no longer an important part of the U.S. political economy,” said Ajamu Baraka, the longtime human rights activist and 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate. “As a consequence, Baraka told the Black Is Back Coalition, “the main objective now on the part of the state is to engage in a process of control and containment” of Black people. “We are in a more precarious and vulnerable situation than we’ve ever been before in this country.”

Uncle Sam Overdosing on War

Washington’s European allies are tired of endless U.S. wars, said Duboisian scholar and Black Radical Organizing Committee activist Dr. Anthony Monteiro. Americans are fed up, too. “The nation is weary of war, the nation has been bankrupted by war, and I think people are beginning to realize that these are wars that we can’t win,” said Monteiro.

Tear Down Those Prison Walls

In an essay for Prison Radio, Pennsylvania political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal said the U.S. has created “a nation of millions in chains” -- a “Prison Nation fueled by the politics of fear.” Prison abolition, he said, “is a question that is now right on time for us all.”

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:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.

political economy

reparations

Medicare For All

Black Misleadership Class

Department of War

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