Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 13, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 13, 2016

14 Jun 2016

🖨️ Print Article

FBI Widens Sting Operations Against Dissidents

The FBI appears to have widened its web of sting operations to entrap American dissidents in so-called “terrorist plots,” said Sue Udry, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Udry cited a study that analyzed about 400 alleged terror plots prosecuted by the FBI between 2003 and 2010, only four of which “did not have a component of FBI entrapment of the people who were eventually convicted.” Most were against poor, unsophisticated Muslim Americans. In more recent years, said Udry, the FBI and the Homeland Security Department have used “these entrapment stings against environmental and peace activists” and have been “monitoring and infiltrating Black Lives Matter, the Occupy Movement” and “groups that are fighting fracking.” The Committee is demanding Congress launch an investigation to find out “what other groups the FBI has been focused on.”

Black Is Back Coalition to Help Develop an Agenda for Self-Determination

Black America in recent decades has put forward “no basic political demand” of its own, but instead hopes and prays “that the Democratic Party will treat us well and the Republican Party will not treat us badly,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. On August 13 and 14 the Coalition will hold a conference on a national Black political agenda for self-determination, in Philadelphia. In the Sixties, said Yeshitela, “the drive was for self-determination, and that’s been a missing element in the political discussion up until now.”

Broad Clemency Needed to Reverse Mass Incarceration

The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based prison reform organization, is calling for a broader, categorical approach to presidential clemency, like President Gerald Ford’s 1974 amnesty for war resisters. However, even comprehensive clemencies would not alter U.S. status as the world’s premier incarceration state, said executive director Marc Mauer. “We need to have more rational sentencing policies, we need more diversion from prison, and we need more public health approaches” to social problems,” said Mauer. “If we really want to address mass incarceration, it’s going to take much more on the front end than just rectifying some of these problems five or ten years after the initial sentence has taken place.”

Death Squads and Corporate Greed Prey on Black Colombians

Afro-Colombians and indigenous groups have been blocking roads in protest of violations of their land rights by multinational corporations and intimidation by paramilitary death squads. “You have a particular kind of predatory capitalism” in Colombia and other parts of Latin America, “where you have a relationship between corporations and the government, and paramilitary forces that do the bidding of these corporations in terms of cleaning people from land and terrorizing and murdering local organizers,” said Ajamu Baraka, a member of the Afro-Colombian Solidarity Network. “In Colombia, paramilitarism has been taken to an art form.” Baraka is a BAR editor and columnist and a founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network.

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR BLACK AGENDA RADIO

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.

listen

https://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/play/azt4rd/BAR_061316.mp3

More Stories

Isabelle Papillon
The CPT Under the Wings of BINUH!
29 May 2024
The Haitian Presidential Transitional Council continues to prepare for the illegal occupation by meeting with the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH).
Martina Manicastri , Sudip Bhattacharya
Letter: Why Vote Uncommitted: A Vote for Peace and Justice
29 May 2024
The Uncommitted Movement is the means through which voters across the country are resisting forced complicity in genocide and making it clear to the Democratic Party that their positions are not as…
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…