Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 14, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 14, 2016

15 Nov 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Cornel West: Class Becoming “Much More Central”

“We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era,” said Dr. Cornel West, the nation’s most prominent Black public intellectual, assessing the import of last week’s election. West backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, then endorsed the Green Party’s presidential ticket. The election “did not go left-populist, following Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein,” he said. Instead, “it went rightwing-fascist. But the neoliberal era is coming to a close and the neoliberal establishment is being exposed. The issues of class now are becoming much more central.”

Trump Supporters Mounted an “Insurrection”

Duboisian scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro was among the few observers on the Left that thought Donald Trump would win at the polls. But, even he was startled at the scope of Trump’s sweep. “I felt that the insurgency would grow and deepen, but I never thought that it would become an insurrection,” said Monteiro. “In a certain sense, white working and poor people in these small, rust belt towns have a sense of achievement in having brought the Clintons down that Black people had in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected with a huge Black turnout,” he said. Monteiro is one of the organizers of a Conference on Political Science for Radical Times, set for December 9-10, in Philadelphia.

TPP “On Its Death Bed”

With Donald Trump’s victory, President Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership corporate rights trade deal is “looking like it’s on its death bed,” said Kevin Zeese, of Popular Resistance. “We’ve worked for five years to make TPP stand for Toxic Political Poison, and that seems to have happened,” said Zeese. Trump won in “the rust belt that was destroyed by NAFTA” -- Bill Clinton’s jobs-exporting bill of a generation ago -- “and was going to be threatened again by TPP.” Zeese said Obama may make a last bid to pass TPP in the lame duck session of Congress that begins this week.

Finally, a Practical Guide to Black Self-Determination

The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations adopted a 19-point Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination, at a conference in Washington. The document applies the principle of self-determination to the broadest range of issues, from Black Community Control of the Police, to Mass Black Incarceration, to Nationalization of the Banks. “Everybody wants self-determination,” said Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela, “but what does it mean, practically?” The 19 points give direction to the struggle. “This isn’t something you work on every four years,” said Yeshitela. “This is something you work on every day. This is our program.”

Margaret Kimberley, an editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report, told the conference: “When we meet together, today, we are showing the world what self-determination looks like.” Voting for “your enemies” is not self-determination, and “thinking that electoral politics is the only road to liberation is not self-determination,” said Kimberley.

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

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/blackagendaradio_20161114.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Raymond Nat Turner, Upsurge NYC and Black Agenda Report
05 Apr 2024
BAR Poet-in-Residence, Raymond Nat Turner, joins us from New York City to talk about his work and an upcoming performance with his group, Upsurge New York City.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Guyana is an Imperialist Target
05 Apr 2024
Gerald Perreira of Organization for the Victory of the People in Guyana joins us to discuss the long running territorial dispute with neighboring Venezuela and the increasing activity of U.S. in the…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Israel and the U.S. are Gangster States
03 Apr 2024
Any sign of even tiny opposition is enough to send Israel into a frenzy of bloodletting. Hospital attacks, murders of aid workers, violations of the sovereignty of embassies, are all par for the…
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
STATEMENT: UN Palestine Commission Partition recommendation – Statement from the Arab Higher Committee, 6 February 1948
03 Apr 2024
The statement on the UN Partition of Palestine by the Arab Higher Committee is a reminder of the sordid history of the U.S. in the expropriation of land and the attempted ethnic cleansing of the…
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Eric Nshimiye, Another Rwandan American Facing Trial in Another Rwandan Witch Hunt
03 Apr 2024
The totalitarian state of Rwanda is guilty of many forms of transnational repression, including the lawfare exemplified in the case of Eric Nshimiye.