Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 22, 2017
23 May 2017
🖨️ Print Article

U.S. Healthcare is Profiteered to Death

Only a single payer system can bring U.S. health care into the 21st century, said Dr. Susan Rogers, of Physicians for a National Health Program. Private insurance corporations drain society of health care resources. “If you look at a large hospital, I bet they’ve got more billing clerks than they do nurses, per patient,” said Rogers. “That tells you where the money is going; it’s not going to health care, it’s going to billing.”

The Democrats’ Formula for Losing Elections

The Democrats “know what they need to do to get out the vote,” said Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report. “They need to raise wages, stop the student loan debt, and protect people’s homes. But none of these things are acceptable to their patrons” among the 1 percent,” said Kimberley, who recently authored an article titled “The Democratic Party Death Spiral.” The Democrats “cannot depend on corporate money and do what the people want them to do.”

U.S. Can’t Rule World by Force

Despite its massive military, the U.S. cannot rule the world by force of arms, said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Duboisian scholar from Philadelphia. China’s regional neighborhood includes “three of the five largest economies in the world,” said Monteiro. Therefore, a war with China “would be like the U.S. shooting itself in the head.” A war with Iran, on the Persian Gulf, “would throw the world into a recession or depression.” These are “wars that the United States can’t win; wars that the American public don’t want; and wars that most of humanity would condemn as wars of aggression,” he said.

Mumia: Back to the Bad Old Days

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, recalled being beaten up by cops, as a 14 year-old, in 1968 Philadelphia. It was “a little taste of [former mayor and police chief] Rizzo, and “an introduction to Trump,” Abu Jamal told journalist Chris Hedges, host of the RT program “On Contact.” “I lived in the ‘bad old days,’” said Mumia. “They were ugly days, and they’re ugly days, today.”

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.

 


More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Ultimate Betrayal of Alex Saab and the Fate of Nicolás Maduro and the Venezuelan People
    16 Sep 2026
    The United States got its hands on Alex Saab a second time in order to use him in its case against Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. succeeded in getting a guilty plea from Saab, but the current Venezuelan…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    COMMENTARY: The Shrinking American Empire, Glen Ford, 2009
    16 Sep 2026
    “The Iraq invasion greatly accelerated the process of U.S. imperialism’s decline.”
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Black Radicalism and the Return of the “Subversive Negro”
    16 Sep 2026
    NSPM-7 and the State Department's international campaign against "far-left political terrorism" represent new and more dangerous forms of domestic repression in the 21st century, while reconstructing…
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Colin Kaepernick’s “The Perilous Fight”
    16 Sep 2026
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Colin Kaepernick.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    A Climate “Movement” Homonym: (Or, How the Big Apple’s Annual Environmental Gathering Surfaces an Imperative Inquiry, Climate Week or Climate Weak?)
    16 Sep 2026
    The climate movement has been captured by a professional managerial class that prefers charity galas and virtue signaling to building power.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us