Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 28, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 28, 2016

29 Nov 2016

🖨️ Print Article

GOP Plans Stealth Attack on Medicare

Republicans in Congress have “never really liked Social Security or Medicare” because the programs “work and they completely go against the ideology that the private sector is always better,” said Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works. The GOP will act “in the dead of night, so the people don’t know what’s happening,” and sneak a privatization bill into a “reconciliation” measure that “the Democrats can’t filibuster,” Altman predicted. “They want to give seniors and people with disabilities a check and say, ‘Good luck, go out and get private insurance.’”

What Do You Mean by Identity Politics?

Lots of people talk about how “identity politics affected the election, but the term is never specifically defined,” said Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston. “As you tease out the rhetoric, it appears to suggest that organizations like Black Lives Matter is identity politics, and people protesting against being shot down in the streets by officers of the state is identity politics.” The only good news to come out of the election, said Horne, “is that Donald J. Trump will probably prove to be the Gorbachev of the United States of America” by accelerating the decline of U.S. imperialism and white supremacy.

2016 was Bound to be a Bad Year

The “panic and hysteria” of some Hillary Clinton supporters “is really very childish,” said Diana Johnstone, author of Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton. “The fact is, there wasn’t going to be a good outcome to that election, anyway; you had two terrible candidates, so you should have been prepared for that.” The Democrats crazily search for Russians behind every web site. “The idea that Russia interfered with the election is absolutely absurd,” said Johnstone, speaking from her home in Paris. “It sounds to me like they’ve decided they’re going to make war against Russia -- and they’re all into that,” including the media.

President Obama’s Hollow Legacy

Barack Obama was “beloved” by large numbers of Black people, but it was a one-way affair. “Politicians score points with white people by assuring them they’re not going to do anything for Black people, and Obama was no exception,” said Black Agenda Report editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley. “In order to win, Black people have to be thrown under the bus.” Obama “gave white people a message that he would not in any way upset the status quo,” said Kimberley, speaking on the Taylor Report on CUIT radio, in Toronto, Canada. “His is a hollow legacy.” Hillary Clinton lost because “you can’t transfer one person’s popularity to another.”

Peltier on Standing Rock Protests

One thousand people took part in the 47^th annual Native American National Day of Mourning, last Thursday, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Placards declared “We Are Not Vanishing” and “We Are Not Conquered,” as an Elder read a message from political prisoner Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement activist who has been locked up for the past 41 years. The Standing Rock protests “are the greatest gathering of our people in history, and has made us more connected than every before,” said Peltier. “Water is life, and we cannot leave this issue to our children and grandchildren.”

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_20161128.mp3

More Stories

Pavan Kulkarni
67 Killed in Stampedes at Christmas Food Drives in Nigeria as IMF-Induced Hunger Engulfed Millions More in 2024
15 Jan 2025
After dozens died in stampedes, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu remarked, “We should just get on with it.” Tinubu’s IMF-prescribed policies have more than doubled food prices in the country,…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Ajamu Baraka on Fighting for Peace!
15 Jan 2025
Ajamu Baraka was a guest on the SOBH program on Press TV. He discussed his history of political organizing and activism, human rights, and the importance of the Black Radical Peace Tradition.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio January 10, 2025
10 Jan 2025
We talk about the killing of Robert Brooks by prison corrections officers and the need to close Rikers Island. We also discuss a recent Cuban conference dedicated to ending racism in that country.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Robert Brooks, Rikers Island and the Fight Against New York Incarceration
10 Jan 2025
Darren Mack, co-founder and co-director of Freedom Agenda, talks to us about the killing of Robert Brooks, who died after being beaten by corrections officers in a New York state prison, and the need…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Cuban Conference Against Racism and Racial Discrimination
10 Jan 2025
The National Program against racism and racial discrimination conference was held in Cuba as part of the UN declared International Decade of People of African Descent.