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

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Margaret Kimberley speaks at the No Nuclear War Conference - National Press Club in Washington
11 Dec 2024
On December 7, 2024, Scott Ritter convened a panel at the National Press Club in Washington to discuss the increasing risk of nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Margaret Kimberley was…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio December 6, 2024
06 Dec 2024
In this week’s segment, a British journalist gives an update on his case after being charged with violating the Terrorism Act of 2020. But first, we talk to Omali Yeshitela about the sentencing of…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Omali Yeshitela on the Uhuru 3 Sentencing and the Indictment of the U.S.
06 Dec 2024
Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party Omali Yeshitela joins us from St. Louis to discuss the federal case in which he, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel were recently convicted…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Richard Medhurst Discusses the Terrorism Act and the Criminalization of Journalism
06 Dec 2024
Richard Medhurst joins us to provide an update on his case resulting from his arrest under the Terrorism Act and discuss the impact of repression on other journalists and international events.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Problem with Joe and Hunter
04 Dec 2024
The outrage surrounding President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden is not just about clemency for the relatively minor charges he was facing. The younger Biden has lived a life of great…