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

Roger D. Harris
Why the US Is Reimposing Sanctions on Venezuela
07 Feb 2024
The United States once again failed in its attempt to force regime change in Venezuela and extinguish the growth of socialism in South America. Therefore, it reverted to its old and unsuccessful…
Rezo Nodwes
Kenya Ignores Court Order to Join Occupation of Haiti
07 Feb 2024
Kenya’s police deployment to Haiti and the spurious claim of "reciprocity", knowingly and willfully promoted by Ariel Henry, William Ruto, and others, is in flagrant violation of the National Police…
David Broder
African Unity Can’t Take Place on France’s Terms
07 Feb 2024
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger pulled out of the West African economic union ECOWAS, in major blow to the regional integration project and rejection of Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to…
Abdulla Moaswes
The Epistemicide of the Palestinians: Israel Destroys Pillars of Knowledge
07 Feb 2024
The genocide in Gaza includes the calculated destruction of Palestinian intellectual labor and knowledge producing institutions, part of Israel's larger colonial strategy of epistemological…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio February 2, 2024
02 Feb 2024
In this week's segment we discuss abolishing slavery in the incarceration system, election year politics, and the recent attack on a U.S. drone base in Jordan.