Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 1, 2017

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 1, 2017

Mumia Challenges His Conviction, Charging Judicial Bias

A judge that rejected Mumia Abu Jamal’s appeal of his 1982 conviction in the killing of a Philadelphia cop accepted funding from the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police, which named the jurist their “Man of the Year.” Lawyers for the nation’s best known political prisoner went to court, last week, charging that former judge Ron Castille should have recused himself, in line with later court decisions. The case is of intense interest “to hundreds, if not thousands, of Pennsylvania prisoners,” said Dr. Johanna Fernandez, a professor of history and African American studies at Baruch College and founder of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home. If Mumia wins, “this would be a game changer,” she said. “It would really expose the rotten, corrupt nature of the criminal justice system, and it would give confidence to the movement to end the gulag that is mass incarceration.”

The Vanishing U.S. Left

Much of what passes for the “left” in this country has rendered itself useless through support of U.S. wars, said Danny Haiphong, a Boston-based social worker and weekly contributor to Black Agenda Report. What remains is a “left” that is “basically falling into the whole racist and dehumanizing rhetoric that helps to justify war against the people” of places like Syria and North Korea, he said. Both U.S. corporate parties are “risking nuclear conflagration, but there is little resistance to any of it” from those that call themselves leftists. “The Democrats,” he said, “have been driven to the right of the Republicans on a lot of questions, including the Sanders folks.” Haiphong’s recent BAR article is titled “The Left’s State of Purgatory.”

Putting Black Self-Determination on the Ballot

The National Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination, a 19-point document produced last year by the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, is being put to use in the electoral political arena. One candidate for mayor of Detroit has incorporated the 19 points into his campaign, and “there are two candidates in St. Petersburg, Florida, running on that same platform,” said Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela. The agenda “tackles the question of mass incarceration, this colonial terror that’s been waged against our people,” he said. “It deals with the question of gentrification -- population removal -- and all of the contradictions that contribute to the relentless war that we experience in this country.”

Single Payer Makes a Breakthrough on Capitol Hill

For the first time ever, a majority of U.S. House Democrats have signed on to Medicare for All bill, sponsored by Detroit Congressman John Conyers. The milestone for single payer health care “is a testament to the work of activists, because the Democrats told us, early on, that this year was all going to be about resisting Trump and not putting anything positive forward,” said Dr. Margaret Flowers, of Popular Resistance. “Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have” a single payer bill “in their platforms, so this is going to be a battle that’s waged by the grassroots activists, to push whoever’s in power to take this approach.”

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.

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