| Black Agenda Report

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Booming” Economy Means More Bad Jobs and Faster Race to the Bottom
05 Dec 2019
For the past 30 years, no matter which party has been in power, the US economy has produced more and more “bad” jobs – because the Race to the Bottom is ruling class policy. “Whole sectors have become precarity zones.”
Lucas Koerner
How the Global North’s ‘Left’ Media Helped Paved the Way for Bolivia’s Right-Wing Coup
11 Dec 2019
So-called progressives in the US can find every wart in foreign governments, but are blind to Washington’s regime change crimes. “One ‘left’ outlet played down the reality of a coup d'etat, drawing false equivalences between the Morales government and the fascist right.”
Netfa Freeman
Abstract Leftism Leaves Bolivia and the Global South in Imperialist Crosshairs
11 Dec 2019
The phony US Left specializes in finding excuses to betray victims of US imperialism. “It apparently does not matter to liberals that the forced takeover in Bolivia is unconstitutional and US support for it is a flagrant violation of international law.”
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Ana Maldonado, Pilar Troya Fernandez, and Vijay Prashad
A Letter to Intellectuals Who Deride Revolutions in the Name of Purity
11 Dec 2019
Critics on the left in North America and in Europe gave the Chavez and Morales governments no time to breathe. “Any attempt to fully transcend capitalism was constrained by the power of the bourgeoisie, which is now the source of counter-revolution.”
Nana Osei-Opare
BAR Book Forum: “Books I Teach”
11 Dec 2019
This teacher has Black liberation on the menu: from Mau Mau and African communists, to Biko, Nkrumah and Fanon. “Elkins fundamentally questions the notion of a liberal empire as it pertained to nonwhite peoples.”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Adeline Masquelier’s “Fada: Boredom and Belonging in Niger”
11 Dec 2019
Young men in Niger meet at fadas to figure out what to do with their lives under uncaring global capitalism. “High unemployment and intensifying informalization are no longer specific to the Global South.”
Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
11 Dec 2019
Readers discussed liberal warhawks, fascism and Trump, and America’s founding myths this week. We share your letters for “Freedom Rider: Liberals Love the Military,” “Fascism the Other F Word,” and “
Mary Helen Washington
Racial Terror & Totalitarianism
11 Dec 2019
Rasberry asks how the history of totalitarianism looks from the vantage point of the colonized and the racially subjugated. “Colonial violence and modern racial terrorist regimes must be read as forms of totalitarianism.” Race and the Totalitarian Century Geopolitics in the Black Literary…
Michael E. Tigar
Rap Brown Law Today
11 Dec 2019
The law holds that just one person, crossing a state line with the intent to do or participate in mischief, can be prosecuted. “Its formal title was ‘The Civil Obedience Act of 1968.’” A right-wing publication quotes sources from the Department that calls itself Justice. The “Rap Brown Law”…
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
Black Friday Blues
11 Dec 2019
Here come Black Friday, but I wanna a Green New Deal Here come Black Friday, but I wanna a Green New Deal With a whole lotta street heat just to keep it real… Here come Cyber Monday, but I want some Single-Payer Here come Cyber Monday, but I want some Single-Payer— You can pay for it— You’re the “…