Black Agenda Radio – 7.18.16

This is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Your hosts are Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, here they are with a weekly hour of African American political thought and action.

– Something is different in Black America than it was two weeks ago. The police killings of Black men in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, the massive protests that followed, and Micah Johnson’s retaliation against Dallas police, left a distinct mark on the Black psyche. We asked Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Duboisian scholar and member of the Black Radical Organizing Committee, if he thinks something has changed in the mood and the minds of Black folks?

– Thousands are expected to descend on Philadelphia next week, for protests at the Democratic National Convention. Scott Williams, of the International Action Center, is an organizer for a “Shut Down the DNC” march, on July 26. However, before the protesters can confront the National Democratic Party, they first have to fight with the local Democrats and the police.

– Angelo Brown, a Black father of 15 children who was shot to death by police in Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis, was also known as Houdari Juelani, a general in the Revolutionary Black Panther Party. The police claim that Angelo Brown threatened them with a gun. His body showed signs of having been beaten. Dr. Ali Muhammad is Chief General in Command of the Revolutionary Black Panther Party. He’s also a doctor of neurological medicine. Dr. Muhammad talks about his slain comrade.

– Mumia Abu Jamal, a veteran of the original Black Panther Party for Self Defense, is glad to report on a victory for a fellow political prisoner.

– The long arm of civil law reaches at least as deep and far as criminal law – and, if you don’t have money, you will not find justice in civil law, either. Evictions, home foreclosures, domestic disputes – all of these arenas of conflict come under civil law. David Udell is executive director of the National Center for Access to Justice, located at Cardozo Law School, in New York City. His center has created a Justice Index, that measures access to civil court justice in all 50 states. Udell says the civil law caseload dwarfs the criminal justice system.

Visit the BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday.

Black Agenda Radio – 7.04.16

This is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Your hosts are Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, here they are with a weekly hour of African American political thought and action.

– In two three weeks, Philadelphia will host the Democratic National Convention and thousands of protesters who would like to shut the whole thing down. We spoke with Erica Mimes, of the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice, part of the People of Color DNC Resistance Against Police Terrorism and State Repression. They’ve teamed up with “Shut Down DNC” for a march at the height of the convention, on Tuesday, July 26th. But Philadelphia officials have not yet granted them a parade permit. Mimes doesn’t expect fairness of the city.

– MONEY makes the world of the Democrats and the Republicans go round, according to Dr. Thomas Ferguson, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, at Boston. Dr. Ferguson is author of the book, “The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money Driven Politics.” He says says this election season has been quite unusual, on both sides of the two-party system. Bernie Sanders mounted a challenge to the Democratic establishment with mostly small campaign contributions, and Donald Trump used his personal fortune to raise issues that Republicans hardly ever talk about. Does that mean Donald Trump marches to a different drummer?

– Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, is among the speakers who will address a mass meeting on “The Politics of Incarceration in Palestine and the United States,” on July 15th, at the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Educational Center, in New York City. Nyle Forte, a young minister and Phad candidate from Newark, New Jersey, is also a speaker, along with others who recently traveled to Palestine. We asked Nyle Forte what Israeli treatment of Palestinians has to do with mass Black incarceration in the United States.

– On the 4th of July in the year 1852, the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, “There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.” We spoke with Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report editor and senior columnist, and asked her if Frederick Douglass’s assessment sounds familiar, in the present day.

– Holidays like the 4th of July don’t mean much to the 2.2 million people locked up in this country’s prisons. Political prison Yan Lahman has for months been denied direct communication with the outside world. His commentary, for Prison Radio, is titled “Prisoners’ Voices Blocked and Censorship of U.S. Prisons.” It’s read by Lynn Stewar, the people’s lawyer who has also been a political prisoner, herself.

Black Agenda Radio – 6.27.16

This is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Your hosts are Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, here they are with a weekly hour of African American political thought and action.

– The Great Britain will begin the process of leaving the European Union, after an historic referendum, last week. Capitalists all over the planet are upset. We spoke with Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Duboisian scholar with the Black Radical Organizing Committee, and asked: “Why are rich people on both sides of the Atlantic so worried about BREXIT.

– In what looked like well-organized political theater, 51 diplomats in the U.S. State Department acted more like employees of the Pentagon, this month. They sent an orchestrated message through the departments complaint channels, calling on the U.S. to launch a bombing campaign against the government of Syria. Meanwhile, U.S. war planes came to the defense of al Qaida terrorists who are under attack by Russian air forces. Sara Flounders, of UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition, says the State Department letter-signers are risking war with Russia to save U.S.-backed jihadists in Syria.

– The prosecution against the cops involved in the killing of Freddie Gray, in Baltimore, is batting zero. A judge last week acquitted a police officer of depraved heart murder charges in Grays death. Carl Dix, of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, spoke to us outside the courtroom.

– Bernie Sanders has conceded that he won’t be the Democratic presidential candidate – and, lots of his supporters are in mourning. But Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best-known political prisoner, says activists must look “Beyond Bernie.”

– Some temporary employment agencies exclude Black job applicants. Instead, they send Latino workers to fill jobs for their clients. Alva Ayala is an attorney for the Workers Law Office, in Chicago. His firm has sued six temporary employment agencies and many of their clients for refusing to hire Blacks. Ayala says temp agencies do the employers’ dirty work, providing companies with the most insecure and easily exploitable workers.

Visit the BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday.

Black Agenda Radio – 6.20.16

This is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Your hosts are Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, here they are with a weekly hour of African American political thought and action.

– The People’s Organization for Progress, POP, does not hesitate to demonstrate, whether it’s marking the anniversary of the 1967 rebellion in Newark, New Jersey, or protesting President Obama’s attempt to cut Social Security. Recently, POP hit the streets to protest New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order that sets up a blacklist of companies that have agreed to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel. Larry Hamm is chairman of POP. He’s also a Bernie Sanders delegate to the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

– The City of Philadelphia is welcoming the Democrats to town, but the welcome mat does not extend to protest marchers. Cheri Honkala is a longtime poor people’s activist, based in Philadelphia.

– The Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, ran the Caribbean country of Haiti with an iron fist when she was Secretary of State. Clinton helped to engineer the rise to the presidency of Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly, who was finally forced out of power by popular demand, this year. Nikolas Barry-Shaw, a Voting Rights Associate with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, says Clinton’s record in Haiti is an embarrassment to her campaign, which would prefer that Haiti not be in the news.

– Gunmen riddled the home of Haitian presidential candidate Dr. Maryse Narcisse, who represents Fanmi Lavalas, the political party of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup in 2004. Aristides’ party has been banned from most elections since then. We spoke with Pierre Labossier, of the Haiti Action Committee. He says the U.S. State Department fought tooth and nail to try to force the Haitian people to accept the results of last year’s rigged elections.

– New federal rules would make it harder for people to get payday loans at usurious interest rates. Matt Stannard is Policy Director of Commonomics USA. He’d like to get rid of payday loans altogether, and providing alternative financing to poor people.

Visit the BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday.

Ask Beatty – 06.13.16

50 innocent people murdered in a LGBT club in Orlando by an ISIS sympathizer.

College Sexual Assault… The Brock Turner Case.

Commentary about a New York Times article, Why You Will Marry the Wrong Partner.

Tune in and listen to Beatty’s psychological analysis and commentary about these stories and more!

Black Agenda Radio – 6.13.16

Welcome, this is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Your hosts are Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, here they are with a weekly hour of African American political thought and action

– The FBI has stepped up its sting operations against Muslim Americans to implicate them in plots against the United States. Civil liberties organizations say almost every so-called “terrorist plot” between 9/11 and the year 2010 was in some way assisted, or even cooked up, by the FBI. We spoke with Sue Udry, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. She says most of the FBI’s cases involve entrapment.

– The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is preparing to hold a national conference in Philadelphia, August 13 and 14, to begin the process of crafting a National Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination. Black Is Back Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela explains.

– A leading prison reform organization is calling for a much broader presidential clemency policy, one that would release whole categories of federal prisoners, rather than setting people free on a one-at-a-time, individual basis. Marc Mauer, of The Sentencing Project, says what’s needed is big, bold actions like President Gerald Ford’s clemency for draft resisters, back in 1974. However, the Obama administration went into court to prevent the wholesale release of people convicted under old crack cocaine laws. As a result, thousands of federal crack cocaine prisoners remain incarcerated. Marc Mauer wants a much more categorical approach to clemency.

– Blacks in the South American nation of Colombia joined with indigenous Colombians to block roads, in protest of encroachments on their land by multinational corporations, and threats by death squads employed by the rich. Ajamu Baraka is a Black Agenda Report editor and columnist, a founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network, and also a member of the Afro-Colombian Solidarity Network, a U.S. coalition that advocates for the rights of Black people in Colombia. Baraka says Afro-Colombians also have conflicts with FARC, the guerilla force that has been fighting the Colombian government for decades, and has its own plans for land reform. Baraka explains the complexities of the conflict.

Visit the BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday.

Black Agenda Radio – 6.06.16

Welcome, this is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford with my co-host, Nellie Bailey., here is a weekly hour of African American political thought and action

– Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney says Black people have no stake in the Republican or Democratic parties. McKinney was the Green Party’s presidential candidate in 2008. She has since earned her PhD in Leadership and Change. We asked McKinney if she has ever seen anything like the current disarray in both major parties this election season?

– Political activists from around the nation are planning to be in Philadelphia, in late July, for the Democratic National convention. Dr. Anthony Monteiro is a native Philadelphian, a member of the Black Radical Organizing Committee, and one of the organizers of last January’s national conference on the Black Radical Tradition. Dr. Monteiro says this is the most “consequential” election season in, perhaps, a century.

– Rev. Edward Pinkney is serving a sentence of 30 months to ten years in prison for allegedly tampering with a voter petition in his hometown of Benton Harbor, Michigan. The mostly Black city has long been under the thumb of the Whirlpool Corporation. Rev. Pinkney spoke to Prison Radio on how he became a political prisoner.

– Studies show that Black girls are suspended or expelled from school at six times the rate of white girls. Education Week magazine spoke with researchers on the causes of these wildly disproportionate punishments. Adrienne Dixson, a professor of Critical Race Theory at the University Illinois.

– The United States seems to be closer to its long time goal of overthrowing the left wing government in Venezuela. The Venezuelans say Washington is gearing up for a military intervention. Utrice Leid, host of Leid Stories, on the Progressive Radio Network, recently interviewed Dr. Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston.

Be sure to visit us at BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday. That’s www.BlackAgendaReport.com. It’s the place for news, commentary and analysis, from the Black Left.

Black Agenda Radio – 05.30.16

Welcome to Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, with my co-host, Nellie Bailey and this is a weekly hour of African American political thought and action.

– Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein took her cause to the annual Left Forum conference, in New York City. Stein and her party still have to contend with Democrats who claim third parties are spoilers that only help the Republicans.

– Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford appeared on the same panel with Dr. Stein. The event was titled “Can Bernie Sanders Build Left and Black Power?” Ford said Sanders is a Franklin Roosevelt New Deal-type politician who thinks the bankers are necessary to society. So, Sanders doesn’t really want to hurt the bankers too much. Most importantly, said Ford, Sanders is a Democrat.

– Charter school companies are now operating so-called “virtual schools” that have no classrooms or buildings, but only exist on the Internet. However, the charter operators are paid public money for each student, just like conventional public schools. David Cohen is executive director of the advocacy group, In The Public Interest. He says an outfit called California Virtual Academies graduates less than half of its students, and is accused of inflating its online attendance to collect thousands of dollars from the state. According to the San Jose Mercury newspaper, the Virtual Academies count students as “present” if they log on for as little as one minute during the school day. David Cohen says the online charter is run by a for-profit company called K-12 Inc.

– Most people think that the developing world is short of money, and that cash flows from the rich countries of Western Europe and the United States. But the opposite is true. According to James Henry, an expert on global banking, the rich countries are extracting fantastic amounts of cash from the developing world, including from Russia and China. Henry says the flow of money to the rich countries amounts to about $12 trillion a year.

Be sure to visit us at BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday. It’s the place for news, commentary and analysis, from the Black Left.

Black Agenda Radio – 03.28.16

Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective with Glen Ford and his co-host, Nellie Bailey.

– The Belgians, who killed at least twelve million Congolese when they colonized that country, now play the role of global victim, in the wake of an attack by the Islamic State. We spoke with Arun Kundnani, author of the book, “The Muslims are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror.” Kundnani is a British citizen of Indian extraction, who lecturers at New York University. He says Europe and the United States have earned their enemies.

– Black Agenda Report editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka, a co-founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network, recently returned from Europe where he attended the 15th anniversary of the United Nations World Conference Against Racial Discrimination, which was first held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. Baraka was also on hand for the UN’s Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade.

– The City Council of Newark, New Jersey, unanimously voted into law Mayor Ras Baraka’s Civilian Police Review Board. The People’s Organization for Progress, POP, is one of the community groups that will have a seat on the board. POP chairman Larry Hamm was pleasantly surprised at the city council’s action.

– President Obama’s team is busy polishing up his legacy, which means there will be lots of white-washing of the First Black President 8-year record in office. Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce Dixon says, Obama should be remembered for the huge damage he has done to public education.

– Host Glen Ford with a commentary on President Obama going to Cuba and him having a White House reporter ask President Raul Castro about political prisoners.

The Gary Null Show – 07.24.15

All the latest for you in health and healing – information on living a longer and happier life to start your weekend, including real talk on reversal of diabetes versus harmful medications. Then, there’s a vitamin that destroys cancer cells? Plus fresh commentary and perspectives on world and political issues, including the plight of food waste in America, and the truthful motivations behind popular opinions on vaccination. And much more from your empowerment hour!