ELLIOT SPERBER – Melting Ice Sheets Flood Louisiana

It wasn’t very long ago that people would talk about the weather in order to avoid discussing contentious topics like politics and religion. But, like the Black Rhino, those days are long gone. Daily dumping and pumping tons of pollutants into the world, our political economy is now known to significantly influence meteorological phenomena; and the once anodyne subject of the …

Black Agenda Radio – 08.15.16

Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host, Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is trying to pull every Republican voter and fat cat contributor into her Big Tent Democratic Party, but what does that mean for Black and working people? And, Black activists remember the legacy of Robert Williams, the former NAACP leader in Monroe, North Carolina, who championed Black people’s right to armed self defense.

Pam Martens and Russ Martens – As Big Banks Hemorrhage Capital, Glass-Steagall Is Quietly Added to Democratic Platform

The overall stock market is staging a big rally at the open of trading this morning in New York, but that is not going to calm growing anxieties over how badly systemically risky global banks traded in Friday and Monday’s two days of carnage. Watching tens of billions of equity market capital vaporize at the mega banks in two trading …

Look at the Lobbyists Clinton and Wasserman Schultz Picked to Write the Democratic Party’s Platform

This week, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, and the DNC chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, appointed professional influence peddlers with ties to weapons makers, hedge funds and Wal-Mart to the committee responsible for drafting the Democratic Party’s policy platform. Lee Fang and Zaid Jilani of The Intercept report: Wendy Sherman and Carol Browner, two of the representatives …

Cornel West – Why Brother Bernie Is Better for Black People Than Sister Hillary

he future of American democracy depends on our response to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. And that legacy is not just about defending civil rights; it’s also about fighting to fix our rigged economy, which yields grotesque wealth inequality; our narcissistic culture, which unleashes obscene greed; our market-driven media, which thrives on xenophobic entertainment; and our militaristic prowess, …

Black Agenda Radio – 01.11.16

Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective.

– What may be remembered as an historic conference on the Black Radical Tradition was held at Temple University, in Philadelphia, this past weekend, from January 8 through the 10th. Many hundreds of activists from all across the country gathered to review the experiences of the current grassroots mobilization against police violence, and to put it in perspective with past Black movements in the United States and the fight against predatory capitalism, worldwide. The conference was titled “Reclaiming Our Future: The Black Radical Tradition in Our Time.” It was put together, largely, by students, activists and organizers from Philadelphia, and keynoted by speakers including Angela Davis, Cornel West, and Anthony Monteiro.

– An extraordinary panel discussion unfolded under the title, “Challenging White Supremacy: The Black Radical View.” Umi Saleh, formerly known as Phillip Agnew, of the Florida-based Dream Defenders presented a devastating critique of those whose claim to leadership is based on the size of their Twitter followings, most notably DeRay McKesson, of Campaign Zero. Saleh called Social Media an “asylum for neoliberal values” and described McKesson’s political leanings as “counter-revolutionary and anti-movement.”

– Jamala Rogers is a veteran organizer based in Missouri, and author of the new book, “Ferguson is America: Roots of Rebellion.”

– Robin DG Kelly rounded out the panel on Challenging White Supremacy at the conference on the Black Radical Tradition. Kelly is a veteran activist and public intellectual, who teaches history at UCLA.

Lawrence S. Wittner – Why Tuition-Free College Makes Sense

The issue of making college tuition-free has recently come to the fore in American politics, largely because the two leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, have each championed it.  Sanders has called for free undergraduate tuition at public colleges and universities, to be financed by a tax on Wall Street speculation, while Clinton has done the same, although …

Chris Hedges – Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism

Sheldon Wolin, our most important contemporary political theorist, died Oct. 21 at the age of 93. In his books “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism” and “Politics and Vision,” a massive survey of Western political thought that his former student Cornel West calls “magisterial,” Wolin lays bare the realities of our bankrupt democracy, the causes behind …

Rise of the New Black Radicals – Chris Hedges

The almost daily murders of young black men and women by police in the United States—a crisis undiminished by the protests of groups such as Black Lives Matter and by the empty rhetoric of black political elites—have given birth to a new young black militant. This militant, rising off the bloody streets of cities such as Ferguson, Mo., understands that …