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.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: The ‘Inevitability’ of Trump and Clinton, and Other Self-Fulfilling Political Prophesies – 05.09.16

They’re distrusted, even hated, by significant numbers of voters, but Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton inevitably will be the standard bearers of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, say the sycophantic media that created them, and one of them will lead us.

Leid Stories discusses another self-fulfilling prophesy: We’ll help it all happen.

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman – Why Can’t the Nation & the Left Deal With Election Theft?

There are two things we all need to know about the upcoming 2016 election:
1. Millions of likely Democratic voters have already been stripped from the voter rolls in critical states like Ohio. The key reporting on this has been done by the great Greg Palast, who has shown that a computer program coordinated by the Republican secretary of state of Kansas is being used in some two dozen states to steal from a substantial percentage of the citizenry their right to vote. The raw numbers are high enough that they could have a significant impact on the presidential, US Senate, House and many other elections this fall. The ACLU has now sued Jon Husted, Ohio’s secretary of state, over the stripping of two million citizens from Ohio’s voter rolls.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: Ahead of Primary, All Presidential Candidates Are In A New York Frame of Mind – 04.14.16

Going into the high-stakes, delegate-rich April 19 New York primary, presidential hopefuls are leaving nothing to chance. They’re all over the Empire State, working their circuits and trolling for votes. A hurriedly arranged CNN “debate” between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tonight in Brooklyn is trumping (pardon the pun) all other events the Democratic candidates have scheduled. On the Republican side, Donald Trump is making the most of his hometown brand.

Leid Stories discusses the importance of the New York primary, especially to those who reject duopoly politics.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: The Duopoly’s Best Gift Ever—A Rigged Election and Massive Voter Fraud – 04.11.16

On the Democratic side, there’s nary a whimper from the candidate who’s been winning the popular vote but lagging in party delegate votes. Bernie Sanders is playing by party rules, hoping to win delegate and super delegate votes from Hillary Clinton at the party’s nominating convention (in Philadelphia) in July.

But there’s an all-out war in the Republican camp, with Donald Trump, the party’s winningest candidate, railing against a “corrupt” and “crooked” system that is denying him his fair share of delegates. Trump isn’t waiting to persuade nominating delegates to switch at the GOP’s national convention in Cleveland; the party’s “rules,” he says, are patently unfair because they are being manipulated to favor the will and choice of the party elite.

Leid Stories in a commentary contends that the battle over delegates and the charges of corruption in the parties’ primary process are one of the best gifts the duopoly can give. It brings into plain view why neither party can be trusted to respect the sanctity of the people’s vote.

Black Agenda Radio – 04.11.16

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

– Mississippi’s Republican state government is trying to strip its mostly Black capital city, Jackson, of control over its airports and other revenue producing properties. The state also seems eager to seize the city’s water system. We spoke with Kali Akuno, of Cooperation Jackson, the political organization that elected Chokwe Lumumba as, arguably, the most radical Black mayor in the country, back in 2013. But Mayor Lumumba died the next year, and now his supporters are fighting from outside. Kali Akuno says the Mississippi Republican Party is determined to crush all possibility of Black political and economic power in Jackson. He calls it, “the Confederate Spring.”

– In New York City’s Harlem, this weekend, the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations held a national conference on the elections and Black self-determination. The conference explored whether this election season has opened up new possibilities for a radical, independent Black politics. Margaret Kimberley, a Black Agenda Report editor and senior columnist, was one of the speakers.

– Boston-based writer and activist Danny Haiphong is a regular contributor to BAR. In a recent article, Haiphong said the fractures in the Republican and Democratic parties are reflections of the general crisis in the system of capitalism.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: Wisconsin Primaries [Once Again] Exposes Dirty Party Politricks – 04.06.16

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the duopoly’s erstwhile “frontrunners” in yesterday’s Wisconsin primaries, both got trounced—Trump, by Ted Cruz, with 48.2-35.1 percent of the Republican vote; Clinton, by Bernie Sanders’ 56.6 percent of the Democratic vote to her 43.1 percent of the vote.

Experts and the media are busily dissecting the political upsets, attributing them to a wide range of factors, from personal appeal to campaign strategy and issues they championed. But there is little, if any, discussion about what the Wisconsin primaries really proved—that, once again, the system proved the process is rigged.

Leid Stories – Election 2016’s Most Outstanding Feature: The Rise of the Kakistocrats – 03.30.16

No matter how things turn out, Election 2016 will be remembered as a defining moment in U.S. history. For, this is the year of The Kakistocrats. Leid Stories discusses the imminent reality of government by the worst. Watch the clip Utrice played on air today inside the link.

Leid Stories – 03.08.16

Election 2016: The Duopoly’s Self-Inflicted Wounds Are A Timely Gift

The 2016 presidential primaries continue apace, with contests in Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi today that will put Democratic and Republican frontrunners even closer to their goal of winning nomination. But there’s trouble—big trouble—in both camps that largely are self-inflicted wounds and the consequences of a fundamentally undemocratic process. The duopoly’s crisis is a gift we’ve been waiting for, says Leid Stories, and we should make the most of it.

Alternative Visions – Presidential Legacies: the True Records of Reagan and Clinton – 03.04.16

Republican and Democrat presidential candidates sing the praises of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, promising to return to their ‘golden years’ if elected and ‘make America great again’. In today’s show we look at the real record and legacies of Reagan and Clinton: how the 1% got filthier rich under both, how wages and benefits for workers stagnated or fell, how pensions and health care coverage and costs collapsed and rose, how jobs were off shored, reduced by free trade, how part time and temp job creation became rampant, how budget and trade deficits soared, how social security costs were shifted to workers, and other ‘great accomplishments’ were recorded. How Clinton policies were continuation of Reagan’s. How the 1% went from 39% of all income gains to 45% (and today to 97%). The show concludes with some comments on what might happen to the Trump and Clinton nominations and the great uncertainties for the two party system possible this election cycle.