17 December 2015 — Black Agenda Report
How Democrats and Republicans Collude to Block the Vote — And How We Can Un-Block It
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
We hear lots of outrage about how Republicans block the vote. But blocking the vote by keeping third parties off the ballot with unjust laws in more than a dozen states is a project Democrats share with Republicans. Both capitalist parties know you can’t vote against gentrification or mass incarceration or for a peace and justice candidate if no such candidates or parties are allowed on the ballot.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
When the United States and Saudi Arabia partnered to spread global jihadist terror, they set the stage for massacres throughout Asia and Africa. The latest atrocity has claimed as many as a thousand Shia Muslim lives in Nigeria, a nation that has joined Saudi Arabia’s bizarre coalition against terror. “For the Saudis to be leading a war against terror is like the Pope leading a war against Catholicism.”
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
The recent Paris talks on climate change failed utterly to slow the planetary slide towards extinction. The human-induced heat wave will continue to build. President Obama and other world leaders “say they want to reverse fossil fuel emissions and yet they agreed to what amounts to a 3 degree Fahrenheit temperature increase.”
by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka
The methods of repression that are now directed against Muslims and Arabs in the United States were developed to oppress Black Americans and will return tomorrow “when the state and public opinion turns against the latest expressions of black opposition popularly characterized as the black lives matter movement.” For collective self-interest and in the spirit of the Black Radical Tradition, Blacks should reach out to Arabs and Muslims and “share with them our experiences surviving racial totalitarianism.”
by Danny Haiphong
The stunning defeat of the Socialist Party in Venezuela is a threat to leftist governments and movements around the world, especially in Latin America. “The oligarchy would undoubtedly move to dissolve the ties of solidarity the Bolivarian movement has institutionalized with Palestine, Haiti, China, and numerous African nations.” Hugo Chavez’s party “will have to return to the streets to defend the movement’s gains and move forward with the objectives of the revolution.”
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Rotten apples aren’t unique, points out our poet, and ain’t caused by bad barrels. The rot’s at the root, and roots run deep and true…
by Eric Draitser
The unthinkable happened in Venezuela this month: Hugo Chavez’s party was decisively defeated in legislative elections. “The wealthy and middle class neighborhoods of Caracas erupted in cheers and celebrations, while the poor and working class sections of the city seemingly went silent.” The right wing could not have won without votes from disaffected poor Venezuelans, who “want socialism and the Bolivarian Revolution, they simply want it to be improved.”
by Mark P. Fancher
Africa has been invaded and re-occupied, militarily and commercially. “Non-African superpowers are competing for and staking claims to Africa’s resources while Africans look on with helpless resignation.” The U.S. military holds sway from the Cape to Cairo. But, “in the 21st Century ‘scramble for Africa’ China leads the race.”
by Cynthia McKinney
by Solomon Comissiong
BAR’s executive editor Glen Ford has been in the Middle East the past ten days, so there will be no Black Agenda Radio show this week. Black Agenda Radio returns next Monday with a full hour of new programming.
The New Dark Age 
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