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Black Agenda Report for September 7, 2016: Young, Black and Discovering Duopoly; Trump Might Call For 4-Way Debates If…

8 September 2016 — Black Agenda Report

456348104-1Young Blacks are Learning the Nature of the Duopoly Beast

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
While Hillary Clinton runs rightward at breakneck speed, attempting to suck every stray Republican into her nasty Big Tent, Black Democrats worry that young African Americans have rejected both major parties.  Black Millennials, correctly, tend to see no difference in the two wings of the Duopoly, and resist being turned into fodder for Hillary’s campaign. Movement politics is breaking its bonds to the Democratic Party

Trump Might Call for Four-Way Debates – But Only If He Thinks He Can’t Win
A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Glen Ford
Donald Trump might do the right thing and call for opening up the presidential debates to third parties – but mainly for the wrong reasons. Although it appears that Trump would “have a relative net advantage over Clinton if there were a vigorous, four-way presidential contest,” he will only make such a demand if he is certain of a one-on-one humiliation.

The Obama Legacy Part X: How Obama’s Past Played a Role in the Insurgency of the Present

by Danny Haiphong

“Although austerity, war, and state repression are nothing new to US imperialism, the last eight years saw these modes of exploitation perfected under a Black Democrat.” President Obama saved the banks from the “pitchforks” of an enraged public, failed to protect Black lives at home, and waged war in seven countries. “Hillary Clinton’s own war record mostly stems from her service as Obama’s Secretary of State from 2009-2013.”

Anthem of Banksters & War Profiteers
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Why does Seattle quarterback Colin Kaepernick choose to sit when the Star Spangled Banner is played before football games? Evidently he is one of many who know the real intention and import behind those bombs bursting in air…

456352504Congressional Black Caucus: Deep in the Israel Lobby’s Pocket
by Jeffrey Blankfort
The Congressional Black Caucus is a bought-and-paid-for political ally of the planet’s last remaining apartheid state, Israel. “That the CBC has consistently, as a bloc, voted to send billions of US taxpayers dollars to provide weapons for a foreign government that oppresses another people of color, the Palestinians, is nothing less than shameful.” Cynthia McKinney was the last CBC member to take a principled stand on Palestine.

Black Activists Owe No Apology for Solidarity with Palestinians

by Darializa Avila Chevalier and Khury Petersen-Smith

The Movement for Black Lives has voiced its unequivocal opposition to Israel’s genocidal policies in Palestine, prompting harsh attacks from Zionists. “That Zionist organizations are willing to reject the current battle for Black lives raging in the United States when its activists find common ground and solidarity with Palestinians,” say the authors, “simply reaffirms what we already knew: Zionism is racism.”

ESPN’S Journal of Black Respectability Politics
by Jon Jeter
Michael Eric Dyson is up to his corporate tricks, this time in ESPN’s black-oriented web site The Undefeated. Dyson personifies the surrender of the Black middle class, in total synch with The Undefeated’s typical narratives “in which history is inert, racism exists only inasmuch as it vexes Obama, and no injustice is so grave that it cannot be resolved by black folks pulling up their pants.”

TalkNation Radio: David Swanson Interviews Maurice Carney- Friends of the Congo, and Harvey Wasserman on Racism
by David Swanson

 
 

SPARKS Corporal Punishment

Corporal Punishment Use Found in Schools in 21 States, with Blacks Punished Twice as Often

by Sarah D. Sparks & Alex Harwin

A long list of states — centered in but not confined to the South — continue to engage in the largely unregulated practice of physically punishing students. “Black students are disproportionately likely to experience physical discipline, which some consider a “piece of the school-to-prison pipeline.” Class plays a role. “Wealthier students are less likely than low-income students to attend a school that actually uses the practice.

 

Black Agenda Report for Week of September 7, 2016

20th Anniversary of Clinton’s War Against the Poor

It’s been 20 years since President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress destroyed “welfare as we knew it” by replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the “workfare” regime called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The result, said Maureen Taylor, chairperson of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, is growing poverty in the United States. Taylor says TANF should be changed to DANF, standing for “Disappearing Aid for Needy Families.” Residents of Michigan are only eligible for cash assistance for five years in their lifetimes. It’s a shame, said Taylor, how the political class is “turning, not against poverty, but trying to turn the nation against poor folks.”
 

Judge Finds Way to Avoid Ordering Hep C Cure for Mumia

A federal judge agreed that it is unconstitutional for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to deny curative medical treatment to Mumia Abu Jamal and thousands of other prisoners suffering from Hepatitis C. However, the court then ruled that Abu Jamal’s suit was technically flawed. Noelle Hanrahan, a director of Prison Radio who works closely with Mumia, was outraged that the state has condemned thousands of prisoners to early and unnecessary deaths. “You can’t construct a situation that is more grossly inhumane,” she said.
 
Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, was more upbeat about the ruling. “It’s a good beginning that a federal judge recognizes that what the Commonwealth is doing, and has been doing for years, is not only unjust but unconstitutional, a violation of fundamental fairness and the human right to life,” he said.
 

Clinton and Trump Fear TV Debate with Stein and Johnson

“Our view is that if you have the potential for 270 Electoral College votes — if you are on enough ballots to achieve that — then you should be in the debate,” said Kevin Zeese, the veteran activist recently named as senior advisor to the Green Party’s Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka presidential ticket. Zeese notes that polls show half the American public wants the televised debates open to Stein and Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate. However, the debates are a joint venture of the Democratic and Republican parties, who call the shots. “It’s a disgrace to democracy,” said Zeese, “that they can choose who they will debate.”
 

Obama Neutralized Blacks for Most of His Term

Barack Obama’s presidency has been “the highest expression” of the U.S. government’s long campaign to “neutralize the Black liberation movement,” said BAR regular contributor Danny Haiphong, who this week posted the ninth in his ten-part series on the Obama legacy. “It really wasn’t until 2014, when Obama was in his last years, that any semblance of a movement against issues like police brutality and racism began to come back to the fore,” said Haiphong. Black liberationist politics has been suppressed for two generations, said Haiphong, “with the help of a Black misleadership class that has diluted, sanitized and almost destroyed, up until recently, the Black Radical Tradition.”
 

U.S. Anti-War Movement Under Attack

A recent article by Terry Burke in the leftish magazine In These Times attacked a broad range of anti-war activists and groups for opposing the U.S. war against Syria. Burke claims U.S. activists aren’t listening to “the Syrian people.” In response, Sara Flounders, of the United National Anti-War Coalition, said the U.S. insists on regime change in Syria, and “anyone who has any confusion as to where that leads has only to look at Libya and at Iraq and see the howling wasteland that has been created” by U.S. intervention.
 

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN.

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