18 December 2019 — Black Agenda Report

The Impending Ruling Class Mental Breakdown and Riot

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
The outcome of the early primaries may erase Joe Biden’s “electability” luster and plunge the Lords of Capital into a panic in which all bets are off on what’s left of democratic liberties.

Freedom Rider: Propaganda and the Defeat of Jeremy Corbyn

Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
If Corbyn can be defeated with a libel it can work just as well on Sanders.

Pachamama and the Pope

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
The violent coup in Bolivia may have been presaged by events at the Vatican, where right-wing Catholics rebelled against the Pope’s display of respect for the indigenous earth goddess.

The Democratic Party Has a Race Problem in the 2020 Election

BAR Contributing Editor Danny Haiphong
Harris’ appeals to the “Obama Coalition” and diversity were nothing but attempts to win over the Black vote while remaining loyal to the oligarchs.

Black Agenda Radio for Week of December 16, 2019

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
School Desegregation Set Back Black College Football / “Capitalist Roaders” Shut Down China’s Rural Communes / Malcolm X Center and Radio Station Face Oblivion / US and Europe Censor News That Exposes Their Alliance with Jihadists in Syria

Letters from Our Readers

Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
This week readers discussed police brutality and the Trump impeachment proceedings.

Barring Politics from the Courtroom: The State Versus the Venezuela Embassy Protectors

Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor
A black, Obama-appointed judge intends to hide key facts from the jury and referred to the embassy protectors as a “gang.”

The old playbook

BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
“The hatred of Tsarism was directed particularly against the Jews.

The Thick Blue Line: How the United States Became the World’s Police Force

Patrick Blanchfield
Many of the tools and tactics adopted by American police over the past half century were originally deployed to fight communism abroad.

BAR Book Forum: Eric Pritchard’s “Fashioning Lives”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
Through writing, many Black queer people are creating the world we all deserve to live in.

BAR Book Forum: Peter Gelderloos’s “Worshiping Power”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
The anarchist author maintains that the only thing the state “is superior at is conquest.”

Malcolm X Center and Radio Station Face Oblivion

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Efia Nwangaza, longtime director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination and radio station WMXP, in Greenville, South Carolina, says both services face imminent shutdown and eviction. The Center and broadcast outlet have been vectors of Black resistance and radical advocacy for decades. Nwangaza’s world-class activism dates back to the 1960s. “It’s not clear what this will mean in terms of my own human rights advocacy,” she said.

“Capitalist Roaders” Shut Down China’s Rural Communes

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Mao Tse Tung was right when he warned that “capitalist roaders” had infested the Communist Party, said Zhun Xu, professor of economics at Howard University and author of “From Communes to Capitalism: How China’s Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty.” Despite Mao’s efforts, “it was impossible to wipe them out” because “the political economy of China continually produced these capitalist roaders,” who eventually shut down the rural communes and compelled millions of peasants to become urban workers with few rights.

School Desegregation Set Back Black College Football

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Black colleges once out-performed white schools in producing better football players – until desegregation happened, said Derrick White, professor of history at the University of Kentucky and author of “Blood, Sweat and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football.” School desegregation “disrupted the recruiting network that had fueled Black college football,” said White, whose book explores the “community impact as well as cultural and political impact” of desegregation.

Democrats as “Liberal”? No, Neo-Liberal Capitulation

Wilmer J. Leon III
Democratic leadership is pro-democracy in the US and opposed to it every place else in the world.

The Legacy of a Radical Black Newspaperman

Casey Cep
William Monroe Trotter insisted that protest and civil disobedience were the only effective remedies for racial discrimination.

What an Audit of the British Empire’s Deadly Toll in Southern Africa Would Reveal

Wayne Dooling
The colonial powers have never been called to account for the human cost of their centuries of global rampage.

Human Rights Hypocrisy: Critical Analysis of Hong Kong Protests

Erica Caines
Why do corporate media love Hong Kong dissidents while neglecting protests in Haiti, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Honduras and Bolivia?

Sudan Withdraws 10,000 Troops from Yemen

Peoples Dispatch Staff
The ongoing popular struggle in Sudan may have heightened the chances for peace in Yemen.

Africa Caribbean Pacific Group Seeks Action on Papua Rights Abuses

WPAN
The brutally oppressed people of West Papua continue to mount protests despite severe repression by Indonesian occupiers.