A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The Democratic Party has become a desert where nothing grows – except the One Percent’s hold on the party machinery. No need for primaries; Hillary Clinton’s rich contributors have already locked up the nomination. “Wall Street is determined that there will be no serious Democratic deviation from the corporate agenda set by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.”

End the “Army of Occupation” in Black America

The Black Is Back Coalition will hold a national conference on Black Community Control of Police, in St. Louis, Missouri, April 18 and 19. “Our recognition that Black lives matter means taking matters into our own hands,” said Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela. “The Sharptons and government representatives want to convince Black people that an election will solve the problem, or body cameras will solve the problem,” instead of confronting “the essence of the system, which is anti-Black and anti-freedom. That’s why the fight for community control of police is so important.”

Mumia Targeted for “Execution by Medical Neglect”

Mumia Abu Jamal’s near-fatal diabetic emergency was either a case of medical neglect “or an attempt at execution through medical neglect,” said Prof. Johanna Fernandez, a member of the political prisoner’s legal team. His supporters are demanding that Abu Jamal be examined by doctors of his choice, and that all prisoners over age 55 be immediately released. “According to the Bureau of Prisons, 40 percent of prisoners have chronic illnesses that can lead to death,” said Fernandez. “Day after day, they are neglected in a systematic way by health contractors that put profit before the health of prisoners.”

Is Killer Cop a “Punk, Predator or Pig?”

Abu Jamal is back at the same Pennsylvania prison that failed to diagnose his illness. Despite his weakened condition, Mumia submitted a commentary to Prison Radio asking, rhetorically, how one should address Michael Slager, the South Carolina cop who shot Walter Scott in the back eight times. Should he be referred to as “Mr. Slager, or Officer Slager? Is he a punk, a predator, or what Huey P. Newton used to call, a pig?”

Plenty of Black Faces in High Places, But No Justice

“We’ve got a Black president, a Black attorney general, a Black cabinet secretary of Homeland Security, but we haven’t had one federal prosecution of a policeman for killing” a Black civilian, said activist and educator Dr. Cornel West, at a rally on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Four years ago, West and Carl Dix co-founded the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, which has organized protests against police murders in cities around the country, April 14.

Somalis Can Defeat al-Shabaab

The western governments that finance the foreign occupation of Somalia should “train and raise the quality of Somali security forces so that they can do their own fighting against al-Shabaab,” said Dr. Abdi Ismail Samatar, chair of the Department of Geography, Environment and Society at the University of Minnesota, and a native of Somalia. “It doesn’t seem that there is the good will on the part of the U.S. government to help Somalis help themselves.” Al-Shabaab recently massacred nearly 150 students in neighboring Kenya, whose troops invaded Somalia three years ago. The Kenyans should “withdraw their forces to the border,” said Samatar.

U.S. Backs Saudi Bombing of Yemen

Saudi Arabia may be the nominal leader of the coalition of Muslim nations that has been bombing neighboring Yemen for the last three weeks, but the United States is the superpower at the heart of the operation, BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka told Press TV. “The fact that the targeting, the logistics, and the equipment are all provided by the U.S. translates, for me, into a U.S. operation,” said Baraka, a founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network. He called the assault on Yemen “an ongoing international crime.”

Reparations Summit: “They Stole Us, They Sold Us, They Owe Us”

Advocates of reparations for slavery and the African slave trade gathered in New York City last weekend for an International Reparations Summit, organized by the Institute for the Black World. “The success of this gathering will be measured by what we do when we leave here to take the idea of reparations and tie it to the economic realities facing our people, so that the mass of our community takes it up as a demand which we can no longer ignore,” said Atty. Roger Wareham, whose December 12 Movement has been pressuring the United Nations on reparations-related issues since 1989.

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. Length: One hour

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The nationwide mobilization against police oppression will soon enter its first full summer season. Aside from LA’s Rodney King rebellion, there hasn’t been a “long hot summer” in Black America for nearly half a century. The vocabulary of mass movements needs replenishing, too.

Attempted Murder of Mumia Through Medical Malpractice

Pennsylvania prison officials allowed the political prisoner’s condition to worsen until he was in horrific pain and on the brink of a diabetic coma, said Pam Africa, of International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. His supporters are demanding that “specialists be allowed to go in and see Mumia,” who is back in prison after being released from a hospital that had no specialists in diabetes. The State of Pennsylvania is trying to torture and kill the world renowned former death row inmate, said Ms. Africa. “Can you imagine your body burning from head to toe, your skin erupting, and you’ve blown up to the point that your skin starts bursting open?” Supporters of Mumia should telephone their concerns to prison officials listed at FreeMumia.com.

Democrats Gang up on Seattle Socialist

Kshama Sawant, the Socialist Alternative Party leader whose campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage won her a seat on the Seattle city council, now faces three Democratic challengers, including the head of the local Urban League. Sawant has earned broad support, but must still contend with the popular mindset that Democrats are the “lesser evils” of politics. “The problem with the logic of ‘lesser evil-ism’ is that it’s ad infinitum,” she said. If we accept that logic, “there’s never going to be a point when we can say: ‘At this moment we have to make a clean break to make sure that we build a movement independent of the two business parties.’”

Obama’s TPP Trade Pact Empowers Global Corporations

Documents recently released by Wikileaks reveal that the Trans Pacific Partnership trade treaty would rig international law to the decisive advantage of multinational corporations. “It confirms the worst of our fears,” said Patrick Woodall, research director of Food and Water Watch. “It includes language that grants powerful new avenues for corporations to attack common sense public health, environmental and consumer protections” – all to protect anticipated corporate profits. Other language would keep the contents of the treaty secret for four years, even if it is rejected by the U.S. Congress. President Obama wants Congress to pass TPP with no amendments or effective debate.

Charter Schools are for Black and Brown Kids, Only

Union County, New Jersey, has 21 municipalities, but all five of its charter schools are located in the majority Black city of Plainfield. “There’s a pattern in New Jersey, and in the country, of taking local control away from majority Black and brown cities, said David Rutherford, a member of the Plainfield board of education. State officials constantly override Black and brown school boards and encourage charter school companies to set up shop. “As a board of education, we have no say on whether there will be charter schools in our city, how many there will be, or who will run them,” said Rutherford. “Our only obligation is to pay these charter schools, per student.” If charter schools are so beneficial, he asks, why don’t white communities want them?

UNAC to Hold National Conference May 8 – 10

The United National Anti-War Coalition will hold a national conference in Secaucus, New Jersey – just outside New York City – under the banner “Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad.” UNAC used the same slogan at its founding conference, said spokesman Joe Lombardo. “It’s become more and more clear as time went on that there’s been militarization of the police, more heavy-handed intervention into the Black and brown communities, more people deported, more austerity, more assaults on civil liberties. So, these wars have had a real impact on the people of the United States.”

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. Length: One hour.

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon

Several years after peaceful prison hunger strikes asking for decent medical care, educational programs, an end to the incarceration of juveniles with adults and other reasonable demands, Georgia prison authorities continue to viciously retaliate against past and future dissenting prisoners with what they call Tier Step Down, a program that apparenlty includes deliberate malnourishment of prisoners and other brutal and inhuman treatment.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

There is no possibility for even a semblance of justice for Black people until they control the police in their communities. Not oversight, but control: the power to “discipline, direct, and hire and fire the police in their community.” It is a self-determinationist necessity. “If Black people fail to define for themselves the functions and obligations of policing in Black communities, then others will continue to do it for us.”