Ajamu Baraka

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    Hosts Discuss The CIA Spies On Senate Committee Staff Computers
    Heidi Boghosian: Goes Back To 2009 When The CIA Destroyed Videotapes of Interrogation.
    Michael Ratner: When It Was Disclosed That The NSA Is Surveilling All Of Us, She (Feinstein) Stood In Front Of Everybody And Said Oh, This Is Great.

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Senate Democrats Help Block Key DOJ Civil Rights Division Nominee

We take a looking at how a group of Senate Democrats broke ranks with President Obama to block key nominee Debo Adegbile as head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Seven democrats joined with Republicans to defeat Adegbile's bid. That defeat was driven by the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police who launched a campaign against Adegbile and his work defending imprisoned Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal.  Specifically, Adegbile was part of a team of lawyers at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who successfully argued the trial judge   s jury instructions violated Abu-Jamal   s rights.

Professor Mark Taylor:

    The recent campaign has been foregrounded especially on FOX television news where you heard leading anchors and reporters connecting Dego Adegbile to Mumia Abu-Jamal.
    The Fraternal Order of Police wrote letters to media outlets. They wrote a letter to President Obama objecting to Dego Adegbile. This is fully congruent to what we in Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal have experienced from the Fraternal Order of Police throughout the years.
    The Fraternal Order of Police will even stoop to maintaining a black list online of any of us Educators around the country not only for working for Mumia but for just for signing ads in the New York Times on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal's new trial or release with restitution, whatever the case, they'll maintain those charges.
    The Fraternal Order of Police will put pressure on venues that host the events for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
    It is a national organization and in their letter to President Obama they claim to represent some 350 thousand police officers across the country and claim to be speaking for those 350 thousand.
    There are elements of the Fraternal Order of Police all over the country who will step forward to ratchet up this venom against Mumia Abu-Jamal.
    They have always used Maureen Falkner the widow to be in the position of the grieving widow of the slain police officer in spite of the fact that there is exculpatory evidence. They don't want to discuss that, they want to play the drama of the grieving relative instead.
    Of course that has powerful media appeal it often in our infotainment industry overrides argument, we know.
    There is a stigmatization that is pervasive throughout much of our culture that causes lawyers, public relations officers and others to back away from the issue.
    It's an outrageous departure and betrayal of a tradition of civil rights advocacy that at least Democratic Party affiliates like to say they have supported through the years.
    We will hope that voters will make them pay a price for this kind of vote.
    We have voting rights issues because Dego Adegbile would have the job of which states to sue for Voter ID laws that are oppressive to African Americans.
    Educators for Mumia Abu Jamal
    Temple News At Temple University Ad Story.

Guest - Professor Mark Taylor, founder of Educators for Mumia Abu Jamal, a group of teachers from all levels of education, organizing since 1995 for a new a trial. Mark Taylor is a professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary.

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Ukraine and the Pathology of America   s Liberal Worldview. An African American Perspective

In his recent article, Ukraine and the Pathology of America   s Liberal Worldview. An African American Perspective returning guest Ajamu Baracka calls it a massive cognitive deficiency that President Obama asks Congress to agree on a billion dollar package aid for the Ukraine. Meanwhile, the elite opinion in the United States has embraced the position that cuts in public expenditures and services at every level of government are a reasonable and unavoidable necessity. Baracka says the crisis is here in the United States, with extended unemployment benefits for the 1.3 million people who lost thier jobs in Detroit. The majority of who are African American.

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Ukraine and the Pathology of America   s Liberal Worldview. An African American Perspective

In his recent article, Ukraine and the Pathology of America   s Liberal Worldview. An African American Perspective returning guest Ajamu Baracka calls it a massive cognitive deficiency that President Obama asks Congress to agree on a billion dollar package aid for the Ukraine. Meanwhile, the elite opinion in the United States has embraced the position that cuts in public expenditures and services at every level of government are a reasonable and unavoidable necessity. Baracka says the crisis is here in the United States, with extended unemployment benefits for the 1.3 million people who lost thier jobs in Detroit.

Ajamu Baracka:

    It's clear that there was legitimate social opposition in the Ukraine to some of the policies of the government there and there was an attempt to express some of those concerns that were quickly taken advantage of by some elements of the Ukrainian society that are, have been associated with some of the more fascist elements that have been aligned with the far right for decades.
    Some of those right wing forces ended up being the primary shock troops engaged in all kinds of violent activities.
    A decision was made in which the protesters had won much of their demands in terms of political reforms, but that agreement was jettisoned by those right wing forces.
    The result was that basically they stormed the institutions of the government and proclaimed themselves the new government.
    There's real danger in characterizing this as a popular revolution. It's clear that more than half of the population of Ukraine was still not convinced that a revolutionary movement was called for and one in which violated the tenants of the Ukrainian constitution.
    It became clear that the character of this revolution was one that was not really committed to social change.
    Here we have a situation in Detroit a city that is basically bankrupt as a consequence of these predatory banks and the disintegration of the U.S. economy and its urban cores.
    When the city officials went to the administration looking for assistance of course the line was, there's no assistance for you.
    It's not just Detroit it's across the country. We saw in December Congress, when striking their budget deals they eliminated extensions for the long term unemployed.
    When it comes to the American people, the working class, the poor, there's no money, there's only growing austerity, but when it comes to advancing what many of us call the "empire" they can always find resources.
    The one billion dollar package to the Ukraine is a stark contrast to the line - There's no resources to bail out the people of Detroit.
    Ultimately the winners in the Ukraine chess game will be U.S. capital and there would be some European capital that would benefit also.
    Ukrainian economy will be forced to open up. The financial sector will be exposed. Banks will be taken over. Whatever state industries that are viable will be seized, privatized. There will be massive unemployment.
    The Ukrainian workers will find that their wages not only increase but probably will be further eroded because they're in competition with other poor workers throughout western Europe.
    That's why the U.S. is salivating at the prospects of penetrating the Ukrainian economy.
    For reasons that are not really clear to me, many folks in the west in the U.S. don't seem to be able to recognize this growing threat. This tendency to align themselves with the most reactionary elements on the planet.
    The way I see it is a global strategy on the part of U.S. and western imperialism and the alignment they've made with what everybody knows to be fascist elements within the Ukraine.
    It's similar to alignments being made in slightly different ways to the radical right in Venezuela, with the continued support to the right wing government in Israel. .
    What we see is a counter-revolutionary strategy based on closer alignments with right wing forces throughout the world.
    There's been mass confusion, people not being able to differentiate from the left and right, all they see is opposition and the opposition is enough for them to align with it.

Guest   " Ajamu Baraka, Longtime activist, veteran of Black Liberation Movement, Human Rights defender, Former founding director of US Human Rights Network, currently Public Intervenon for Human Rights with Green Shadow Cabinet, member of Coordinating Committee of Black Left Unity Network and Associate Fellow at IPS.

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Law & Disorder: Law and Disorder March 17, 2014

Original Airdate:
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Ajamu Baraka 9.12.16

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 15, 2017
UNAC and Black Alliance for Peace Blast U.S. Subversion of Venezuela
The newly founded Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) issued a joint statement denouncing U.S. “destabilization” and “attempts to cause regime change” in Venezuela. “We share the objective to revive the anti-war movement -- the anti-imperialist movement in the U.S.,” said BAP organizer Ajamu Baraka, the veteran human rights activist and 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate. “We are, of course, committed to peace, but we understand that there can be no peace without justice, and that means people have to be prepared for struggle,” said Baraka.
Bizarro World: Faux “Leftists” Shill for the FBI 
Purported “progressives,” apparently driven mad by Donald Trump, demonstrated this month in support of former FBI director James Comey. “It was disheartening to see left forces so anxious to combat Trump, they were actually supporting Comey,” said UNAC activist Sara Flounders. This strange strain of “leftists” seem to have forgotten the oppressive history and practice of U.S. spy outfits. “We have to be clear,” said Flounders. “All of these agencies are about absolute repression, subversion and assassination.”
U.S. Prisons: Geriatric Injustice 
One out of every 7 of the nation’s prison inmates is serving a life sentence, according to a report by The Sentencing Project. For Blacks, the proportion of lifers is in 1 in 5. Despite a growing consensus for prison reform, “We see life sentences continue to accumulate,” said senior research analyst, Ashley Nellis. Most people “age out of bad behavior” in their 20s and 30s, “so incarcerating them for decades past that point serves no public safety benefit,” she said. 
Mumia on Neoliberal Barbarism
Noting that Pennsylvania has locked up more juveniles for life than any other state, political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal excoriated Bill Clinton for pushing through his draconian anti-crime bill of 1994. “Children were cast into the hells of adult prison while the newly rich neoliberal class drank champagne and enjoyed the good life,” said Abu Jamal.
Don’t You Dare Call Malcolm X a “Civil Rights” Leader
What Malcolm X “was saying 50 years ago is just as relevant today as it was then,” said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, an advisory board member of New York City’s Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Educational and Memorial Center, where the martyred leader’s 92nd birthday will be celebrated on May 19th. A “homogenized version” of his life and work depicts Malcolm X as a “civil rights leader of the 1960s,” said Imam Rashid, but Malcolm “used to make it clear that he was not a civil rights leader, but rather, a human rights leader.” 
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.

Black Agenda Radio 20170515

Police Must Answer to the Community
The demand for community control of police ushers in a new stage of struggle, in which “young people are imagining a world where these tremendous institutions of imperialism and the police state are gone,’ said Max Rameau, an activist with Pan African Community Action (PACA), in Washington, DC. The PACA proposal would oversee police hiring, firing and operations by a board chosen from communities at random, like jurors.
Beware “Domestication” of Protest
Opponents of transformational change are seeking to “domesticate” the protest movement with bland calls for “justice” for George Floyd, who is dead and beyond justice, said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace. “What we can do is put a critical view on the system that created the conditions that resulted in Floyd’s life being taken.” Activists also have an opportunity to build solidarity with global victims of U.S imperialism. “We have a responsibility as citizens of Empire to put a brake on the U.S. state,” said Baraka.
Repaying the Movement for Her Freedom
Bresha Meadows faced long imprisonment in the shooting death of her abusive father when she was 14 years old, but was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention and six months at a mental facility because of the intercession of Survived and Punished and other activists. Now free, Meadows hopes to lead a life of social activism. “That’s my calling,” said the 18 year-old Ohioan. “If it was not for the activists and social media, I don’t think that I would have gotten out.”
Huge Teenage Linebackers Can Be Hurt by Racism and Abuse
Black college athletes are emotionally and physically harmed in ways not widely recognized, said Dr. Gabby Yearwood, a socio-cultural anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin. For example, “There is no student that would ever tolerate me speaking to them” the way athletes are harangued by coaches. Very few college athletes become professionals, but all carry the burden of physical and emotional injury, said Yearwood, who wrote an article titled “Playing Without Power: Black Male NCAA Student Athletes Living With Structural Racism.”
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:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.

Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 15, 2020

Black Alliance for Peace national organizer Ajamu Baraka told a year-end conference of the Black Is Back Coalition that “the US settler state is facing the most serious crisis of legitimacy since the collapse of the capitalist economy” in the Great Depression. Betty Davis, of the Coalition’s Community Control of Schools Working Group, said: “The federal budget that comes down to New York City is the 23rd biggest budget in the world, but you don’t control that money and that’s why you are not having the same services as your white counterparts.”

US Imperialism Was in Disarray in 2020

Many Americans applauded when Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s Twitter account and the Pentagon fortified the nation’s capital ahead of the Inauguration, but others warned that domestic militarism, high tech censorship, and surveillance are increasing rapidly. COVID, Race, and Democracy spoke to Black Agenda Report Columnist Ajamu Baraka.