Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of October 29, 2012

Obama Threatens New “Legal Architecture” for National Security State

The president’s recent banter with the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart should be taken as a threat to impose an even more draconian national security regime, said Kevin Gosztola, a reporter for the influential website FireDogLake.com. Obama told Stewart: “One of the things we’ve got to do is put a legal architecture in place and we need congressional help to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president is reined in, in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making.”

“What came through is that he doesn’t want to submit his presidency to the Constitution,” said Goszota. “Perhaps what he is giving us a preview of, is that in his second term he will further expand the power of his presidency so that Congress has absolutely no power to provide oversight.” Obama has already “put preventive detention in military hands. He’s fighting off a lawsuit against NDDA that challenges this indefinite detention.”

Keep Up the Pressure, Whoever Wins Election

“Whether Obama is in the White House or Romney is in the White House, policies are going to come out of the White House that are antithetical to the interests of working and poor people and people of color in this country, and unless we fight back it’s not going to change,” said Larry Hamm, chairman of the Newark, New Jersey-based People’s Organization for Progress. POP will hold a march and rally for Jobs, Economic Justice and Peace on November 13. The group sustained 381 straight days of daily demonstrations, ending in July, but has staged many periodic protests in the interim. “One of the things that came out of the debates is how similar Romney and the president are on issues,” said Hamm, who is personally voting for Obama.

Working Americans Lose the Equivalent of One Week of Wages

Recent data show real wages dropped by 2.4 percent between October, 2010, and October of this year. “No statistic could more dramatically show what this so-called ‘recovery’ has been for the mass of American workers,” said Dr. Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, at Amherst. “It means workers got the right to work one week of the year for absolutely no pay at all, compared to what they were getting two years ago.”

Arne Duncan Appointment was “Worst Thing” Obama Did to Blacks

“Of the many bad things that the president has done to us, the worst thing was to name Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education,” said Dr. Donald Smith, veteran Black educator and keynote speaker at the recent Summit Meeting on Saving the African American Child, in Chicago. Duncan is infamous for remarking that Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that could have happened” for education in New Orleans. The disaster resulted in a school system dominated by charters “controlled by corporations,” said Smith,” and you know that corporations don’t want schools teaching our people, or any people, to be critical thinkers.”

Haiti Cholera Epidemic “Not a Priority” for UN

A roster of concerned organizations marked the second anniversary of the outbreak of cholera in Haiti with an open letter to top U.S. officials, urging them to pressure the United Nations to do more to combat the disease that has killed 7,564 people and infected 600,000. “This has not been a priority for the international community,” said Dan Beeton, of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “The UN could implement water and sanitation infrastructure that would eventually allow cholera to be eradicated for about the same cost it would take to allow UN troops to stay in Haiti for one year – about a billion dollars.” Cholera was introduced into Haiti by UN troops, who have been given another year’s mandate.

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.

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Black Agenda Report is a weekly magazine of news, commentary and analysis from the Black Left. A new issue is published every Wednesday, with features added daily.