Leid Stories

Leid Stories - 06.10.15

Here We Are; We Are Here: A Reality Check on ‘Reform’ in America (Part 3)

In the third installment of this weeklong series, Leid Stories discusses power and powerlessness in America, and logic and illogic of power.

Leid Stories - 06.09.15

Here We Are; We Are Here: A Reality Check on ‘Reform’ in America (Part 2)

Continuing yesterday’s discussion, Leid Stories focuses on the need for self-created social, political and systems.

Leid Stories - 06.08.15

Here We Are; We Are Here: A Reality Check on ‘Reform’ in America

Claims of “progress” made and of “reforms” toward social, political and economic justice in America have fallen far short of the realities that confront us and the deep-seated issues that continue to haunt us as a nation. Yet, even the oppressed appear to have accepted the myth of “change.”

Leid Stories explains that social and legislative palliatives are designed to maintain, not change, America’s rigidly race-based culture. 

Leid Stories - 05.26.15

Why the Justice Department Deserves A No-Confidence Vote

The U.S. Department of Justice—an agency specializing in recent years in negotiated settlements with criminal enterprises, including several police departments—has chalked up yet another “victory” for “police reform.”

The DOJ is expected to announce today that the City of Cleveland has agreed to remedy a pattern of civil rights violations and use of excessive force long associated with its police department. The settlement comes after the contentious acquittal Saturday (May 23) of Officer Michael Brelo, who fired 49 of 137 shots at Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams on Nov. 29, 2012. Russell’s car had backfired as he drove past a police station and as many as 62 police vehicles chased after him for 22 miles, ending in the carnage in which Brelo fired the final 15 shots.

The DOJ-City of Cleveland détente stems from an 18-month probe the department undertook at the request of Mayor Frank G. Jackson. Last December, the DOJ issued a “scathing” report confirming that “Cleveland police officers engage in a pattern or practice of unreasonable and in some cases unnecessary force.” But no heads rolled, no one was prosecuted, no one was convicted and sent to prison.

Leid Stories explains why the Justice Department deserves a no-confidence vote.

Leid Stories - 05.22.15

Share Your Intellectual Wealth! Free Your Mind!

You’ve acquired a treasure trove of wisdom and unique intelligence over many years that gives you keen insights into daunting issues of the day.

Well, share your intellectual wealth with others Leid Stories’ “Free Your Mind Friday,” a free-form exchange of information, opinions and ideas.

Call in (888-874-4888; it’s free!) and give us your take on the week’s headlines or anything you we should be thinking or talking about.  

Leid Stories - 05.21.15

First, You Kill the Schools: Behind the Racist Attack on Public School Education

Just about every major city in the United States with sizable nonwhite populations is experiencing a crisis with its public-school system.

This is not accidental, says our guest, Dr. Thomas C. Pedroni, associate professor of curriculum studies and policy sociology at Wayne State University and co-director of the Detroit Data and Democracy Project. Education policy, he says, is aligned with and reflects a historically racist philosophy and mindset that, despite pronouncements to the contrary, oppose equality and democracy.

Add to this, Pedroni says, is the “threat” and “inconvenience” these populations pose to the power elite. Not only are they increasing in number, but they’re living in areas marked for planned “turnarounds.”

Pedroni explains the connection between the fight for public-school education and the parallel struggle for grassroots political power.

Leid Stories - 05.20.15

The Fix Is In: Banksters Buy Their Way Out; Prosecutor Preempts Justice 

Applied Political Science: Nagging Issues, Smart Fixes

The U.S. Justice Department is allowing four major banks to buy their way out of a massive international interest-rate-rigging scheme. The repeat offenders, although they have pleaded guilty to manipulating the foreign-exchange market, will cough up $6 billion and everybody walks. In St. Louis, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce unilaterally decides that no criminal conduct could be proven against a white police officer who shot and killed an unarmed African American man two months after the killing of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson. The cop walks.

Leid Stories explains how and why the fix is in.

On any given day, we could easily rattle off a long list of things we think are wrong with the country, the government, the system, even our fellow Americans. Politically speaking, it’s par for the course.

The list gets much shorter, however, if we’re asked to suggest fixes to the things we think are wrong or aren’t working.

Leid Stories takes on the challenge today. Listeners are asked to identify a major national problem or nagging issue and a specific way of solving it within a relatively short time.

Leid Stories - 05.19.15

The U.S. and A World of Trouble: From the Inside Out, From the Outside In

Diplomatic scholar, historian, attorney and prolific author Dr. Gerald Horne discusses U.S. foreign policies under President Barack Obama and their global and domestic impact.

Today’s focus includes trade and money wars; how China has redefined the axis of economic power; ISIS and U.S. Gulf strategies, and a clarion call in Africa for total integration.

Horne is the John J. and Rebecca Moores chair of history and African American studies at the University of Houston. He also teaches graduate courses in diplomatic history. He has written more than 30 books, and more than 100 scholarly papers and reviews, on struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism.

Leid Stories - 05.18.15

Police Reform? What Police Reform?

President Obama today announces an executive order banning the purchase or transfer of some military gear and equipment to local police departments across the country. It’s a turnaround of sorts for the president; just last December the White House was defending $18 billion in spending by five federal agencies on programs that provided police departments with military-grade gear and equipment.

Leid Stories in a commentary contends that Obama’s move is largely cosmetric; it doesn’t deal with the central issue that has been raised time and again—real, systemic reforms of police and policing.

In Missouri, which was a national and international touchstone on the subject--with the shooting death in Ferguson last August of Michael Brown by ex-cop Darren Wilson--the state Legislature closed its session without passing a single measure related to police reform. Some 60 pieces of reform-minded legislation were up for passage.

Leid Stories in a commentary explains that politicians have no intention of taking on the matter of police reform. It remains a “people’s struggle.”

Leid Stories - 05.13.15

Yielding to the Duopoly: Is There A Left Left? (Part 2)

The 2016 presidential election is picking up steam. That doesn’t seem to be the case, however, with an organized opposition to the six-of-one/half-dozen-of-the-other kind of politics we’ve been having for a long time now. It appears we’re still stuck with the Republican-Democrat duopoly. Even big labor and heretofore populist and left-of-center movements and organizations seem to be adapting.

“Is there a left left?” Leid Stories continues the discussion.