Podcasts about Ajamu Baraka

Anya Parampil on the expansion of BRICS and the growth of global multipolarity at The Sobh Media Festival in Tehran, IranAudio from the Sobh Media Festival panel, The Decline of American Hegemony and the Emergence of a New World Order, with Anya Parampil, George Galloway, Ajamu Baraka, and Glenn Diesen.

On December 8, the United States and Israel, with support from Turkey, succeeded in overthrowing the Syrian government using Islamic jihadist militants as proxies. Some people in the United States are claiming this as a victory for the Syrian people even though the proxies are Al Qaeda terrorists. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ajamu Baraka about the coup, the history of resistance in Syria and in the region, and what this means for the Syrian people. Baraka discusses Israel's immediate expansion of its occupation in Syria and its quest for a 'Greater Israel.' He also discusses a tendency for some Left forces in the United States to side with US imperialism and why it is important to have ideological clarity about what is happening. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.

THIS week, on the Global Research News Hour, we investigate and analyze the 2024 U.S. presidential election from a deeper political and historical vantage point then is typical in the mainstream press. In our first half hour, lawyer, journalist and activist Dimitri Lascaris offers his views from a foreign policy perspective, especially with regard to the Israeli wars in the Middle East and the Russo-Ukraine War. In our second half hour, Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace offers his own "pox on both your houses" take. And Finally, journalist and writer matt Ehret offers his views on an article written in an article about the bankers coup plot foiled by patriotic military man Smedley Butler and why this historical incident could repeat itself in the new future against Donald Trump.

In addition to risking a nuclear war with Russia, the United States is stoking greater conflicts in West Asia and China. Ajamu Baraka speaks with Clearing the FOG about his recent tour in Iran where he spoke to a cross-section of people about their concerns and the need for greater international solidarity. Baraka also discusses the responsibility of people, particularly in the collective West, to organize in order to change course away from militarism. He provides an analysis of the upcoming presidential election, the verdict in the case of the Uhuru 3 and why people must avoid aligning themselves with the ruling class, which will stop at nothing to hang onto power. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock this episode and our entire premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast  Green Party 2016 vice presidential candidate and editor of Black Agenda Report Ajamu Baraka joins Bad Faith to weigh in on claims that the Green Party is hostile to Black interests, including intimations from Dr. Cornel West that racial politics played a role in his choice to forego the Greens and run as an independent. Baraka also weighs in on why Black people are fleeing the Democratic Party, Biden's latest polls, campus pro-Gaza protests, and Biden's Morehouse address. Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube to access our full video library. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod). Produced by Armand Aviram.   Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands)    

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Our guest Ajamu Baraka is on X/Twitter @ajamubaraka Our Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd   FULL TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which events take place. During each episode of the podcast, my guest and I have probing, provocative, and discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze these events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue before us is the mask is off the hideous connections between Zionism, colonialism, capitalism, and genocide. This is the title of an article in Black Agenda Report, and it's written by the Black Alliance for Peace. It was originally published in or at the Black Alliance for Peace website, which is Black alliance for peace.com. My guest is the chair of the Coordinated Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and Editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and the Green Party candidate for Vice President of the United States in 2016. Ajamu Baraka Ajamu, my brother. As always, welcome back. Thank you so much. It's good to be with you once again. So Ajamu, the piece opens as follows. In April, students across the US Empire rose up with campus-based encampments designed to bring attention to the genocide against Palestine and demand that their universities divest from economies engaged in active genocidal campaigns. It came as a little surprise to anyone who has ever read a history book that US universities chose to stand by the Zionist genocide machine and instead attack their own students. Ajamu. There were and are a number of forces applying pressure to the leadership of these institutions to punish these students. Your thoughts on the intersection of genocide of Zionism, capitalism and colonialism and how it's now impacting the higher education of kids across this country? Well, the way we approached it, Dr. Leon, was to in fact, make those connections reflected in that piece. We have always taken the position that colonialism is in fact fascism, that the intervention, the invading of the Americas in 1492 by the Europeans was the beginning of the process in which two things happened. The enrichment of Europe as a consequence of the conquering of the peoples, the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the theft of their lands and the importation of black people to provide free labor. This was a material basis for the rise of capitalism and the European, so-called civilization. This is and was a colonial relationship. The peoples of these various territories that became Jamaica and Haiti and Colombia and Mexico had their wealth stolen from them and transported back to Europe. While the people themselves lacked any kind of human rights. Colonialism is based on a fascistic relationship in which people are terrorized into accepting oppression. It is the ultimate expression of fascistic policy. So we made the connection there. We said that also there are the connections of the other elements that characterize the rise of Europe and the domination of Europe over the last 500 years. This strange conception of patriarchy, which is something that was alien to most parts of the global south. This came on the heels of the imposition of Christian religions and some of the strange ideals regarding the role of men. And so-called women. So this is also part of the process of European domination. And of course all of this is within the context of imperialism and the rise in development of capitalism. So all of these elements have to be understood to be interconnected, and that if we're going to address the issues that are emerging in Palestine, for example, with the European settler colonial project are called Israel, then we have to make sure we understand these historical processes, these connections, these dots that have to be connected. So that's reflected in our piece. So basically all of the talk about civilizational assistance and humanitarian interventions of the responsibility to protect the Europeans divides over the course of decades. What has happened with Gaza is that they have now been exposed. This system has been exposed to what it is, a brutal, hideous system that degrades and dehumanizes human beings. So that was a thrust, the essence of that piece, An incredibly powerful piece at that. And fact in the piece, peace it's written that black Alliance for Peace has consistently asserted that as people rise up against the deepening crisis of capitalism, the veneer of western civilization and enlightenment will fall revealing the naked aggression and violence inherent in capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy and patriarchy. The horror of the colonial Zionist campaign of genocide is that reveal, this reveal of colonial violence is forcing people to rethink the propaganda they have internalized. But the revelation of facts is not the same as drawing correct conclusions. What got me in that paragraph in the first sentence of the second is this whole idea of rethinking the propaganda because one of the things that I've been saying for a very long time is the Zionist narrative. They're losing the argument. They now realize that the covers have been pulled off, they've been exposed, and they are now going to extra judicial and incredibly extreme measures to try to justify, resurrect, defend that narrative. And I think it's important for people to understand in this conversation that this is not an anti-Semitic conversation. This is an anti Zionist conversation and part of their narrative is conflating the two. And the final point is that not all Jews or Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews, as in Joe Biden saying very clearly, very publicly, I am a Zionist, and Joe Biden isn't Jewish. Joe Biden is Irish Catholic, a Jammu Baraka, You're absolutely right. Zionism is a political philosophy, but a political doctrine, if you will. It is a doctrine that provided the foundation for a political project, which was a project by advanced by Europeans who define themselves as Jewish, but secular Jews who wanted to capitalize on the rise of and consolidation of nationalism in the latter part of the 19th century to in fact create a national state for Jewish people. And so the ideal that of Jewish nationalism was being consolidated, and they decided that they would attempt to build this national home on the land that was under occupation and controlled by European powers that used to be referred to as Palestine. And that process began there. So this was a political project that then culminated and the creation of the Jewish state or Israel in 1948 with the full support of the colonial powers at that time, and even the victorious powers that came out of the Second World War. But that creation of the European of the Zionist state, 1948, came at the expense as always in the colonial projects of the indigenous people. So you have what the Palestinians referred to as a nack bar where several hundred and 50,000 Palestinians were uprooted and basically displaced. Dozens and dozens of Arab villages across the territory of Palestine were conquered by the Israelis and controlled, and that became the contiguous land basis for the birth of Israel. So this process of colonial imposition is something now that's 75 years old. It didn't begin on October the seventh. It began even before 1948. So yes, this is a process and part of the ability of the Zionist to be able to be successful is the connection of this project with European colonialism, with the subtle appeal to European superiority, the notion that they were bringing something new to the So-called Middle East, creating a paradise out of the desert. These are all very important cultural reference points that provided support for the Southern Columbia project, very similar to what we had in the US territory that became the United States America notions of manifest destiny, being connected to the program of God, the white man's burden both in the US and throughout the world to bring civilization. All of these were themes that helped to provide the support for what we see unfolding today, but today is even more naked, Dr. Leon, because what that statement talked about is the fact that all of this was dressed up in these sort of civilizational discussions, that discussions and language coming out of the European Enlightenment notions of human rights and democracy and civilizational advancement. And so the interventions were always framed. Interventions by Europeans were always framed as something that will be helpful to the natives because of course, the people who were being imposed on, they needed to have that imposition because they needed to be able to develop as human societies. And of course they couldn't do that without the Europeans. So this became the justification for this project. And the violence that was at the center of this was also justified too, because it was those bad natives who didn't understand that they were being saved, that resisted colonialism, that needed to be suppressed, that needed to be eliminated. And so at the court center of the Colonial Project has always been violence. In particular the settler colonial projects. When you have settlers who come to a land and their main objective is to control the land, then the people themselves become an impediment. They're not needed. And so they are clear. That's what happened with the march across the US from the east coast to the west where they shot, murdered and raped and plundered from the east coast to the west, establishing what became the United States of America. We see a similar process unfolding with the settler colonialists in Palestine. They took most of the land about 77% of the land in 1948. And now with this invasion of Gaza and the escalation of violence on the West Bank, they are now prepared to finish the project from the river to the sea. They've always been quite clear about that, that they want that land to be exclusively under the control of the European Jewish ethanol state. And to that point, I'm glad you brought up from the river to the sea because that language, that phraseology was originally Zionist phraseology. And I'm bringing that up because this goes back to the whole conversation about the narrative. Now, if I go on a college campus and I say, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free. Oh, I'm antisemitic. Oh, I'm using language that is disturbing to the sensibilities of the good Jewish students. That's not their language. The Zionist settler colonialists first used that phraseology. And along the lines of propaganda, I just want to point out a couple of things. One is the New York Times a few months ago had an editorial meeting where they decided they were no longer going to use the term occupied territories, for example. Now that's phraseology that came out of the United Nations, and that has been the internationally accepted reference of that space. They are the occupied territories. But now the New York Times has decided or told their writers, they shouldn't really use that. They should stay as far away from using that language as much as possible. One of the reasons being that when you refer to occupied territory, that means you have an occupier and it means you have the occupied. And international law says that the occupied can use any means at their disposal to resist the occupier. It also means that this whole, one of the things that a lot of people love to start these conversations with is Israel has a right to exist. But if you understand that Israel is the occupier, then that position then becomes in question. So that's just this whole idea of all of these Jewish students at Columbia that were under threat and being challenged. I never saw any evidence to support that story. In fact, when you look at the students that are involved in the protests, what you find is there are a lot of American Jewish students that are working with and supporting the Palestinians. For example, she's not a student, but her last name is Klein. I just draw a blank on her first name. I'm sorry. Naomi. Naomi Klein. Naomi Klein is Jewish, and Naomi Klein was one of the featured speakers at the Columbia protest. So they're going back to the narrative. What I think they are finding is they are losing control of the narrative. And you're right, that narrative is very, very important. The use of language is important and the ruling elements understand The ability to define is the ability to control. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why they were very careful, meaning the ruling elements and even framing what was happening on these college campuses as so-called pro-Palestinian efforts. Well, they weren't really pro-Palestinian efforts. They were anti genocide, anti Genocide Efforts. But the idea was to try to implant in the minds of the average reader that these people took not only a political position, but a position that was in alignment with that of Hama. And so this was the basis of the demonization of these students that didn't allow for violence to be directed at them. People has to have to be reminded. There was no violence in any of these encampments. These were peaceful protests, something that theoretically you're supposed to have a right to in fact do, even if those protests can be somewhat disruptive. But how disruptive was it and is it to have some tense put up on open spaces on a college campus? But as you said earlier, as you intro this conversation, there appeared to be decision made at the highest levels that they were not going to tolerate any real opposition on these campuses, and that what they were going to in fact do was to violently suppress those efforts. The encampments of the protests and the violence was imposed on the students by who the representatives of the states, and these were the elite campuses controlled by political elements firmly in alignment with what party, the Democrat party. So this was something that was a partisan effort, not only in terms of support of Israel, but in terms of support for the Biden policy of support for genocide. Well, Wait a minute. When you put this in a partisan context, then how with that understanding, do you explain Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the house, going to Columbia and standing there and challenging the students and spewing a lot of lies? Again, he was right there in front and center talking about, oh, the students have been threatened and all and no such evidence. And folks, I got to keep going back to this because this is so important. No such evidence has been presented. So Mike Johnson, Republican House speaker, he shows up. A whole lot of Republicans have it. So how do you put that in the partisan context? The majority of the ups have taken place on those campuses that are in alignment with the Democrats. So that's a partisan effort in that sense. But the point you're making, and I think is a very important one, is to remind people that the positions of the US state on Israel is in fact a bipartisan position that the Republicans are, even the non Trumpian Republicans are just as adamant in their support for Israel as the Democrats. So this is the nature of this, what I refer to as the growing consolidation of fascism. The popular perception or the popular position is that the main threat of fascist development in the US is coming from the Trumpian, right? As you know, I've been making the counter argument that the driving force of a particular form of US fascism reflecting the new historical conditions, the conditions of today is emanating from the neoliberal, right? That is fascist. But what we see now in the last couple of months in a very dangerous development, and I'm glad you mentioned Mike Johnson, it's what I consider to be now the real consolidation that's happening in the open, if you can see it. Why do you think Mike Johnson's playing this kind of role? We all know that Mike Johnson wouldn't even be the speaker today without the deal that was cut with Democrats to allow him to be able to avoid being displaced by his own caucus. Why was it that the Trumpian forces have been adamant in their opposition to further money, further us public money being sent to Ukraine in support of the Ukrainian proxy war, but then all of a sudden that criticism is muted and Mike Johnson was clearly in alignment with Donald Trump cuts a deal with the Democrats to allow 61 billion to go to Ukraine. I make the argument that not only is this a reflection, not only is this a reflection of the fact that the very powerful elements in the ruling class have decided that there's going to be a second Trump, but it is a reflection of growing open embracement, if you will, between the Trumpian forces and the neoliberal forces, the consolidation of fascism. So this is a very dangerous, I think, dangerous development here in this country. And right now, the most effective opposition to it are the students across the country. And that's very important, very important that people understand that because what the students are involved in, even if they don't define it as such, is really our anti-fascist opposition. I want to just point out a couple of other points that as we've been talking about this narrative, there is this narrative that the United States is involved in backing the Zionist regime in Israel because it's defending democracy. There's nothing democratic about the Zionist state, the settler colonial state of Israel. Palestinians, indigenous Palestinians do not have the same rights as Jews in Israel. There is nothing democratic about Israel. The United States says it's in Ukraine in order to protect democracy. If that's true, then why did the United States go into Ukraine in 2014 and overthrow the democratically elected Lucas Shanko government in the Maan coup in 2014? Folks, look it up. We're not making it up. This is not conspiracy theory. Why did the and put in place right sector Nazis, real Nazis in Ukraine. The United States says it must go into Haiti. Why? To quell unrest and protect democracy. The United States is the one fomenting the unrest. And the United States, the DEA has been proven with Colombian mercenaries, and assassins are the ones that went in and assassinated the Haitian president, Jovi o Moise. I could go on and on and on Jammu. But again, it's the narrative. Exactly, exactly. And that narrative is important because that determines the politics and this collaboration we see of developing this cross party, this bipartisan collaboration is a very, very dangerous development. And the fact that Ukraine is defined as a democracy is dangerous. The fact that the US continues to define itself as a democracy and a champion of human rights while systematically and simultaneously supporting a genocide in Gaza is dangerous. But you know what? Dr. Leon, the obfuscation of us policies by the control of the narrative is now being diminished. That this is what we talk about in terms of the dots being connected and the veneer of civilization and high principles are now being stripped away. We see the naked reality of what this western project has always been, this western colonial capitalist project has always been what we are seeing in Gaza is the most brutal expression of it ever allowed to be exposed to the US population. And what I mean by that, we have to understand that as brutal as we have seen the situation in Gaza, it's not even the most brutal that has developed over the last few years. People have to remember that NATO under the first black president went in and completely destroyed the most prosperous state on the African continent Libya in the process of bombing campaign that took, that occurred over months, and the arming and equipping and support of a bunch of bandits on the ground is estimated between 30 and 50,000 people lost. Their lives were murdered. The difference was that we didn't see that we had to be relying on reports primarily filtered through the western press. So this is an example that is Gaza is an example, a brutal example of what happens, how the colonial project has unfolded, and now people are beginning to rethink everything. This is what we talk about in terms of questioning the propaganda the one is exposed to as part of a so-called educational process. Everything that you have been exposed to in this country is a lie. You have been exposed to a colonial education that was geared to provide support to a interest of a ruling class that doesn't give a damn about ordinary people, really doesn't give a damn about people in the US at all, and certainly does not see a non-European people as worthy of dignity and human rights. That's why you can have a situation like Gaza where they are starving people to death, bombing and killing children and women primarily In hospital And getting away with it in hospital and getting away with it. Yes. You remember when it first started, Dr. Leon, when Al Shifter was first hit with a bomb and it was like global news, and even the Israelis tried to explain it away because in all of these conflicts, the hospitals that have always been allowed to be an oasis, if you will, within the middle of these conflicts, it will seem to be the most egregious war, criminal war crime when you attack a military, attacked a hospital. Okay? People don't seem to understand Dr. Leon, what the Israeli fascists are during today is really kind of unprecedented. They've been allowed to basically attack and dismantle and destroy something like 36 hospitals. There's not a hospital left. When our shifted was first attacked, there's an outcry, but then it died down. What that said to the fascists, Israeli fascists was, we can get away with this. And that's exactly what they did. So this kind of brutality that we are seeing in Gaza is a reflection of the kind of brutality that made the west what it is today. They tried to rationalize the attacking ealing of hospitals by saying Hamas was using the hospitals as terrorist centers. There were tunnels under the hospitals all proven to be false. Again, the narrative, it was a lie. IDF forces would even dress as doctors and male soldiers would disguise themselves as women go into the hospital, kill 15, 20, 30 people then say, oh, they were all Hamas sympathizers. You mentioned the educational process. Going back to what's happening on the college campuses across the country, you mentioned the educational process. Are there elements within the country that are using this campus unrest as the basis for them to undermine education in the United States? Because we know that that higher education in the United States has been under attack by conservative forces for a number of years. Do you see in some of this, the attacks on the presidents of many of these institutions as being an attack on academia? I do, and I see this as the beginning of a more systematic attack. We've already seen cases where administrations are attempting to put in place rules that would in effect make it illegal, or subject students and faculty members to being suspended, expelled, lose their jobs, Lose their funding, lose their government funding, Lose their government funding, just raising certain kinds of questions as it relates primarily to Israel, but also is born in just Israel is really a US foreign policy. So this is again, for me another example of the consolidating fascism here in this country. Now we are really going to see where we are once the students come back in the fall because for our intents and purposes, we're going to see a bit of a petering out of this. And of course the press is going to jump on this as though this is kind of some kind of reflection of the flightiness of students. Well, no, the organizing will be taking place this summer. The real battle is going to unfold probably in the fall. So it remains to be seen what kind of impact this will have. But all of this is reflective of the complete jettison of liberal values at these liberal institutions and liberal philosophy being, again, primarily driven by neoliberals with their liberal allies, that basically, in order for the US empire to maintain its global hegemony, it has to jettison any constraints. And so any concerns about human rights or human dignity on the part of any of their victims or potential victims that has to be ignored now is about the brutal imposition of power in order to maintain hegemony. That's why they have more than 40 nations under economic sanctions. That's why they have strengthened their military command apparatus around the world, including on the African continent. That's why they using their superior military force and political power to intervene once again into Haiti. So this is a dangerous moment and people have to understand how dangerous this moment really is. I want to move on from this because there are a number of things that we also need to cover, but as we start to wrap up this portion of the conversation, and just as another example of how insidious so much of this is, there's a law professor at Bolt Hall, which is the law school at University of California Berkeley. His name is Steven David Dolf Solomon, and he published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, October 15th, 2023. And the piece is entitled, and I just lost my, here we go. Here we go. The piece is entitled, don't Hire My anti-Semitic Law Students. Would your clients want an attorney who condones hatred and monstrous crimes? And this is a little bit about what he wrote. I teach corporate law at the University of California Berkeley, and I'm an advisor to the Jewish Law Students Association. My students are largely engaged and well prepared, and I regularly recommend them to legal employers. But if you don't want to hire people who advocate, hate and practice discrimination, don't hire some of my students. anti-Semitic conduct is nothing new on university campuses, including here at Berkeley. And what he's doing here is a number of things. One, again, he's conflating opposition to genocide with antisemitism. He is conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. And when law professors at prestigious institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley Bolt Hall start to write to the law firms that they have influence at, in and or over, don't hire my students because their anti-Semitic conduct is nothing new on university campuses, including here at Berkeley. That's dangerous. Ajamu Baraka. Well, it really is, and it is reflective of a tendency that's unfolding across the country, unfortunately. But you know what? Dr. Leon is really encouraging that so many young people, so many students are prepared to make the sacrifice. They have understood that their positions could have a major impact on their careers. If you'll, we have a few students in the Black Alliance of Peace who have been thrown out of school, people who have just done their dissertation defense, and now that's up in the air because they were suspended and banned from the campus. And they knew this was a possibility when they decided to not only join but also lead some of the protests. And that is encouraging because what is happening is that there is a new kind of sensitivity, new kind of awareness that's being developed primarily with the Generation Z regarding violence and war. And if you think about it, it's understandable that this will be the generation that will finally be sick of conflicts because these are folks, Dr. Lehigh, that have never known anything but war. My son is 22 years old, just graduated from Hampton University this past Sunday. Way to go boy, congratulations and has never known peace in his lifetime. He exactly the 21st century has been a century of conflict, a century of war. And this was basically predicted by the project for a new American century that he was committed to using the US' superior military strength to impose the US on the rest of the planet to make sure that the US was the hegemonic power on the planet with no competitors. And that's exactly what they have been doing, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan and up to today. And so this generation who for the first time doesn't have any illusions about the so-called American Dream that has seen the normalization of mass shootings, that has seen nothing but war and conflict their entire life, now they're being exposed to the horrors of a livestream. Genocide. And they have finally said, enough is enough. And so that is encouraging, and it's the base of the kind of alternative political organizing that many of us are involved in because unless we are able to build a movement powerful enough to put a break on these maniacs who are making policies today, we are on a fast track to human extension, extension. I mean, you look at what's happening in Ukraine and you connect that to Israel. This is a moment that these young people are beginning to understand is a moment in which if they don't make the pivot from just being concerned with genocide and Gaza, as important as that is to this being a generalized movement against war and for peace and for social transformation, then I think they recognize we all are facing an existential threat. The Black Alliance for Peace closes its peace with, as the masses of African people examine with new eyes the relationship between Zionists and Palestine, what will we conclude? Will we fall for the ploy to scapegoat Benjamin Netanyahu for all of Israel's crimes and then fall back to complacency after he is removed from office? Or will we make the connection between Israel and colonialism? Colonialism and capitalism and capitalism and genocide? I'm glad you mentioned in your piece Benjamin Netanyahu, and will we fall for the ploy to scapegoat him? Because what a lot of people don't really appreciate, as you listen to Joe Biden talk about Benjamin Netanyahu needs to go, and Tony Blinken made reference to that. Folks who really don't understand the dynamics and the intricacies of Israeli politics have to understand if you get rid of Netanyahu, who or what does he get replaced with or by? Because most folks don't understand the compromises that Netanyahu had to make in order to remain in power. And he had to compromise if this is even fathomable, he had to compromise with even more hawkish, more racist, more white supremacist elements within that Zionist society than even Netanyahu is. And he's about as racist as one could think they could get. But when you start talking about Morich and you start talking about Ben, I mean these folks are evil personified. They're fascist. And what is interesting about that analysis you just laid out too, is the fact that it is a ploy. And we've been sort of raising this question or trying to help people to this because what they're trying to do is divert attention away from the settler colonial project itself. Its nature and the policies of Benjamin Nhu. But the Nhu policies are reflection of the Israeli society. Over 80% of Israeli society supported the incursion, the invasion of Gaza. There are people who are criticizing the government for not being tough enough. Okay? So it is the project itself. We all have seen those of us who follow this, the images of the Israelis marching with signs kill all the Arabs, death to Arabs, that society has gone actually mad. They really, And many of them, particularly in the West Bank, are carrying weapons supplied by the United States. And these are rogue bans of settlers that are indiscriminately a attacking indigenous Palestinians and murdering them where they stand. I went to the West Bank in 2014 and I saw with my own eyes those kinds of elements, those kinds of racist elements holding guns, one of the most vicious and dangerous places I've ever seen in my life. Lemme add, many of these people weren't born there. These people are from Brooklyn. These folks are from Brooklyn. Exactly. Americans there you could be a Jewish bus rider, a driver one day, and next week you could be a colonialist carrying an M 16 and able to shoot and kill a Palestinian with impunity. But it's a democracy. No, it can't be. It's a democracy. A jama. Yeah. So this is what is being exposed, and this is why we have the uprising and what they don't seem to understand, Dr. Leon, that is the ruling element. There's no reversal. You see these articles where Democrats would say that in essence, this will blow over and people will recognize that the real threat is Donald Trump, and then you'll come back into the fold and vote for Joe. That ain't happening this time, especially even after all of this where you see that Trump is leading across the country, the turnout for Democrats are not going to be anywhere where it needs to be in order to stem this Trump tie. They have really screwed up on this one, the Democrats. I'm glad you raised that point, because there are a lot of people that don't. What those who make those statements do is they try to personalize the atrocities and they try to personalize the policy instead of understanding its American foreign policy. And so when you look at the policies of Joe Biden and you look at a lot of the policies of Donald Trump, Biden has in many regards, been more Trumpian than Trump. Look at, for example, Exactly like you said, it's the same policy. See the cultural war and all that. These are all the only elements that really differentiate these two parties. Underneath that there is unanimity among the ruling elements. Now, there's real conflicts of interest though, because what Trump represents are those class forces that are national. They are the ones that want a bigger piece of the pie within the us, and they feel oppressed by the globalists, by international capital of finance capital. That really is the hegemonic capitalist sector. And so they're the ones that want expanded opportunities. They're the ones that feel threatened by all of this importation coming into the country from places like China understanding that. And they understand this. It ain't just the Chinese government that's importing consumer goods. It's US corporations who use China as a platform to bring stuff into the us. And so they're saying, you all are killing us. The iPhone killing the iPhone is the perfect example. And so that is part of the tension there. And those are the forces that the Trumpian people face represent. But ideologically, they all are connected to. They all support the continuation of the capitalist system. So there's no contradictions there. It is an intro bourgeois struggle, and people make the mistake of allowing themselves to be pulled into that struggle. We've got to define our objective interests and organize around those interests. And when you do that, basically you recognize that it's the duopoly that has to be smashed, that you don't fall prey to all of these games, people being played, the Biden administration, pretending like they're really taking a position against the net, Yahoo and all this kind of crap. I mean, this is about advancing the interests of the most powerful sectors of capital in this country. Final point on this, final point on this, because we could stay on this for a month. Again, just another element of the hypocrisy. So last week, Joe Biden says, I'm taking a stand. I've drawn a line in the sand, and we're not going to send these. We're going to have a pause on these weapons to Israel. Well, today they announced what a $1 billion weapons package on its way to where? On its way to Israel. This is a money laundering scheme. Folks, your tax dollars are being used to buy and send weapons of genocide to the settler colonial state. And remember, it's not like the money's being sent to Israel. This is a lateral transfer, Martin, from of the US state to the pockets of the military industrial complex for the weapons that then get sent to Israel. Say that again, please. This is a lateral transfer from breach. It Closed in the back pew, Reverend Reverend From the conference, from your money's being stolen, taken from you, sent to the military industrial complex, the defense contractors for weapons that are then sent to Israel to commit crimes in your name. Amen. And another example, the US planned to outsource its imperialism in Haiti to Kenya. This is from MSN. The US has long outsourced meddling in Haiti to global south countries. Recently, Kenya has agreed to take over leading a US backed multinational police intervention there justifying its own stabilization mission with Pan-Africanist rhetoric. And William Ruto, the president of Kenya, is scheduled to meet with Joe Biden in the White House on the 23rd of this month as the first, I think it's 200. So-called police. But these are incredibly, incredibly brutal. These aren't New York. This ain't NYPD. This is not LAPD. No. These are US trained brutal hit squads that they're sending in to Haiti via Kenya at the behest of the United States. It's Kenya military. Kenya Military is a misnomer to refer to these forces just as police. That gives us sort of a milder sort of image. If you'll Innocuous, Innocuous. This is a, they're Going to establish law and order. This is a military invasion that is going to result in hundreds of deaths of Haitians because there will be resistance. They've already said there's going to be resistance. And so to save Haiti, supposedly they have imposed this military invasion. Dr. Leon, as you know, one of the things that really has made Western colonialism so effective has always been its ability to divide people, to have people who are people working with them who actually should be against 'em. So here we have one of the most egregious examples of that in this period, with the Kenyas being recruited to front for us white power. In that article or one of the other articles they talked about, they imply that this was, it didn't have a race component to it, that because these are black intervention of troops coming from Kenya and Jamaica and Grenada, that this is just solidarity. This is Pan-African solidarity, and they're using that term stabilization. This is, but this is the white mans bird. This is white saviorism in blackface. The Power behind this, I call it minstrel diplomacy. It's a black face on white imperialism. Exactly. It's menstrual diplomacy. They might as well just start singing mammy, Who's paying for this? The us? How did you move troops from Kenya all the way over to hay Kenya? Just don't have that capacity. Who Feeds them? Who supports them? Who provides the logistics for them? And anybody who believes that a government and a society that can justify genocide, supporting genocide in Gaza, they then turn around and are supposed to be concerned about black life in Haiti. You got to be a fool. I got a bridge for you to sell. I mean, you've got to ask the right questions, folks. Why is the US involved in this? When has the US been on the right side of history in any question? When has the US really been committed to any kind of humanitarian, anything? So this is another move by the US to strengthen itself in the Caribbean and in our region. When we say our region, we say that we are part of the broader Americas. America isn't just the United States of America. America are all of the nations in the Caribbean and in Central and South America. And we have a campaign, the Black Alliance of Peace, where we say that we support the idea of making this region a zone of peace. And we say the only way we can make this a result of peace, we have to eject the US from this region. One of the things that they love to talk about as it relates to Haiti and the violence in Haiti, all these armed gangs that are roaming the roaming the countryside like feral cats or wolves or whatever. And I haven't heard anybody talk about the weapons that these individuals are carrying. Where do the weapons come from and who pays for the weapons? And here's some very simple data. The average Haitian makes $1,694 in a year, $1,694 in a year. That's $4 and 64 cents a day. A sniper rifle costs about $1,800. Where does a Haitian, who makes $4 and 64 cents a day if he or she's lucky amass the money to buy an $1,800 sniper rifle, a 40 caliber Beretta pistol cost close to a thousand dollars, you make $4 and 64 cents a day. Where are you getting these weapons? How are they getting into the country? We don't hear. It goes back to the adage, don't start nothing. It won't be nothing. If the United States were not behind fanning the flames of this unrest, there wouldn't be any unrest. Ajamu Baraka, You're absolutely right. I mean, this is the importation of these weapons. It's all part of a process. You have different sectors of the Haitian ruling class have basically their own paramilitaries And they control the ports, But they're called gangs here at the us. Right? And the other thing that we have to make sure that we are very clear on all of this activity, the vast majority of this, so-called gang activity is centralized in port nce the capital, you go outside Port Prince, it's relatively normal. They're not roaming the countryside basically. It's a porter prince kind of thing. It's a power kind of thing. Okay? And so you're right. This is the military aspect of the conflict, the struggles among sectors of the ruling class in Haiti, the what we call copy doors who are in a cahoots with the powerful economic sectors outside of Haiti, primarily the us but also the Canadians, and even France. So this is another economic struggle being translated into a armed struggle in Haiti. And quickly talk about, because a lot of people listening to this would ask the question, well, what's behind all of this? Why Haiti? And we know the historic aspects of this in terms of the first successful slave uprising throwing France out of Haiti in the 18 hundreds. We know that story, but connecting the dots in the current context, this is I believe a huge, one of the elements is a preemptive move against China. As the United States continues to try to bait China into a war over Taiwan, the United States realizes that they're going to lose access to their cheaper Chinese labor sources. And there is a lot of labor in Haiti. A lot of, again, folks make $4 and 64 cents a day in Haiti. If you look at where Haiti is located, the United States wants to build a naval base in Haiti as another stopgap measure to protect the Pacific. We know that there's oil, some geologists have estimated there's more oil off the coast of Haiti than there is off the coast of Venezuela. We know about the relationship between Nicaragua and China. China wants to build a Suez type canal through Nicaragua. The United States doesn't want that to happen. So a lot of this has, I believe, to do with preemptive measures that the United States is taking in anticipation of what's happening in other places. Your thoughts, sir? I think you're right. I mean, the geopolitics are quite clear that Haiti is one of the largest countries in the Caribbean, if not the largest. And as you said, it is a haven for cheap labor. There's significant foreign investment taking advantage of that cheap labor right now. It has those potential deposits of oil off the coast and politically is key. We remember the connection that was made between Haiti and Venezuela for a few years. And so making sure that Haiti does not move to The petro project, Petro, Where Venezuela was providing Haiti oil below market rates, so way Below So Haiti could then sell the oil generate revenue for itself. And that was seen as a threat to US imperialism. And so those kind of political connections, they understand what many people and many of your listers may not know. Also, they are very strong currents of progressivism or leftism, if you will, in Haing. And the biggest fear that US has is those forces actually able to take power in Haiti that would transform geopolitics in this region. And so yeah, that's why they are intervening. That's why they have encouraged other countries in the Caribbean to be a part of this, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Grenada, to be part of this, what I call neoliberal Pan-Africanism, because they want to keep Haiti in their pocket. Look, the so-called governing council, they just put in place in order to serve on that governing council, you had to commit of this transitional council. You had to commit to the US intervention. You had to be in alignment with it. If not, you are not going to be allowed to serve on that transitional ruling council. And they talk about elections in Haiti, but they talk about the possibility of elections in 2026. So this is not a democratic intervention. This is not on behalf of the interest of Haiti. This is about the interest of US imperialism. Final question. Talk about this in a broader context of a number of African countries demanding now that the United States militarily leave their countries. Niger has done this. I think Chad is demanding that the United States take its troops out. I think Mali is making a similar request. And reen Jean Pierre, by the way, a Haitian American press secretary for the administration says that Ruto coming from Kenya to the United States, that the United States is going to need African leadership in order to promote the United States interest. I'm paraphrasing, but that's their basic point. So once again, menstrual diplomacy of black face on the racist administrative message. But talk about that quickly, please. In the broader context of African countries demanding that the United States leave their soil militarily First, if the US was really interested in African leadership, it would've listened to African leadership that were trying to bring about a peaceful resolution of the situation in Libya before NATO went in and destroyed that state. So we know that's all BS across the African continent. Yes, particularly in the Sahel region, you have these progressive militaries that have taken power because the civilian institutions have been so weak, and one of the first moves they've been making is to try to authentic sovereignty. What they discovered was you cannot be sovereign if you have foreign military troops in your country and that these troops act like and behave as though it's their country. And you can't be sovereign if you don't control your economy and the resources under your soil. Exactly. And so they've been invited to in fact leave, and they are leaving. The US is still dragging its feet in leisure, but this is catching on. And now with we're have time to talk about what's happening with Senegal, but you have another progressive change where the French are going to probably end up being pushed even out of Senegal. So you have a massive transformation taking place on the African continent in this section of Africa for now. But the model is a model that is now threatening to many of the other Conor leaders on the African continent that real change may be in the works. We may have in fact an authentic Pan-African movement. Finally, once again, Folks, I have to thank my guest brother Ajamu Baraka for joining me today. Brother Baraka, thank you so much. Greatly, greatly appreciate it. My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wier Leon. Stay tuned. New episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Do us a huge, huge, huge favor. Go to Patreon, please, and contribute. This is not an inexpensive venture to engage in, and your support is greatly, greatly appreciated. And as you all can see every week, you're getting a hell of a lot for your money. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a good one. We're out. Peace. Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

This week, on the Global Research News Hour, we mark the 75th anniversary of the formation of NATO into a huge global military organization by looking at it from a variety of lenses beyond praising the North Atlantic Cavalry. In our first half hour, Yves Engler joins us to break down Canada's connection to NATO and how peace activists may consider life without NATO. In our second half hour, journalist Rick Rozoff who specializes in opposition to NATO spells out what is objectionable about the organization in the larger picture. And right after, Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace tells the tale of what is objectionable about NATO from a Black Radical Perspective.

On March 17, the International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP) held its first Global Call to Action as a webinar moderated by Ajamu Baraka of The Black Alliance for Peace and featuring Azhar Sakoor, a lawyer and executive with the Palestine Solidarity Alliance Youth League in South Africa, Marcy Winograd with CODEPINK, Pavel Wargan, the Coordinator of the Secretariat at the Progressive International, Lamis Deek, a Palestinian born and internationally practicing attorney based in New York, and Fuad Abu Saif, Director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees - Palestine. Listen to some of their presentations edited here for the program. You can watch the full webinar at PopularResistance.org: https://popularresistance.org/international-coalition-to-stop-genocide-in-palestine-global-call-for-action/. 

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd TRANSCRIPT: Announcer (00:06): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:13): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. So here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode of this show, my guest and I will have probing, provocative and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historical context in which these events occur. This will enable you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is anti imperialism in the US today. What is it and what is it not? And for insight into this, my guest for the discussion is the chair of the coordinating committee for the Black Alliance for Peace, an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and the Green Party candidate for vice president of the United States in 2016. Ajamu Baraka, as always my brother. Welcome. Ajamu Baraka (01:21): Good to be here, Dr. Leon. Thank you. Wilmer Leon (01:24): So today's topic is based on a piece in Oroco Tribune entitled Anti Imperialism in the US Today, what it Is and Is not. It's written by Stanfield Smith and he opens his piece by quoting the late Cuban president, Fidel Castro, saying there is an enemy that can be called universal, an enemy whose attitude and whose actions threaten the whole world, bully the whole world. That universal enemy is Yankee imperialism. Ajamu your thoughts on Castro's assessment, especially in the context of the recent president Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers urging the Republican controlled House of Representatives to take up this $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, for Israel and Taiwan and other allies, especially understanding if the United States wasn't using Ukraine as a proxy, you wouldn't need that money. The United States is funding the genocide in Gaza and is also trying to use Taiwan as the tip of the spear against China. Ajamu Baraka. Ajamu Baraka (02:45): Well thank you so much for that question because it's a very important question and a very important conversation that we have to have. Fidel's position is in alignment with my position, the position I've been advocating or arguing for the last few years that one of the issues among left forces in the US primarily and also in Western Europe is that they seem not to understand the difference between a primary and the secondary contradiction. That is that they don't seem to recognize that for many of us in the colonized world, in the global south, in the northern states, but in those parts of the northern states where we are exploited and nationally oppressed, that for us the primary enemy, if you'll emanates primarily from the US and is Western European allies, we see the US and Western European allies as Fidel sees them as in fact representing an existential threat to the rest of collective humanity. (04:02) Therefore, that enemy becomes the primary objective of our political activity. Now, some western left leftists, they confused by that and so they will look at some of the issues or contradictions and some of the emergent socialists countries or countries with socialist aspirations, countries that are just trying to build some kind of progressive movement in their nations to have some breathing room for development but who find themselves as a consequence in the crosshairs of the US and US policies attempting to undermine their projects and these leftists will focus in on those internal issues, giving left coverage and rationalization for the targeting of those nations. We see that as fundamentally contradictory. We see that as in fact reactionary confusing what should be the primary objective, which is the defeat of Western imperialism with the internal issues in these various states as equal and they are primary and secondary contradictions are in fact that they are different. Wilmer Leon (05:28): You mentioned the United States and its Western European allies and what is even ironic now is many of those Western European allies are finding themselves being victimized by US imperialism. We're looking at over the last seven months to a year a dramatic decline in productivity in Germany as a result of the United States blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. Now Europe is having to pay exorbitant amounts of money for natural gas. We find that impacting Britain, we find that impacting France. We find that all over Europe and and now for example, for those who may have listened to the interview with Russian president Putin and he's supposed to be the villain and Donald Trump mentions moving away from NATO and folks in the United States were screaming, how can Donald Trump talk about NATO like that in the United States attacked a NATO ally in act of war in blowing up Nord stream. So again, you mentioned the US and its allies and now American imperialism is even attacking its Western European allies. Ajamu Baraka (06:57): Exactly. I mean it's really amazing. I mean look, one of the objectives of the proxy war in Ukraine was in fact to ensure that there would be policies that would disarticulate the Russian economy from western Europe, specifically from the German economy. And the objective there was to weaken the German economy and also by extension various Western economies in order to make the further exploitation and in fact the intensification of the exploitation of the European market more favorable to US capital and the Europeans and the European ruling class fell right into that trap and to make sure that that plan was successful. As you indicated in your question, the US ensured that there would be no backsliding by blowing up Nord Stream two. They knew that once the German workers, once many European workers and even parts of the middle class woke up to the fact that they had got suckered into supporting this aggressive war in Ukraine and that they were being negatively impacted, that there'd be political pressure on these various states to reverse course and to reengage with the Russians. Whether us said, oh no, you're not going backwards. In fact we're going to make sure that by blowing up this pipeline and making sure that you remain now dependent on the importation of liquified natural gas coming from where from the us as Anthony said, the secretary of state of this is a marvelous opportunity. And so that was part of the objective of this war. It was a war to enhance the positionality of US capital in Europe. Wilmer Leon (09:08): In fact, going back to, I made reference to Vladimir Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson and Putin raised the question, he says, well, you blew up part of Nord stream because folks don't know there's Nord stream one and Nord stream two. He said, you blew up part of Nord stream, one of the pipes still works. Why don't you turn it up? He said, Europe can get natural gas from Russia through Ukraine. There are pipelines running through Ukraine that could carry natural gas to Europe. He says, turn it up. He says, there are pipelines that run from Russia through Poland. You can get natural gas through Poland. He says, why don't you turn those up? It all goes back to Western hegemony and imperialism. Ajamu Baraka (09:58): It goes back to the issue of the European ruling class that understanding that they have interest that are really counter those of the US and that irrational policy of allowing themselves to be suckered into this proxy war and not looking out for their own national interests is resulting in real political issues within their countries. Not only the issue of natural gas. You and I talked about on another one of your programs, this issue with using the Ukrainian war, the US capitol that's gone in and basically bought up some of the best land in Ukraine and are now exporting from Ukraine various agricultural products. They are using the war as a battery realm to avoid or to circumvent the requirements of the importation of agricultural products across Europe and imposing the products from Ukraine into various European markets as an act of solidarity. Well, the problem with that of course is it's undermining the positions of European farmers across Western Europe. (11:24) And so you find that farmers and places like France and other countries, I say, Hey, wait a minute, we are now losing money because of our markets now being flooded with wheat and other products coming in from Ukraine. What is this? We have to engage in production by very clear meticulous requirements, regulations, and now using this solidarity issue with the Ukrainian war, you are undermining our position. You're undermining our ability to make a living. And so that's causing real political issues in these various nations. So these policies being pursued by these European nations are really such that they are putting themselves in a position where they are creating issues for themselves politically that they're going to find it very difficult to reverse very soon, as a matter of fact in the next few months. Wilmer Leon (12:34): And in fact to that point talking about agriculture, there are farmers in Germany that have been protesting for weeks. They're dumping manure in the roads, they're doing a lot of activism, real on the ground, practical activism to show their resistance to the policies that you're mentioning. And also they're incredibly angry because a lot of the subsidies that the government was providing to them in order to offset the price differentials that they were experiencing as a result of flooding the market with Ukrainian products, those subsidies have been cut if not totally eliminated as the German government, as the French government, as other EU countries are sending more money to Ukraine, so many of them, many of these Western Europeans are experiencing a lot of the same issues there that many in the United States are suffering here. As our infrastructure is in decline as our schools are underfunded, as healthcare costs are going up and people are, as homelessness is on the rise, we can find 95 billion to send to Ukraine and to send to Israel and to send to Taiwan. All three of those fights are fights that would not be ongoing if the United States hadn't started them. But we can't seem to find the way to take care of Americans here in the United States. Ajamu Baraka (14:05): We can't find the way Dr. Leon because we can't have an honors and open and free national conversation because the same interests that are advancing themselves in Western Europe of the same interests that control the means of communication in the us. And so therefore a conversation with the people of the US around what really makes sense in terms of policy. Does it make sense to have 886 billion devoted toward defense? So-called defense or should we use some of those resources to in fact address issues of homelessness, invest in education, create the conditions where everybody can have access to healthcare pay for free education up to through the university level. US population is paying a price for supporting the policies that only are benefiting a small minority of the population, in fact about 1% of the population. So that kind of understanding that kind of discussion, it's not taking place, it's only taking place in spaces like this in alternative media spaces and as a consequence it makes it very difficult for us to turn the corner with advancing policies that make more sense, that address the real interest of the American people Wilmer Leon (15:49): And in this piece, anti imperialism in the US today, what it is and is not Stansfield Smith, he draws the distinction between progressives and anti-imperialist. He says that imperialism uses human rights and democracy issues in countries that it is targeting for regime change as a rationale for foreign interference and that many progressives swallow and even join in these disinformation campaigns to support these moves where in contrast, anti-imperialist, they focus on uncovering and bringing to light US disinformation and interference in national sovereignty. So can you elaborate a little bit on this issue? He talks about progressives versus anti-imperialist you use in many instances, use the term the left if you could because we hear these references, we hear these terms baned about all the time and many people mistakenly think that they're all the same, but in fact they're not. Ajamu Baraka (17:01): Well, they really aren't and I'm glad you raised that question. I think the way Stanfield is using that term and many others, when you talk about progressives, you're really talking about liberals and maybe social Democrats. That is those individuals who have politics and very similar to say for example Bernie Sanders who's a social democrat, who have a soft socialistic orientations Bernie Sanders, Cornell West, as opposed to elements of the left that are not only anti imperialists but of course politics that suggest that this global system of colonial capitalism has to be transcended and be replaced with a new kind of political economy, one that's organized around socialistic lines. And so that to me constitutes the left, the real left if you will. But even within that camp, if you'll, there's still some issues in terms of how one gets to socialism and that's where you have some of the confusion because even among the left, they will sometimes find themselves inadvertently often providing political cover to the US because they are in opposition to a particular nation's experiment, be it Nicaragua, Cuba or Venezuela, Peru or Bolivia, that if the politics aren't developing in ways in which these western leftists believe they should be developing, if they don't correspond to some kind of imagined model, then they will, they begin to criticize those experiments at the same time, did those experiments find themselves in the crossheads of US subversion? (19:08) That's backward. It's backward and it's contradictory. So that is the issue that Smith is alluding to in that very important article. Dr. Leon? Yes, there's another element to this, okay, (19:25) Even the way in which the bourgeoisie, meaning the bourgeoisie, meaning the ruling class has used and weaponized democracy and human rights in order to obscure real interest in undermining these various nations as a consequence of gods. They're not going to be able to use those weapons like they did in the past because they have now been exposed. It's quite clear to so many people around the world and even people within the US the hypocrisy of those positions. What happened to the responsibility to protect a component of humanitarian intervention in order to protect the human rights of certain collectives? It doesn't exist when it comes to the Palestinians. So they have undermined in their own short-term greed and their own short-term pursuits to undermine a very important and powerful weapon that used to use to be able to obscure their reactionary politics Wilmer Leon (20:39): To that. It is really amazing when you look at how long the been exposed to the genocide, how long that struggle has been ongoing and how quickly things turn post October 6th. One of the ways that I have described it is I tell people that Israel has bombed the world into reality that now that this horror, now that this genocide is playing itself out on your telephone screens, not to mention your computers and your home screens, the atrocities, the reality of these atrocities have just decimated the myths Ajamu Baraka (21:39): Exactly, and they're never going to be able to return back to the ideological status quo. They have exposed themselves, we are seen behind the curtain and we understand now the reality of the naked power that they are exercising to try to maintain their global control. We now see the nature of the settler colonial project in Israel, and by extension we are getting a better understanding of the settler colonial project in the territory called the United States of America. At the core of these projects is the reality of naked violence to establish those regimes and to maintain them. So that understanding of the nature of colonialism coupled with a deeper understanding of the nature of capitalism disconnected is radicalizing millions of people across the globe and millions of people within the US So the politics going forward are going to be fundamentally different, but it's going to be different but even more dangerous. (22:53) Dr. Leon, why without the ideological weapon that they were able to use to impose conformity and support for their policies, now they're going to be more and more dependent on the use of naked force. That's why you find the naked use of force in various local environments. That's why you see in Atlanta, for example, the use of RICO laws to criminalize the opposition to cop city. These are examples of the hysterical reaction from the rulers to this change in consciousness. That's why the O rule three is facing federal prosecution because of their to the policies in Ukraine. So the repressive apparatus and the repressive network of the state is being strengthened and being utilized against this growing consciousness that's being manifested within the United States of America. Wilmer Leon (24:06): And another place where I believe that we're going to see this manifest itself is in the Middle East itself. Hassan Nala, the head of Hezbollah in Lebanon recently gave a speech where he said, and I'll paraphrase, he said, basically for as horrific as all of this is, he said, this is really going beyond the Palestinians and that this is an issue for the entire region. And there have been a number of interpretations of that statement. What that says to me is he is not only speaking to the Palestinians that he and speaking to Anah in Yemen and others, he's letting the United States know he's letting the west know that you all are about to start a global conflict that he's saying everybody in the pool and because they see themselves as facing a common oppressor, they see themselves facing a common enemy and he's saying, you all are about to ignite a fuse, the likes of which you will not be able to exterminate or put out, and it's going to be all adults in the pool, and the result isn't going to be very positive, Ajamu Baraka (25:34): Dr. Leon, and what's going to really like that is if there is in fact a ground assault in Rafa, the Egyptians have already said that that can very easily result in the cancellation of Camp David, the Saudis have said that there's going to be dire circumstances. This is going to see what has happened is that these policies have forced these monarchs and all of these Arab and Muslim right-wing elements to have to respond to the pressure that they're feeling from their own populations. So horrific what is happening in Gaza, they can no longer collaborate under the table with the us. They are being now forced to take more forthright positions in opposition to what is happening in Palestine that you couple, what is happening on the Israeli Lebanon border was Hezbollah. You look at what is happening with the Hutu that have basically shut down shipping as it relates to ships going into and supporting Israel, and you see that these unwise policies are creating a situation that can very easily span out of control and even elements within the US believe that this has gone too far. (27:16) And that's why you find some fleeting commentary from genocide, Joe talking about that the Israelis have gone over the top because now they understand the real possibility of this igniting a regional conflict that they're not going to be able to control. If it does in fact lead to that, and they know that you have leadership in Israel, you have a lunatic that's in power. You have a right wing racist settler regime that is engaged in murder, not only supporting the murder in Gaza, but they are actively murdering Palestinians on the West Bank. Over 400 Palestinians have been murdered by settlers since October the seventh. So this is creating a situation that's untenable, and so there has to be a pullback. Yesterday the Moody credit agency downgraded Israeli stocks and downgraded the economy. So there is a real economic consequence now developing. So it's a very dangerous situation that the wiser elements of the international ruling class is saying, we've got to get a hold of this Wilmer Leon (28:47): And talk about how this hypocrisy of the United States has been exposed, is being exposed and the international reaction, what I mean by that is as we sit and look at the genocide that is taking place in Gaza and the United States is paying for it, the United States is arming it. And on one hand you hear Tony Blinken saying, I'm traversing the region, I'm talking to the leaders. I'm asking them to be very careful. Basically what he's saying is he's asking for a kinder, gentler genocide and Joe Biden is saying that we are concerned about the Palestinians and while in fact he's not telling Netanyahu, I'll just pull the plug on your money and we'll put a stop to this thing in about two or three days, days. What's your take your sense as you travel the world and speak to those around the world, how is that hypocrisy resonating around the world? Ajamu Baraka (29:54): The result of this is that the US has lost prestige, will never regained, that the world understands that the US and Europe is basically finished and that nations are deciding that they're going to put their eggs is a different basket, and that basket is called bricks. This emerging group of nations that now control something like 36% of global GDP as opposed to the G seven that's controlling about 30%, the shift has already taken place materially. Now the shift is taking place ideologically and politically. So it is a shift in momentum is a recognition that for all intents and purposes, the decline of the west is irreversible, but it's also a recognition of the danger that all of this poses for all of us because it becomes quite clear when you see the support that all of the western nations have given to the Israeli fascists that the west is prepared to blow up the world before they voluntarily surrender power. Wilmer Leon (31:19): Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Elaborate on that because a lot of people will hear you say, blow up the world. Oh, that's hyperbole. Oh, he's just being over the top. Oh, that Aja mu Baraka. He's so dramatic. But no, that's real talk. Ajamu Baraka (31:36): Yeah, it really is because they're still flirty with the possibility of nuclear confrontation in Ukraine. There's still the possibility of some kind of wild and reckless attack by the Israelis on Iran and even the use of a nuclear weapon. There is the situation we haven't touched on yet, that is the unwise policies of the part of the US in providing support to and propping up and encouragement to the government on the island of Taiwan, the provocative moves being made in the South China Sea, the whole pivot toward Asia. There is always the possibility of these situations escalating to a nuclear confrontation. And it seems like that there are elements within the foreign policy community that believe that they in fact can not only escalate, but they can engage in a first strike and win. There are people openly talking like Dr. Strange love and talking about the possibility of winning a nuclear confrontation. (32:55) That's what makes it so incredibly dangerous because when you have missiles in western Europe, for example, in and Poland and Romania and other places that are theoretically defensive according to the us, but the Russians know that they can be recalculated if you'll or refitted in a matter of minutes and to become offensive, which means that you have the ability to strike from say, Poland to Moscow in six minutes. Now you have the Russians who are on a head trigger alert, they have to launch on warning because you can't allow your nuclear arsenal to be caught in the silos. So when you had situations in the past where there were computer glitches where one side thought that the other side had launched, launched, we had 30 minutes to correct it, we have documented situations where that in fact happened at least on two or three occasions. How do you do that when you are on a trigger hair launch or warning in six minutes? So it's very, very dangerous. So that's what we are referring to. This is not hyperbole. People talk about in five years I'm going to be doing so and so and so I'm like, are you sure you're going to be here in five years? Yeah, I'm being dramatic because I'm being for real. We can see the possibilities of these maniacs escalating a situation to the point of a nuclear confrontation because the amateurs, Dr. Leon, (34:36) The gap between the leadership in places like Russia and China and the US and in western Europe, it's never been bigger before. They don't know what they are doing and that's what makes us so incredibly dangerous for all of us. Wilmer Leon (34:54): You just mentioned the mistake being made, and that is not theoretical. I want to say it was 1983, a Russian, I don't even know what his title is, but he's in a silo in a Russian silo. His name is Stanislav Petrov, and he is a missile technician, I'll call him, sitting in a Russian silo looking at his screen and he sees a blip on his screen. And the protocol is when you see this blip, you push a button and when you push that button, silos open, missiles come up, we're ready to launch. But he thinks that there's something wrong with the blip on his screen. And thank God he did because by his taking just a couple of minutes to be rational and to think, what he found out was it wasn't an incoming missile. It was a mistake in a software program that miscalculated or misinterpreted something that was transpiring. (36:05) So that was 1983. Folks can look this up. Stanislav Petrov is his name, and if it hadn't been for him, we would've been in a nuclear conflict. What you just talked about in terms of missiles in Poland and Yugoslavia and other places, that's one of the big reasons why Russian president Putin is so hell bent on Ukraine not becoming a part of nato because he says, and he's right, if Ukraine becomes a part of nato, NATO will put missiles in Ukraine. You've now cut my response time from seven or eight minutes to three minutes, which means Stanislav petrov, God bless his soul, that doesn't work anymore. Launch on notice. And the other point is Putin has made this point a number of times saying, look, you guys got to understand something. I got missiles too. I got missiles like you got missiles. And in the west that gets spun as Vladimir Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons. No, what he's telling you is if you think you can come in here and punch me in the face, understand I can punch back. I have what you have. And now what we're seeing from a technological perspective is what they got is a little better then what we're used to seeing. So this is not hyperbole, this is not fantasy. This is real talk. Ajamu Baraka (37:59): Yeah, no, they have demonstrated with supersonic weapons that they have Wilmer Leon (38:04): Hypersonic Ajamu Baraka (38:05): Hypersonic weapons. They have a technological advantage of us and not been able to catch up with yet. It's very dangerous Wilmer Leon (38:14): Minute. Wait a minute. To that point, when President Biden, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want people to understand this isn't theoretical high hyperbole. When Joe Biden sent the USS Gerald Ford into the Mediterranean Sea as a show of force to Hezbollah and to the Houthis, Vladimir Putin said, Joe, why are you doing this? You're not scaring anybody, you're not scar. He said, these people don't scare, and oh, by the way, we can sink your aircraft carrier from the Black Sea with our armed missiles, the Ken Jaw missiles, he said, and they're hypersonic. You won't even know they're coming until your aircraft carrier is sinking. That's real talk. Ajamu Baraka (39:19): And what's also kind of funny but tragic at the same time is that while they are engaged in provocative activity in the Endo Pacific region outside of Taiwan and in the Taiwan straits, the Pentagon has war games, a confrontation between the US and China, and I think we talked about it before, and they were lost every time, Wilmer Leon (39:48): 25 out of 25. Ajamu Baraka (39:50): So it's like, what are these people doing? What are you doing? The whole concept that was coming out of the project for a new American century in which they argued that the US had the capacity to fight two theater wars simultaneously that should have been put to rest when they lost both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, basically global solve nations. But now they are actually a few months ago you thought they were really going insane because they are fighting in Ukraine and they are fighting in Ukraine. Make a mistake about that is the Ukrainians are dying, but this is a Western and US ward, while at the same time they were needling the Chinese. So it's like what? You all are going to fight the Russians and the Chinese at the same time? It wasn't making and they Wilmer Leon (40:48): Are allies. Ajamu Baraka (40:51): Yeah, well, part of the conflict, Wilmer Leon (40:54): You got to throw North Korea in there too. Ajamu Baraka (40:56): Well, part of the conflict water of the element that we didn't talk about, when you talk about what's happening in Ukraine in terms of the secondary objectives of this proxy war, it was to weaken the Russians to the point where they would not be a very effective ally to the Chinese. The target was not just Russia, it was Germany as we talked about, and the Chinese. So they were creating a situation where they were going to win regardless of what happened in their own imagination. Wilmer Leon (41:27): There are some neocons that thought you could go at China directly. There were some neocons that believed that you could go at Russia directly, and then there were others who believed the way you get to China, you've got to go through Russia. Ajamu Baraka (41:42): Yes, exactly. All Wilmer Leon (41:44): Are wrong. All are wrong. Ajamu Baraka (41:47): They were proven wrong. I mean the Russian economy was supposed to be destroyed, be destroyed as a consequence of this conflict. And as Putin indicated in that interview that the Russian economy is stronger than there's ever been. Every time they have imposed series of sanctions against the Russians. Even Putin said this a couple of years ago, it allowed him to impose economic reforms that he couldn't have done without the sanctions. He made the oligarchy disengage from the European economy and reinvest and the Russian economy. So they have become more economically independent as a consequence of these sanctions. So it's always been counterproductive and you have some realists in the US foreign policy community that predicted that. But the realists have had to take a second, have had to stand back and allow these neocons who have been driving policy in both parties for the last 20 years basically or more. And the result is the US is weaker than it's ever been since the end of the second imperialist war that we call World War ii. Wilmer Leon (43:14): Another example, and I think a more practical example, and what I mean by practical is it doesn't involve the oligarchs. It involves the everyday Russian person. One of the things when President Biden told us that as a result of this Ukraine conflict that he was going to turn the ruble into rubble, and by imposing sanctions on the Russian economy, one of the things that they were projecting was or predicting was that the Russian citizens would run to the Russian banks and take their money out of the banks and put their money other places. And what Putin did was he raised the interest rates. One of the things that he did was he raised the interest rates that the banks would pay on deposits. So the Russian citizens found, oh, I'll make more money if I leave my money in the bank. And what a lot of people don't know about him, dude has a PhD in economics. Not only is he an attorney, he has a PhD in economics. So he has a little bit of understanding. He has a better understanding of econ than Joe Biden. Ajamu Baraka (44:41): I mean Joe Biden's a moron. I mean most of the US leadership are morons. One thing we can say about Barack Obama, though he was not in that same category. He was just a slickster. And same thing with Bill Clinton. But the quality of the leadership in the US state has been a mean, been dangerously. Frighteningly are incompetent. And that's the thing that scares me the most, that we are going to trip up into a situation that the US is not going to be able to reverse and all of us will suffer as a consequence. Look, when you hear no matter what your opinion may be a Putin or a President Xi when they speak and even the way they comport themselves, these are adults, these are statesmen. If you'll, and you compare that to these idiots in the US started with genocide jokes and these idiots who are making policy both in the Democrat and Republican parties, there's no gravitas, there's no worldly sophistication. They're just like country bumpkins. They are so incredibly unsophisticated and adolescent. That's the term that I use to describe US culture. It's an adolescent dangerous culture. And because it has so much power, that's what makes it so incredibly dangerous to all of us that people need. If you haven't seen this check out that interview, you can have your views about Putin and the cartoon characters that's been drawn up for you by your bosses, but you cannot conclude that this is not a states person with a sophisticated understanding of the world. Wilmer Leon (46:46): If you look at a couple of examples of what you're talking about, particularly as it relates to the Chinese, I'm not even going to get into Secretary Lavrov because that dude is oh, just brilliant. But Wang Ye, the foreign secretary of China early in the Biden administration, Tony Blinken was supposed to meet with the Chinese delegation in Anchorage, Alaska. And so they all convene in Anchorage and Blinken starts lecturing the Chinese and they look at him and they say, whatcha doing? You have no idea who you are talking to. We didn't come here to be lectured by you. We're China, we hold your debt. You don't hold out out. Ajamu Baraka (47:52): What was so incredible about that was this was the clumsy attempt on the part of the Biden administration to assert their white maleness. They're going show it was whiteness. We going to show we running the show with these Chinese. I mean it was incredible. And like you said, the Chinese Wilmer Leon (48:17): Said the sick men of criticize, Ajamu Baraka (48:19): You're not competent enough to criticize us, Wilmer Leon (48:21): Right? Our culture is thousands of years old. And then you've got the whole spy balloon. What a lot of people don't understand is Tony Blinken said, I'm going to China to meet with President Xi. He was not invited. He said, I'm going to China. And G said, no, but he said, I'm coming to China. So usually diplomats are welcomed in Beijing. President Xi said, okay, well if you're coming, I can't remember the name of the city, but there's another city where they send lesser caliber diplomats and folks that they really don't want to deal with. He said, I'm going to send you here. I'm not going to meet you in Beijing and I'm not even come see you there. And Blinken got embarrassed and that's when the balloon comes in the jet stream, the weather balloon comes in the jet stream as weather balloons will do. (49:30) And they used that calling it a spy balloon as the basis of, oh, you're sending a spy balloon, therefore I can't come see you. No, it was, Xi didn't want to totally embarrass Blinken by saying, I'm not going to let you in my country. What he said was, I'm going to send you off to the hinterlands and you can go on a tour if you want to. And Tony Blinken said, well, no, I ain't doing that. I mean, those are just examples and they don't get explained as such by Western media, but that's what really happened. Ajamu Baraka (50:10): Look, Dr. Leon, I was in China a couple of months ago. Wilmer Leon (50:14): There we Ajamu Baraka (50:14): Go. Wilmer Leon (50:16): Am I right? Ajamu Baraka (50:18): You are absolutely right. I'm going to tell you they can't can't be defeated. This what they are building there is absolutely incredible. I'm sitting on this bullet train going from Beijing to Shanghai, and I had a cup of water and I was doing something and I put it down and I realized, oh, the water's on the floor cause fly when you do Amtrak. You know how that on Amtrak, (50:52) They have this tick or take thing on the end of the car that tells you how fast the train's going. We sitting there going 325 miles an hour. It's like you're not even moving. You're going across the countryside is flat plains. And then you look up and then there's a city with skyscrapers, and I don't want to go into it too much, but what I saw in just those few days I was there was incredible. And so they're not keeping allowing people to understand what's happening in China. They have an urban development policy that when they create these cities and these communities, every social service in that community has to be within a 15 minute walk. The hospitals, the schools, the elder care, 15 minute walk is fully integrated everything that you need. So you compare this and what I saw in terms of infrastructure, it made the US look like, unfortunately, like a developing country and see the bourgeois there, they know this, but they're not telling the US population how far behind the US has fallen. Wilmer Leon (52:18): Well, and a perfect example of that is 5G technology. The Chinese approach, the United States, I'll say now, 15 years ago about working with the Chinese on developing 5G, and the United States said, no, we don't need to work with you on that. And so China went ahead and developed 5G. And with that we're talking about the internet of things and the ability of your refrigerator to talk to your cell phone to talk to your car, all of that kind of stuff. And so now when you turn on your phone, it says 5G, but the United States does not. All we really have is faster 4G. It's not truly the 5G technology that Huawei and other Chinese companies have developed. And they're now, they're on their way to six and seven G. We just don't get it. Ajamu Baraka (53:26): And the funny thing about it too, the US thought that they were going to undermine the Chinese by undermining the ability to have access to advanced Chips, chips. But they are rapidly developing their own capacity for that. And see, people don't understand as part of the struggle with Taiwan, also the home of one of the largest semiconductor chip factory in the world. Wilmer Leon (53:55): Psc, is that what? It's Ajamu Baraka (53:56): Something like that, yeah. Right. And that reincorporation of Taiwan into China would be a nonviolent and relatively seamless if it wasn't for the agitation on the part of the us. This notion that Chinese want to invade Taiwan militarily is all complete and utter nonsense. There is a political process there. There was developing in favor of the Chinese until the last few years when the US really began to ramp up is meddling within the Taiwanese political system. So that's part of the issue that basically the technological advances that the US has, and they still have some, that gap is being progressively narrowed down. Wilmer Leon (54:50): And as we move on to our final segment, there have been studies and reports put out by various elements within the government that if China were to invade Taiwan, and that's not on anybody's drawing board, I always challenge folks that want to have this conversation with me, show me one time where President Xi Jinping has said that they're planning to invade China. You can't find it because they're not going to do it. But the United States says if that were to happen, the United States would blow up the TSC, I think it's TSC chip manufacturing facilities so that they would not fall into the hands of China. And now China has designed its own chips, it's on its way. Necessity is the mother of invention, and China is on its way. I want to tie something else into coming back to the northern hemisphere, and that is this immigrant conversation. (56:01) All of this conversation about the Republicans in the house are trying to hold up this defense bill because they say there's not enough money for the immigration bill. But in all of this bipartisan discussion about immigration, nobody talks about the American foreign policy in the region as in Central America and South America that is basically forcing these people to leave their homes and come here. The analogy I use is if you're sitting in your basement watching a game and water starts coming down your stairway, you want to close the basement door instead of going upstairs and figuring out, oh, either your tub is overflowing or your sink, your kitchen sink is overflowing. They just want to close the, they don't want to turn off the spigot. And the way you turn off the spigot is by changing your policy. That is decimating the economies of Nicaragua decimating the economies of all of these other countries in central and South America. They never talk about the US foreign policy policy that creates the motivation or motivates these folks to want to come here. They just talk about building a wall to keep 'em in Mexico. Ajamu Baraka (57:31): No, they don't talk about that. And what's interesting too is that you remember at one point the Democrats pretended to be the party of progressive immigration policy, but who talks about that now? Now they are the party that has embraced the same kind of policies of Donald Trump border security expanding a wall. So there is consensus now among both wings of the ruling class represented by the Republicans and the Democrats on this issue of so-called border control. And they're never going to talk about the kinds of imperialist policies that are decimating the economies of Central America and parts of South America driving immigration. That's not part of their analytical framework. And so an understanding of these forces, again, has to come from sources like your show and other alternative sources that help people to understand the complexities of the world and sometimes how simple some things are. Like you destroy an economy and people have to find a way to survive, and they are a few hundred miles away from the most powerful and richest country on the planet. We need to go there. It's quite simple. So this is what has to be dealt with a better understanding on the part of people in the US to these issues and understand that you have more in common with understand. Understand that basically if we're able to put a break on these imperialist policies, these exploitative policies in Latin America, in South America and in the us, then we have the material basis for all of us to live a little better. So that's really where we need to be going. That's the level of understanding we have to arrive at. Wilmer Leon (59:47): And you talked about, I'll use these words, the misinformation and the disinformation in western media. I want to hit on one more thing, but before you go, if you can just give me two or three more minutes, and that's Haiti, and that could be three hours on its own, but this is from the Washington Post this week, rebel leader who ousted risid set sights on Haiti's current leader. The crisis here keep compounding armed. Gangs have forced more than 300,000 from their homes. The police are outgunned and overmatched. Half the people don't have enough to eat. This Caribbean nation of 11 million has no dramatic democratically elected officials. The National Assembly is empty, the presidency is vacant. That's left Arial Ri, the unelected and deeply reviled prime minister in charge appointed by president jovial Moise days before. Moise is still unsolved assassination in 2021 on re was due to leave office on Wednesday, but is so far successfully stymied a political transition. They're talking about GI Philippe coming back into Haiti. And this is written as though the United States has had absolutely no involvement in the decimation of Haiti. And so people read this from the Washington Post and they go, oh, these poor, ignorant, silly Haitians, they just can't seem to do anything for themselves. We must intervene and save them from theirselves. Doesn't talk about GI Philippe. And he was an American operative and how much time he spent in American prisons and how, by the way, does he get back into Haiti after none of that ajamu Baraka? Ajamu Baraka (01:01:37): You're absolutely right. And the situation in Haiti has become almost untenable. And that's how they wanted, he was reinserted into Haiti to intensify the chaos, to make the situation even more ripe for outside intervention. They don't trust him. He doesn't trust them. But there is a convergence of interest, short-term interest that is Wilmer Leon (01:02:05): Financial interest, Ajamu Baraka (01:02:07): Financial interest, political interest, right? Is it terrible situation in that country and one that we have to continue to monitor because the result of this situation is the possibility of more violence inside the country as the consequence of those issues. Wilmer Leon (01:02:23): And this is another example of the United States through what it created called the Global Fragilities Act. It is creating the fragility and then claiming we now have to use the US military to go in and resolve the chaos that we created in the first place. Ajamu Baraka (01:02:41): Exactly. That is the objective. That could be the end result if we don't stop it. Wilmer Leon (01:02:50): Brother Ajamu Baraka, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. Ajamu Baraka (01:02:54): My pleasure. Thank you so much Dr. Leon. Wilmer Leon (01:02:57): I want to thank you all for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Please stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow me on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. I'm going to see you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. And remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history, converge talk without analysis is just chatter and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. Peace and blessings. I'm out

In November, 2023, a delegation from the US Peace Council traveled to China for meetings at the invitation of the Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament. Ajamu Baraka, who participated in that delegation, speaks with Clearing the FOG about what he witnessed and the contrasts between US/Western and Chinese approaches to development, diplomacy and global security. He also discusses the broader conflicts in the world, particularly in Western Asia, the fall of US hegemony, the black radical tradition's definition of peace and the Peoples-Centered Human Rights Framework. Baraka advises us to understand the gravity of the many crises we face and to take action to build a peaceful and dignified society. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.

https://youtu.be/e6kyiDbErYE sound is consciousness... #2023 #art #music #movies #poetry #poem #photooftheday #volcano #news #money #food #weather #climate #monkeys #horse #puppy #fyp #love #instagood #onelove #eyes #getyoked #horsie #gotmilk #book #shecomin #getready 

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock this episode and our entire premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast    2016 Green Party Vice Presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka returns to Bad Faith to discuss RFK Jr.'s appeal and the strategic advantages of running as a Dem vs a third party candidate. Is Cornel West hamstringing himself by running outside of the Democratic Party? Is there an advantage to being included in polls during the primary process? Does the #forcethedebate movement help expose the Democratic Party in a way that wouldn't be possible if RFK Jr. & Marianne Williamson were running as third party candidates? Even so, do those candidates loose more than they gain by their association with the Democratic Party? Can you truly run a left campaign "as a Democrat"? And if the answer is no, why? Is the real issue that you can't be adversarial to the Democratic Party as a Democrat, or that no one whose tried has never opted to run in a way that's truly oppositional to the corporate duopoly? Brie also asks about the odds Cornel West will win the Green Party nomination, whether there is tension with Howie Hawkins within the party, & more. Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube to access our full video library. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod). Produced by Armand Aviram.   Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands)

Journalist David Sirota talks about why Biden's debt ceiling "victory" is actually a failure. But first Ajamu Baraka talks about war, imperialism and why the United States of America is a "gangster state." Ajamu Baraka is human rights defender whose experience spans four decades of domestic and international education and activism, with roots are in the Black Liberation Movement and anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity struggles. He was the Founding Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) from July 2004 until June 2011. Before that, Baraka worked with Amnesty International USA where he was the Southern Regional Director and also directed Amnesty's National Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. In 1998, Baraka was one of 300 human rights defenders from around the world who were brought together at the first International Summit of Human Rights Defenders commemorating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 2001, Baraka received the “Abolitionist of the Year” award from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. The following year, Baraka received the “Human Rights Guardian” award from the National Center for Human Rights Education. Baraka has also served on the boards of various national and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International (USA), the Center for Constitutional Rights, Africa Action, and the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights. He's a national organizer for Black Alliance For Peace and was the Green Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in 2016. His writing has appeared in Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Pambazuka News, and CounterPunch. Link to The Black Alliance For Peace website - https://blackallianceforpeace.com/ Link to The Black Alliance For Peace Zone of Peace campaign - https://blackallianceforpeace.com/zoneofpeace DAVID SIROTA is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author living in Denver, Colorado. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work helping Adam McKay create the story for the blockbuster film DON'T LOOK UP. Sirota is the founder and editor of The Lever, an editor at large at Jacobin Magazine and a columnist at The Guardian. He served as Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign speechwriter in 2020. He also created Audible's financial crisis podcast series MELTDOWN, which was named one of the best podcasts of the year by The Atlantic and Uproxx. Link to The Lever - https://www.levernews.com/ Get your Katie Halper Show Merch here! https://katiehalper.myspreadshop.com/all Eventbrite link for the live taping with Briahna Joy Gray in NYC on June 10, 2023! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/katie-halper-show-live-with-briahna-joy-gray-tickets-643828447217 ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media & to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Follow Katie on Twitter: @kthalps Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/rkEk75Emhy

Pascal is joined by the Mau Mau Power Panel of Ajamu Baraka, Paul Mocombe, and Dhoruba Bin Wahad to discuss Multipolarity.   About TIR Thank you for supporting the show! Remember to like and subscribe on YouTube. Also, consider supporting us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/join/BitterLakePresents   Check out our official merch store at https://www.thisisrevolutionpodcast.com/   Also, follow us on... https://podcasts.apple.com/.../this-is.../id1524576360 www.youtube.com/thisisrevolutionpodcast www.twitch.tv/thisisrevolutionpodcast www.twitch.tv/leftflankvets https://www.facebook.com/Thisisrevolutionpodcast/ Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland   Follow the TIR Crüe on Twitter: @TIRShowOakland @djenebajalan @DrKuba2 @probert06 @StefanBertramL @MarcusHereMeow Read Jason: https://www.sublationmag.com/writers/jason-myles Read Pascal: https://www.newsweek.com/black-political-elite-serving...

This week on the Global Research News Hour, we take a look at Ukraine and the war being waged within it through two unlikely sources. In our first half hour, Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance For Peace joins us to explain the stance of his group toward the nearly year long fight within Ukraine's borders., and toward NATO generally, revealing how it is consistent with anti-racist principles. Then in our second half hour, we are joined by a young Ukrainian woman who emigrated to Winnipeg nearly 15 years ago and shares some of her thoughts about the country she left, the role of the United States and Russia, and the current conflict that is threatening her country of birth

At least nine Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded by Israeli troops in the Jenin refugee camp on Thursday. On this show, we hear voices of Palestinians, including Electronic Intifada editor Ali Abunimah, speaking out against the apartheid regime and the billions in U.S. support that allows Israel to kill with impunity. Also on the show, a conversation between members of Black Alliance for Peace about their opposition to a call made by the organization Ukrainian Solidarity Network for more arms and military support for Ukraine. With Jacquie L'uqman and Ajamu Baraka.  The show is made possible only by our volunteer energy, our resolve to keep the people's voices on the air, and by support from our listeners. In this new era of fake corporate news, we have to be and support our own media! Please click here or click on the Support-Donate tab on this website to subscribe for as little as $3 a month. We are so grateful for this small but growing amount of monthly crowdsource funding on Patreon. PATREON NOW HAS A ONE-TIME, ANNUAL DONATION FUNCTION! You can also give a one-time or recurring donation on PayPal. Thank you! Post photo credit: Palestine Online

As 2022 comes to an end and major crises abound, Clearing the FOG spoke with Ajamu Baraka, a long time human rights defender and co-founder of the Black Alliance for Peace, about the big picture of what is happening politically and upcoming opportunities to organize for change. Baraka discusses the continued move to the right in the United States by both of the major political parties and their voting bases, including those in the liberal class, the complicity of the corporate media and the rise of censorship and repression against those who do not adhere to the manufactured narrative. Baraka explains why the Left in the US must organize an authentic radical opposition to the ruling class and have a clear political program rooted in a people-centered human rights framework and where that work is happening. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.

How should the recent events in the world - from the elections in Columbia to the conflicts in Ukraine - be interpreted by the American left as a means to affect actual change? Has the left in the West become too separated from necessary organizing to have a role in current politics? Pascal and the gang talk with Ajamu Baraka & Margaret Kimberley from Black Agenda Report.   About TIR Thank you for supporting the show! Remember to like and subscribe on YouTube. Also, consider supporting us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/join/BitterLakePresents   Check out our official merch store at https://www.thisisrevolutionpodcast.com/   Also follow us on... https://podcasts.apple.com/.../this-is.../id1524576360 www.youtube.com/thisisrevolutionpodcast www.twitch.tv/thisisrevolutionpodcast www.twitch.tv/leftflankvets https://www.facebook.com/Thisisrevolutionpodcast/ Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland   Follow the TIR Crüe on Twitter: @TIRShowOakland @djenebajalan @DrKuba2 @probert06 @StefanBertramL @MarcusHereMeow   Read Jason: https://www.sublationmag.com/writers/jason-myles   Read Pascal: https://www.newsweek.com/black-political-elite-serving...   Follow: www.sublationmag.com

After a week of god awful SCOTUS judgments, it has never been more clear that voting for Dems is not enough. This week on Bad Faith, I spoke to Ben Norton and Ajamu Baraka about what we can learn from Colombia's recent left victories. These lessons have never been more important. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock this episode and our entire premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast    This week, Briahna speaks to journalist & editor at Multipolarista Benjamin Norton and 2016 Green Party VP & National Organizer for Black Alliance for Peace Ajamu Baraka about the recent election of the first left President of Colombia. What are the implications for US imperialism in the region, and what lessons does it hold for American leftists watching our own Democracy crumble? Ajamu lives in Colombia, and has had a personal relationship with VP-elect Francia Marquez since she was a teenager. Ben and Ajamu explain how powerful left movements forced new president Gustavo Petro to select the Afro-Colombian environmental and indigenous rights activist as his VP, and win an historic election.   Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube to access our full video library. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod).   Produced by Armand Aviram.   Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands)

This week on the Global Research News Hour, we are reviewing the consequences of Biden's refusal to host certain Latin American leaders during last week's summit meeting in Los Angeles and probe how the US role in Latin America and the Caribbean may be waning at a time when its position as head of an empire is crucial. We hear from three guests. Stephen Sefton based in Nicaragua brings us his take of the situation from his country's perspective and on the consequences of Biden's isolation. We will get the view of journalist and CUBA specialist Arnold August on how Canada has soft-peddled the isolation and imperial domination of the continent. This is followed by an interview with Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace which put out a statement encouraging Latin American and Caribbean states to boycott the Summit of the Americas altogether.

Is an alleged massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha part of the fog of war or the lies of war? We speak to human rights activist Ajamu Baraka and Consortium News Editor Joe Lauria. And marking the Rev. Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam speech, activists with the Poor People's Campaign release a new report about the pandemic in the U.S. as a pandemic of the poor. The campaign is organizing for their Mass Moral March on Washington on June 18th.   The show is made possible only by our volunteer energy, our resolve to keep the people's voices on the air, and by support from our listeners. In this new era of fake corporate news, we have to be and support our own media! Please click here or click on the Support-Donate tab on this website to subscribe for as little as $3 a month. We are so grateful for this small but growing amount of monthly crowdsource funding on Patreon. PATREON NOW HAS A ONE-TIME, ANNUAL DONATION FUNCTION! You can also give a one-time or recurring donation on PayPal. Thank you!

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka speaks on NATO, Ukraine, AFRICOM, Black Anti-Imperialism, creating an Anti-Imperialist Left, and more. Thanks to comrade Baraka for this incredible interview on NATO and AFRICOM, and the US Empire's oppression of Black Lives everywhere. Check out BAP here: https://blackallianceforpeace.com

I'm realizing how important Africana studies education is in relationship to world news, politics, and how we imagine freedom. So, huge shoutout to Black Power Media for their work in revolutionary news and media. Much of the information in this episode is synthesized from Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Ajamu Baraka's interview with Kalonji Chonga on Riot Starter TV. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ayanmo-radio/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ayanmo-radio/support

Today on the show: Former VP Green Party candidate, Ajamu Baraka, offers a progressive black perspective on the Russian Invasion into Ukraine. Also radical Black journalist, Jacqueline Luqman asks, could this be a Russiagate Checkmate? The post Ajamu Baraka On The Russia/Ukraine Invasion appeared first on KPFA.

Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins me to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. The diplomatic meeting between Antony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov has been canceled. Also, we compare the current crisis in Ukraine to the NATO military attacks and border restructuring in Serbia, Yugoslavia, and Kosovo.Dr. Yolandra Hancock, board-certified pediatrician and obesity medicine specialist, joins me to discuss covid. Vaccine protection against the omicron variant was much weaker than previous variants. Also, there seems to be a significant number of people experiencing heart problems as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.KJ Noh, activist, writer, and teacher, joins me to discuss China. The US Empire is working to subordinate Europe and freeze its economic partnership with the new Eurasian superpowers. Also, China is expressing support for Russia during the standoff with NATO. China argues that the collective West should pay attention to Russia's demands for border security and work through diplomatic channels to resolve these issues.Ted Rall, political cartoonist and syndicated columnist, joins me to discuss the assault on independent journalism in the West. Craig Murray is going back to court to address the distinction made between independent and traditional journalists during his trial. Also, Marine Le Pen has suspended her presidential bid.Scott Ritter, former UN weapon inspector in Iraq, joins me to discuss NATO. Scott talks about the current crisis of security interests between the US empire and numerous members of NATO. Is the current crisis a signal that NATO is becoming a public relations nightmare that has outlived its usefulness?Ajamu Baraka, former vice presidential candidate for the Green Party, joins me to discuss how the Ukraine crisis fits into the US empire's imperialist order. Ajamu argues that "the US empire's manufactured crisis in Ukraine cannot be separated from the drive for full spectrum dominance."Robert Fantina, journalist and Palestine activist, joins me to discuss preventative detention. Our guest discusses the use of rules allowing detention without trial or adjudication throughout the US empire and its various vassal states.Steve Ellner, an American scholar, retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela, and author of 12 books including his latest, entitled "Latin American Extractivism," joins me to discuss the Global South. Venezuela joins Cuba in formally announcing its support for Haiti in its quest to shake free from imperial control. Also, Juan Guaido's political support has crumbled as 100 members of his party have quit.

This week, I spoke to two Canadian journalists and activist and Green Party presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka about the Canadian Freedom Convoy that's been protesting vaccine mandates. Are the vaccine mandates worth it given the transmissibility of Omicron and the high vaccination rates among Canadian truckers? Also, it seems that disagreements around mandates were the downfall of MPP. Let's discuss the politics, the science tonight. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Ajamu Baraka joins Kalonji Changa on #RiotStarterTV to talk about electoral politics, imperialism and the span of empire from Latin America to Africa. Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket.

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Sohrob Aslamy, a doctoral candidate at Syracuse University to discuss the theft of Afghanistan's frozen assets by the US government after Joe Biden announced that they would be split in half between the Afghan people and the families of victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the piecemeal attempts at the resolution of economic crises caused by the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan through humanitarian aid, the efforts to strange the Afghan economy and force it to remain dependent on foreign aid, and how this theft and sanctions only hurt the Afghan people despite what Joe Biden says.In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by technologist Chris Garaffa, the editor of TechforthePeople.org to discuss the growing surveillance infrastructure developed by Apple and other companies advertised as a means of finding lost items but features little regulation and can be easily used maliciously, the culture of acceptance around surveillance that has been inculcated within children partly as a result of pandemic schooling, Apple's anti-competitive practices forcing app developers to adopt its payment platform and the widespread adoption of this strategy across tech giants, and the recently revealed CIA collection of data from American citizens.In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Sputnik News Analyst and transgender activist Morgan Artyukhina to discuss the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation introduced in state legislatures in 2022 and hoe those bills are taking inspiration from other right-wing bills that attack other marginalized groups, the historic weaponization of children against progressive causes like integration and how that same tactic is being used to push these bills, and how these attacks on LGBTQ people constitute an attack on all workers and present a false choice that must be met with solidarity. Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace to discuss how some elements of the western left gave in to corporate media propaganda regarding the 2014 coup in Ukraine and how some of those elements continue to fall for the demonization campaign against Russia as NATO and the US escalate tensions over Ukraine, how the attacks by the western press on Russia share similarities to the attacks against Ethiopia when it was the target of the US and allied forces, and Joe Biden's comments on the Ukraine crisis and the irony of his comments on protecting Ukraine's national sovereignty.

As the United States, with the aid of Western allies and the corporate media, escalates aggression toward Russia using Ukraine as the vehicle, it is necessary to take time to look at the bigger picture of the United States' disregard for international law and the impact that is having globally as well as the push to expand NATO and how that is causing significant division within the alliance. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ajamu Baraka, a long time international human rights defender and the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace, about the United States as a rogue state and what that means for Black America. He also discusses the state of the antiwar movement in the US and the black misleadership class, plus what we need to be doing as US hegemony and the white supremacist-based American Exceptionalism that undergirds are being challenged. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.

Dr. David Oualaalou, author and international security analyst, joins us to discuss the crisis on Russia's eastern border. Officials from Russia, France, Germany, and Ukraine met in Paris and appear to have to come to an agreement in which Kiev will adhere to the 2014 ceasefire agreement. Also, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is arguing that there is no military solution to the crisis.David Schultz, author and professor of political science and law at Hamline University, joins us to discuss the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer. Democrats are having internal arguments as to who the nominee will be and whether Senators Manchin and Sinema will be a hindrance.Marjorie Cohn, Professor Emeritus at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California, joins us to discuss Julian Assange. Professor Cohn joins us to discuss her latest article about Julian Assange. Assange has been granted the right to appeal the court's decision to extradite him to the US.Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss the US ignoring Russia's security agreements. The Kremlin has shrugged off Russia's security demands. Also, Russia has advised that they will not be able to provide gas to Europe if the US disconnects them from the SWIFT payment system. Laith Marouf, broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon, joins us to discuss the Middle East. Iran is arguing that the Syrian crisis cannot be resolved until the illegal occupying forces leave the nation. Also, protesters are calling for the US to abandon the sanctions against Afghanistan.Miko Peled, author and activist, joins us to discuss Israel. Miko discusses his latest article, in which he talks about the reality that some Jews in Israel are made uncomfortable by Zionist policies. Ajamu Baraka, former vice presidential candidate for the Green Party, joins us to discuss Ukraine. The Democrats are preparing a sanctions bill in the US Congress against both Russia and Germany that could have dire consequences for the European economy. Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss Africa. The coup in Burkina Faso is very complicated: while Western powers are implicated, the people are pushing back and unrest is growing in and around the Horn of Africa.

Caleb Maupin, journalist and political analyst, joins us to discuss this week's important news stories. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a press conference today discussing the results of last week's negotiations. Also, we discuss the Iranian foreign minister's visit to China and President Ortega's inauguration.Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, TX, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss this week's important news stories. A memo showing that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair plotted a public relations plan to sell the Iraq invasion has been unearthed. Also, the EU says that it will fall in line with sanctions against Mali and we discuss the outcome of this week's negotiations between the US and NATO.Dr. Linwood Tauheed, Associate professor of Economics, University of Missouri-Kansas City joins us to discuss this week's domestic news stories. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is arguing that working-class support for the Democrats has collapsed. Also, President Biden's poll numbers are cratering and the Federal Reserve contemplates methods to address inflation.Ajamu Baraka, former VP Candidate, Green Party, and Netfa Freeman, host of Voices With Vision on WPFW 89.3 FM, Pan-Africanist and internationalist organizer, join us to discuss Africa and the Global South. President Biden's former special envoy to Haiti has blasted the US policy towards the island nation. Also, President Ortega is moving Nicaragua into China's economic orbit and President Biden is supporting French colonialism in Africa.Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Daniel Lazare, investigative journalist and author, join us to discuss the recent negotiations between the US and Russia. Many are anticipating possible announcements when the Russian and Chinese leaders meet on February 4th. Also, we discuss the outcome of the US Russia negotiations and the coup attempt in Kazakhstan.

Exposing fascist Ukraine, imperialist NATO, and their war against Russian people. During today's episode, we debunk mainstream media coverage of the so-called "Russia-Ukraine Conflict." We discuss how NATO is using Ukraine as a proxy to provoke military tensions with Russia. We also talk about how the ongoing imperialist offensive against Russia impacts Black, Brown, and working class people. Lastly, we discuss the roots of fascism in Ukraine. Today's guest is Ajamu Baraka. Ajamu is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket. Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and was awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council. Unmasking Imperialism exposes imperialist propaganda in mainstream media. Hosted by Ramiro Sebastián Fúnez.

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Paki Wieland, volunteer with CODEPINK: Women for Peace to discuss the anniversary of the first detainees arriving at the Guantanamo Bay prison, the human impact of renditions to Guantanamo,the struggle for reparations for people who were detained at Guantanamo to alleviate the impact that their detention has had on their lives, and the obscene cost of maintaining the prison.In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by international affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda to discuss discussions between the US and Russia over NATO aggression in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, attempts to pull Ukraine into NATO since the overthrow of Ukraine's democratically-elected government in 2014, the misleading statements about Russian troop movements near the Ukrainian-Russian border, and the reality of the attempted coup in Kazakhstan.In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by technologist Chris Garaffa, the editor of TechforthePeople.org to discuss Google's secret anti-union campaign and its profiting from human rights violations, the millions Google spent on anti-worker consultant firms, John Deere's new self-driving tractors and its role in the potential growth of agribusiness and threats they pose to the right to repair and ownership of data.Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace to discuss ongoing tension over Ukraine and what it means to Black people in the US, the extraordinary impact that aggression from NATO and the US over Ukraine could have on the entire world, how the Ukraine issue is conveniently acting as a diversion from the rampant spread of COVID-19 in the US, the commitment of alternative media to have conversations excluded from the mainstream media, especially on issues of imperialism.

Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss Kazakhstan. Multilateral peacekeeping forces have begun arriving in Kazakhstan to stop the violent uprisings and stabilize the situation. The troops include security and protection for Russia's space center and related facilities.Dr. Yolandra Hancock, board-certified pediatrician and obesity medicine specialist, joins us to discuss COVID-19. A critical increase in Omicron infections is having a dramatic impact on the economy as many businesses are unable to field enough employees to operate. Ajamu Baraka, 2016 US vice presidential candidate for the Green Party, joins us to discuss Ukraine. Baraka explains the situation in Ukraine, and argues that those who desire peace should be motivated to try and halt this potentially extinction-level disaster foisted upon the world by the Biden administration. George Koo, journalist, social activist, and international business consultant, joins us to discuss Asia. In another move to increase tension in the Asia Pacific region, Japan and Australia have signed a defense treaty that will allow their militaries to enter and leave each other's nations with much less effort. Also, North Korea began the year with another missile test.Laith Marouf, broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, joins us to discuss the Middle East. For the third day in a row, US bases came under attack in Iraq. While no one was injured, it appears that 2022 will be a year of continuous attacks against US troops in Iraq and Syria.Leo Flores, Latin America coordinator for Code Pink, joins us to discuss the Global South. The neoliberal economic model in Brazil is producing miserable working conditions and pay for most workers. Therefore, it appears that the nation will follow the rest of the continent in a leftward direction when, and if, former leader Lula De Silva is swept back into office.Nick Davies, peace activist and author of "Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion of Iraq," joins us to discuss the Pentagon budget. William Hartung writes about many of the issues that are created by selling weapons to despotic regimes. He explains why these moves undermine US security interests worldwide.Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "America's Undeclared War," joins us to discuss the upcoming meeting between US and Russian diplomats regarding Russia's security demands.

Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss the NATO crisis on the Russian border. The Kremlin has explained why they made their security demands public. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained “We have made our initiative public, as explained by President Putin and the Foreign Ministry, because we are aware of the West's ability to obfuscate any uncomfortable issues for them.” Dan Kovalik, writer, author, and lawyer, joins us to discuss Syria. There is ample evidence that the US and UK provided material support for jihadist forces during their "dirty war" against the Syrian people. Also, Israel has increased attacks on Syria under the guise of attacking Iran-linked targets.Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss Africa. The Ethiopian government was able to turn the tide against TPLF rebel forces using a combination of Turkish and Chinese drones. Also, we discuss the coup in Sudan and the AFRICOM and French connections.Jim Kavanagh, writer at thepolemicist.net and CounterPunch and author of "Danger in Society: Against Vaccine Passports,” joins us to discuss Julian Assange. Jonathan Cook argues that the persecution of Julian Assange is a clear and intentional message to all independent journalists. Cook argues that the message is that they must remain silent to the war crimes of the US empire or face the same fate. Scott Ritter, former UN weapon inspector in Iraq, joins us to discuss NATO's Waterloo. Patrick Lawrence has a brilliant article in Consortium News in which he reviews the situation on the Russian border. He argues that Europe is now the western end of Eurasia rather than the eastern shore of the Atlantic. Also, we talk about Ukraine as NATO's equivalent to Waterloo. Ajamu Baraka, 2016 US vice-presidential candidate for the Green Party, joins us to discuss the Global South. In a move of comedic farce, US puppet Juan Guaido has extended his interim government into 2022. The so-called interim government has been ongoing for two years and has only been used to pilfer money from international financial holdings of the Venezuelan government.Niko House, political activist, independent journalist, and podcaster, joins us to discuss domestic politics. The lack of accomplishment on either domestic or foreign policy seems to portend significant midterm losses for the Democratic Party.Martin Sieff, senior fellow at the American University in Moscow, joins us to discuss Ukraine's infestation with Nazis. Recently, only the US and Ukraine voted against a UN resolution condemning the Nazi ideology. Also, we review the Nazi volunteer battalions of the Ukraine military.

Caleb Maupin, journalist and political analyst, joins us to wrap up the important stories for the week. In a display of arbitrary and capricious censorship, YouTube blocked RT's popular German-language TV channel on its first day of operation without an explanation. Also, Cuba hosts the 20th ALBA-TCP summit, China supports Russia against NATO aggression, and Russia is shocked by the conduct of the E-3 States during the Iran negotiations in Vienna.Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss this week's important stories. Barbados has declared its independence from the British empire. Also, Russia has published a detailed proposal for a new Russia-US-NATO security treaty, President Xi glows when discussing his country's partnership with Russia, the US announces a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics, a South African court orders former president Jacob Zuma back to jail, and the Turkey-Africa summit takes ties to a new stage.Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, joins us to wrap up the important stories for the week. We discuss the meeting between Presidents Putin and Xi, the political instability of Ukraine, and the recent ruling that Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States. Ajamu Baraka, 2016 US vice presidential candidate for the Green Party, and Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report and author of "Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents," come together to discuss this week's stories. We discuss the need to support Julian Assange, the US Empire's shift to Africa, Central and South American countries pulling free of US domination, the Biden administration's dismal poll numbers, and Israel's murder and abuse of Palestinian civilians.Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "America's Undeclared War," and Martin Sieff, senior fellow at the American University in Moscow, come together to talk politics. We discuss the disturbing US support of Nazis in Ukraine, the meeting between Presidents Putin and Xi, Germany's recent move to stall Nord Stream 2, and Joe Biden's disastrous drop in support.

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace to discuss the shortcomings of liberal conceptions of human rights as the world recognizes human rights day, how the US defanged the declaration of human rights to assuage white fears of the civil rights movement, the necessity to decolonize and reconstruct the framework of human rights, and how people-centered human rights poses an ideological challenge to the capitalist system.In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Karleigh Webb, an athlete, activist, journalist, socialist, contributor to @Outsports and host of the TransSporter Room to discuss the transphobic attacks against swimmer Lia Thomas, who recently set two conference records, how these attacks are not only transphobic but also misogynist by implying that women's sports are inferior to men's sports, and the danger that these attacks pit against future trans athletes and trans people.In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Justin Williams, co-host of Red Spin Sports to discuss the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics by the US, UK, Australia, and Canada as part of the cold war drive against China, the baseball hall of fame's snub of free agency and labor advocate Curt Flood and the continuation of his blackballing long after his death, and the induction of Nego League baseball players into the hall of fame.Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Maximillian Alvarez, Editor in Chief of the Real News Network and and host of the podcast “Working People" to discuss the victory of Starbucks workers in Buffalo who have voted to unionize and how the pandemic has awoken the consciousness of workers to their power and ability to secure gains in the workplace, how the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic and the inequality exposed by it have fueled the great resignation and record job openings, the toxicity of common practice of calling work a family and how work often keeps workers from seeing their families, and how cultures of work and overwork and the broader capitalist system rob us of what makes us human.

In this segment of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace to discuss the shortcomings of liberal conceptions of human rights as the world recognizes human rights day, how the US defanged the declaration of human rights to assuage white fears of the civil rights movement, the necessity to decolonize and reconstruct the framework of human rights, and how people-centered human rights poses an ideological challenge to the capitalist system.

On the show, Chris Hedges discusses the journalist Glen Ford and the radical black press with Ajamu Baraka, national organizer and spokesperson with the Black Alliance for Peace. Glen Ford, who died in the summer of 2021, was one of the country's most insightful political commentators and radical journalists. He appeared several times on this show. He spoke for the marginalized and excoriated the elites. Glen was the co-publisher of the radical Black Commentator. He co-founded Black Agenda Report with Bruce Dixon and Margaret Kimberley in 2006. Glen repeatedly called out the Black political elites, exposing for example New Jersey Senator Cory Booker's close ties with right-wing organizations such as the Manhattan Institute and the Bradley Foundation and Booker's advocacy of neoliberalism, austerity programs, school privatization, and other initiatives that are at the forefront of the war on the poor, especially poor Blacks. He called the Black political leaders who sold their soul to corporations and America's imperial projects the “Black misleadership class.” While many Black leftists betrayed the most basic tenants of their political beliefs to support Barack Obama following his election to the presidency in 2008, Glen saw through the charade. He lambasted Obama and Hillary Clinton as “political twins” and warned that the policies they advocated were deeply harmful to Black people. He saw Obama and the Democratic Party as not the lesser evil, but the more effective evil. The Democrats, he knew, were better at masking their subservience to corporations, the ruling elites, and the military-industrial complex while assiduously doing their bidding. Glen was also keenly aware that the evils of white supremacy and corporate plundering are the driving engine behind America's imperial projects. He kept a close watch on the United States Africa Command, AFRICOM, and its expanding military footprint on the continent. A talented and brilliant writer, gifted with an acerbic sense of humor and uncompromising in his integrity and courage, he will be very hard to replace. Glen Ford's new book is: The Black Agenda https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/the-black-agenda/

Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss the Putin-Biden summit. US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet today in a virtual summit as NATO advances closer to the Russian border. The world watches with bated breath as the two nuclear powers teeter on the edge of a collision that was created by the US overthrow of the government of Ukraine.Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, joins us to discuss the EU's "Cuban Missile Crisis" on the Russian border. The hope for a peaceful solution to the United States empire's advances on the Russian border is weak, but still alive as Europe faces an existential crisis of its own making.Dr. Yolandra Hancock, board-certified pediatrician and obesity medicine specialist, joins us to discuss the omicron variant. As the latest coronavirus variant continues its inevitable takeover of the landscape, there is a rare discussion as to whether the milder version of the virus could potentially bring an end to the pandemic via a process known as the "law of diminishing virulence."George Koo, journalist, social activist, and international business consultant, joins us to discuss China. The US has announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in China. Also, we discuss the Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, whose recent actions have been used as a blunt weapon to attack the Chinese government.K.J. Noh, activist, writer, and teacher, joins us to discuss the latest lawsuit against Facebook. A 150 billion dollar lawsuit against Facebook has been filed by Rohingya refugees arguing that the social media giant did not use enough censorship to stop hate speech against their group. Some civil libertarian observers are suspicious that the lawsuit may be another move to facilitate increased censorship on social media.Robert Fantina, journalist and Palestine activist, joins us to discuss Israel and Iran. Israel has launched another series of attacks on the nation of Syria. Also, Israel is making a number of odd demands of the US related to negotiations over the JCPOA.Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss Ethiopia. The US empire is moving to destabilize the African nation, and many suspect that the move is another proxy attack on China. The US seems to be moving to destabilize and overthrow a number of African governments in an overt attempt to decrease Chinese influence on the resource-rich continent.Ajamu Baraka, 2016 US vice presidential candidate for the Green Party, joins us to discuss President Biden's summit of democracy. President Biden has invited the US-sponsored Venezuelan actor Juan Guaido to his worldwide summit of democracies in a move that is increasingly revealing this gathering as a theater of the absurd.

Today we talk with activist Ajamu Baraka about his own activism, the Black Alliance for Peace, Black liberation, and the longstanding solidarity between Black people and Palestinians. Shownotes Ajamu Baraka Twitter Ajamu Baraka Facebook Black Alliance For Peace: Linking Palestine Solidarity with African Liberation Ajamu Baraka Black Agenda Report

"The Vital Need to Decolonize" feat. Ajamu Baraka A human rights defender whose experience spans four decades of domestic and international education and activism, Ajamu Baraka is a veteran grassroots organizer whose roots are in the Black Liberation Movement and anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity struggles. He is an internationally recognized leader of the emerging human rights movement in the U.S. and has been at the forefront of efforts to apply the international human rights framework to social justice advocacy in the U.S. for more than 25 years. He is now a National Organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, whose activities we discuss. Baraka has taught political science at various universities and has been a guest lecturer at academic institutions in the U.S. and abroad. Baraka has appeared on a wide-range of media outlets including CNN, BBC, Telemundo, ABC, RT, the Black Commentator, the Washington Post and the New York Times. He is currently an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and a writer for Counterpunch. We talked about the recent airstrikes by the US on Syria; how foreign policy was virtually ignored during the 2020 presidential campaign; the bloated US military budget; the global reach of US imperialism; neoliberalism as an expression of fascism; alternative media and social media; decolonization and the need to dismantle the United States; the structures of white supremacy; the dependency of technoindustrial culture on colonialism; following indigenous leadership; the necessity of revolutionary change; the weak organizational culture in the US; and the importance of acting in solidarity with social struggles around the world. If you like this episode, please share it on social media, and subscribe to the podcast so you'll be alerted to future episodes. To support "Voices for Nature & Peace" financially, you can make a one-time donation at paypal.me or venmo to username kollibri. You can also become a member at Patreon.com/kollibri, where you'll get early access to most episodes and to exclusive content. Now here is my conversation with Ajamu Baraka. Ajamu Baraka's website: https://www.ajamubaraka.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajamubaraka Black Alliance for Peace: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/ Music in background of introduction assembled from samples by: MieliTietty https://freesound.org/people/MieliTietty/ and jaffa1970 https://freesound.org/people/jaffa1970/ RADIO FREE SUNROOT: Podcasting by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume https://radiofreesunroot.com KOLLIBRI'S BLOG & BOOKSHOP: https://macskamoksha.com/ ONE-TIME DONATION: http://paypal.me/kollibri https://venmo.com/Kollibri Support Voices for Nature & Peace by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/voices-for-nature-and-peace This podcast is powered by Pinecast. Try Pinecast for free, forever, no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-a50345 for 40% off for 4 months, and support Voices for Nature & Peace.

Today we'll be talking to Emmi Bevensee. They're a data journalist who utilizes a data storytelling approach to make complexity understandable. Topics discussed: First section: Complex Warfare; Disinformation Warfare; Drones; 3D-printed Guns; Houthis and Saudi Arabia; Asymmetrical Warfare; Surveillance; Anti-authoritarian communities; Open-source intelligence (OSINT); Katehon; Russia; Complexity Dynamics; Pandemics and Viral Spreads; Ukraine/Russia/Syria. Second section: 8kun; 8chan; 4chan; Gamergate; Gab; Parler; January 6 Coup Attempt; Jim Watkins; Ron Atkins; QAnon; Child sexual abuse (not in detail, just in the context of the Watkins family's role in the online hate scene); Swarm tactics; BBC Eye investigations; Shabbiha; Mexican government, paramilitary troops and the Zapatistas; role of governments in conspiracies like QAnon; Kraken; Dominion Conspiracy; Trump; ‘Stop The Steal'; Cults; Hezbollah; “Q Clearance: Unmasking QAnon” podcast with Jake Hanrahan; Third Section: Syncretism; Fascist entryism; Alt-Imperialism; Legacy of 2003 Invasion of Iraq on Campism; Boomer socialism; Answer coalition; Stop The War in the UK; Anti-semitism; Assadists; Hong Kong; Dugin and Duginism; Ajamu Baraka and the US Green Party; Code Pink. Fourth Section: Syria; Living on the Turkey-Syria Border; No Fly Zone; Syrian Refugee Crisis; Lessons from the Syrian experience for anti-authoritarians; Syrian-related disinformation and authoritarianism; Libya; London Syria scene. PATREON Help me make more podcast episodes by supporting me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/firethesetimes PAYPAL If you'd rather make a one-time donation you can do it via PayPal: https://paypal.me/ibnbaldwin BLOG POST https://thefirethisti.me/2021/01/26/59-60-anti-fascism-and-the-future-of-complex-warfare/ If you can't donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts! Music by Tarabeat.

An interview with Ajamu Baraka, an Associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and the former Green Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election. Ajamu currently serves as the national organizer and spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace.We spoke to Ajamu about BLM uprisings, racial justice, and how we continue to fight neoliberalism under the incoming Biden administration.

Jane Elliot is best known as the teacher who, on April 5, 1968, the day afterMartin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, put her third-grade students through a bold exercise to teach them about racial prejudice. For almost 50 years she has been challenging preconceived ideas about racism and asking why anyone would judge a fellow human being on the colour of their skin. So why are we still here? Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by American political activist Ajamu Baraka, and author and editor of the Black Agenda Report Margaret Kimberley to discuss the ongoing racial tensions in America.

Today on Flashpoints: We feature an impeachment update with our own Mitch Jesserich. Also, award winning journalist and peace activist, David Swanson, tells us why he i snot listening to or watching the hearings. And Senior Producer, Kevin Pina, speaks with Ajamu Baraka, national organizer and spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace and former Green Party VP candidate. The post Impeachment Hearing Update & Why Journalist, David Swanson, Isn't Watching It appeared first on KPFA.

Diane and Brian are joined by Madelyn and Tom to discuss their experiences at the ANM. Livestream Gallery includes the full Presidential Forum and m....

A presentation by Ajamu Baraka Brought to us by the US Peace Council Written by Madelyn Hoffman and Diane Moxley Recorded 3/4/2019 Since its founding, the U.S.-led NATO has been the world’s deadliest military alliance. There deployments has caused untold suffering and devastation throughout Northern Africa, the Middle East and beyond. Hundreds of thousands have...

Green Party VP candidate Ajamu Baraka falls down an Israel hole (sorry not sorry) and throws down on our fav marry/fuck/kill EVER.