Podcasts about Socialist Party

A Brexit Agreement has been announced for Gibraltar's future relationship with the EU. The GFSB has arranged a Brexit Town Hall discussion this evening to discuss the challenges and opportunities. Chairman of the GFSB, Owen Smith was in the studio to discuss what the mood is like among small businesses following the announcement.This Friday, Gibraltar Triathlon are hosting the 2nd edition of their Splash and Dash event. Building on last year's success, it promises to be a fun evening of swimming and running. Chris Walker and Nicky Bennett told us more.Political observers in Gibraltar and the UK are following developments in the Spanish parliament closely, as Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez battles a corruption scandal engulfing senior figures in his Socialist Party. Mr Sanchez's embattled PSOE Government, together with the EU, the UK and Gibraltar, reached a political agreement last week on the future of the Rock, although a treaty has yet to be completed and signed. Jonathan Sacramento has the details.Jose Mari Ruiz brought us up to speed on all the sports news from the long weekend, with the Gibraltar women's cricket team having just returned to the Rock after taking part in two competitions in Chechia, and this week also marking the start of the Special Olympics. Celebrating 40 years of inclusion, unity and courage! Tomorrow afternoon's 2025 Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics Gibraltar takes on extra significance. It also precedes the Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics National Games at the Lathbury Sports Complex. We spoke to Matt Coulthard and Francis Williams.And, are you new to Gibraltar? or perhaps just love meeting new people? Tomorrow evening there's a social walk that might peak your interest. With Gibraltar becoming increasingly international, the event is a chance for new residents to network. Organisers Emma Vaughan and Lilly Palmer gave us more details about “Walk and Talk”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today's show, LIVE on Thunderous Radio (Stream 2) https://thunderousradio.com at 4:30 pm CT, 5:30 pm ET: Not So Quiet Riot: Legacy Media go from ‘Don't believe Biden videos' to ‘Don't believe riot videos' - History.com posts 7 times Presidents have activated US Troops on American soil - military.com posts 6 times the US Military was used for riot control in the US - Anti-ICE protest in San Antonio, TX hosted by Socialist Party involved in Los Angeles Riots - Twin daughters of top Los Angeles politician arrested in ICE riots for allegedly assaulting police officer with deadly weapon - Lists of NGO's getting Fed money inciting riots - pallets of bricks show up near riot locations - Rodney King riots officer says LA mayor acted ‘too late' - Previously deported illegal facing attempted murder charge for L.A. riots - Poll shows Majority of voters back deploying National Guard to L.A. - What does the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 say about short form due process? - Immigrant shelter whistleblower asking DOJ to investigate ‘disturbing pattern' at taxpayer-funded hotels - and much more! - we'll analyze. Plus, Keeping The Faith: Supreme Court decides 9-0 Catholic Charities is religious organization - School rips down Christian student's posters, orders her to give up 'Good News' club name. And, You're No Longer Needed: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns AI could eliminate 50% of entry-level office jobs. http://www.spreaker.com/show/christian-talk-that-rocks https://christiantalkthatrocks.net or http://christiantalkthatrocks.com #Trump #nationalguard #Christianpersecution #msm #terrorism #INGO's #CNN #Fox News #FBI #ICE #Socialists #Al-Qaida #illegalalien #ChineseNationals #GovernorNewsom #MayorBass #LAPDChief #LAriots #federaldeportationorders #federalmoney

pWotD Episode 2947: Emmanuel Macron Welcome to Popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.With 364,690 views on Tuesday, 27 May 2025 our article of the day is Emmanuel Macron.Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron ([emanɥɛl makʁɔ̃] ; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Minister of Economics, Industry and Digital Affairs under President François Hollande between 2014 and 2016. He has been a member of Renaissance since he founded it in 2016.Born in Amiens, Macron studied philosophy at Paris Nanterre University. He completed a master's degree in public affairs at Sciences Po and graduated from the École nationale d'administration in 2004. He worked as a senior civil servant at the Inspectorate General of Finances and investment banker at Rothschild & Co. Appointed Élysée deputy secretary-general by President Hollande after the 2012 election, Macron was a senior adviser to Hollande. Appointed Economics Minister in 2014, in the second Valls government, he led several business-friendly reforms. He resigned in 2016, to launch his 2017 presidential campaign. A member of the Socialist Party between 2006-09, he ran in the election under the banner of En Marche, a centrist and pro-European political movement he founded in 2016.Partly due to the Fillon affair, Macron was elected President in May 2017 with 66% of the vote in the second round, defeating Marine Le Pen of the National Front. Aged 39, he became the youngest president in French history. In the 2017 legislative election, his party, renamed La République En Marche! (LREM), secured a majority in the National Assembly. Macron was elected to a second term in the 2022 presidential election, again defeating Le Pen, becoming the first French presidential candidate to win reelection since Jacques Chirac in 2002. Macron's centrist coalition lost its majority in the 2022 legislative election, resulting in a hung parliament and formation of France's first minority government since 1993. In 2024, Macron appointed Gabriel Attal as Prime Minister, after a government crisis. Following overwhelming defeat at the 2024 European Parliament elections, Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called for a snap legislative election which resulted in another hung parliament and electoral defeat for his coalition. Two months afterwards, Macron appointed Michel Barnier, a conservative and former chief Brexit negotiator, as Prime Minister. Only three months in, Barnier was toppled by a historic vote of no confidence, prompting Macron to replace him with centrist veteran François Bayrou.During his presidency, Macron has overseen reforms to labour laws, taxation, and pensions; and pursued a renewable energy transition. Dubbed "president of the rich" by opponents, increasing protests against his reforms, culminating in 2018–2020 with the yellow vests protests and the pension reform strike. In foreign policy, he called for reforms to the European Union (EU) and signed treaties with Italy and Germany. Macron conducted €40 billion in trade and business agreements with China during the China–United States trade war and oversaw a dispute with Australia and the US over the AUKUS security pact. From 2020, he led France's response to the COVID pandemic and vaccination rollout. In 2023, the government of his prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, passed legislation raising the retirement age from 62 to 64; this led to public sector strikes and violent protests. He continued Opération Chammal in the war against the Islamic State and joined in the international condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:24 UTC on Wednesday, 28 May 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Emmanuel Macron on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Joey.

The US and China agree to slash tariffs in a 90-day trade truce, Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander is released by Hamas, Volodomyr Zelenskyy responds to Putin's call for direct talks, Donald Trump orders significant cuts to drug prices, the Socialist Party leads in the Albanian election, the PKK announces its dissolution after a 40-year conflict, Qatar reportedly plans to gift a $400M luxury jet to Donald Trump, 3.2M Sudanese children under 5 are projected to face acute malnutrition in 2025, a study finds weight-loss drugs can reduce the risk of cancer, AI firms are urged to assess risks to prevent loss of control, and the Taliban bans chess. Sources: www.verity.news

Hannah Sell, the general Secretary of the Socialist Party, discusses the chaos unleashed on the world economy by Donald Trump's ‘liberation day' tariffs. What is the logic of the massive tariffs introduced by Trump? Despite appearances, it is not simply a question of a crazy billionaire having got the keys to the White House. Trump reflects the decline of US imperialism, still the strongest power on the planet, but increasingly less able to set the framework for the world. During Trump's first term and under Biden, tariffs and protectionist measures increased, in an attempt to protect US markets from its global rivals. ‘Liberation Day', however, was on a qualitatively different scale. Trump and his co-thinkers had drawn the conclusion that it is necessary to launch an offensive ‘knock-‘em-down, drag-‘em-out' economic fight to defend US capitalism against its competitors, above all China. When the theatrics and fantastical hyperbole now associated with the Trump presidency are set to one side, the tariff war launched on April 2 boils down fundamentally to an attempt to appropriate to US capitalism a larger share of value from the world economy at the expense of its ‘trading partners', “friend and foe alike” as Trump himself puts it. Read more: Trade wars and the workers' movement An Editorial of Socialism Today, the monthly magazine of the Socialist Party www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/138333/01-05-2025/socialism-today-editorial-trade-wars-and-the-workers-movement/ Trump's tariff turmoil An editorial of the Socialist, the weekly paper of the Socialist Party www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/137831/14-04-2025/trumps-tariff-turmoil/ More Info - Click here for all your Socialist Party links: linkin.bio/socialistparty/ We need your help campaigning! The establishment political parties have the backing of the capitalist elites. We need to build a mass movement of working class fighters to take them on. Find out more details about your local campaigns and how you can help by filling in this form: www.socialistparty.org.uk/join The Socialist Party has no big-business backers, so we rely on your donations to fund all our campaigns. Donate at www.socialistparty.org.uk/donations/donatejune2025/ Subscribe to our weekly paper, ‘The Socialist', and our monthly magazine ‘Socialism Today': www.socialistparty.org.uk/subscribe-2/

Dave Semple, Public and Commercial Service Union (PCS) national Vice president, speaking in a personal capacity, discusses the issues at stake in the upcoming union elections. From 16 April, ballot papers will go out to PCS members to vote for a new National Executive Committee (NEC) and president. PCS organises workers in the civil service, in government agencies and other public sector bodies, and on outsourced government contracts. Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden's “radical reforms” and Rachel Reeves's Spring Statement promise “the worst cuts since austerity” – a £2 billion axe to the civil service. This includes 15% cuts to departmental budgets, tens of thousands of jobs to go, the abolition of NHS England with the loss of half the workforce, below-inflation pay rises, unsafe pensions, office closures, increased workload, and attacks on the working environment, including hybrid working. And this catalogue was all promised before the onset of economic chaos and potential downturn following Trump's tariffs. Elections are taking place this spring in a number of unions – the first time under Starmer's government. They are all an opportunity for members to elect a fighting leadership that will stand up to Starmer and lead a serious campaign to defend members. Read more: PCS must fight Starmer's cuts https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/137687/09-04-2025/pcs-must-fight-starmers-cuts/ The battle for the PCS https://socialismtoday.org/the-battle-for-the-pcs More Info - Click here for all your Socialist Party links: https://linkin.bio/socialistparty/ We need your help campaigning! The establishment political parties have the backing of the capitalist elites. We need to build a mass movement of working class fighters to take them on. Find out more details about your local campaigns and how you can help by filling in this form: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/join The Socialist Party has no big-business backers, so we rely on your donations to fund all our campaigns. Donate at https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/donations/donatejune2025/ Subscribe to our weekly paper, ‘the Socialist', and our monthly magazine ‘Socialism Today': https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/subscribe-2/

Sascha Stanicic discusses the recent German elections in February 2025, which saw a drop in votes for the ‘establishment' parties, and an increase in support for both the leftwing Die Linke and the right wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Sascha is the federal spokesperson for– Sozialistische Organisation Solidarität (SOL) – the section of the Committee for a Workers International in Germany. The CWI is the international organization the Socialist Party is a member of, check out their website at https://www.socialistworld.net/ Read more: Germany: Election disaster for establishment parties https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/136297/05-03-2025/germany-election-disaster-for-establishment-parties/ The Left Party, Trump, Ukraine and the ‘Debt Brake' https://www.socialistworld.net/2025/03/10/germany-the-left-party-trump-ukraine-and-the-debt-brake/ More Info - Click here for all your Socialist Party links: https://linkin.bio/socialistparty/ We need your help campaigning! The establishment political parties have the backing of the capitalist elites. We need to build a mass movement of working class fighters to take them on. Find out more details about your local campaigns and how you can help by filling in this form: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/join The Socialist Party has no big-business backers, so we rely on your donations to fund all our campaigns. Donate at https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/donations/donatejune2025/ Subscribe to our weekly paper, ‘the Socialist', and our monthly magazine ‘Socialism Today': https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/subscribe-2/

The National Organiser of Socialist Students, Adam Powell Davies, discusses the crisis facing higher education and Socialist Students' new national campaign Funding not Fees. Socialist Students is serious about fighting to end the uni funding crisis, by mobilising students to demand no course cuts, no job losses, and for free, fully funded education, fighting back against cuts and tuition fee rises. Socialist Students has groups in university and college campuses all over the country, and students in many different political groups, including the Socialist Party, take part in fighting for what students need. Read more: Students: Build the resistance to uni cuts! https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/136064/26-02-2025/students-build-the-resistance-to-uni-cuts/ Crunch time looms for higher education: https://socialismtoday.org/crunch-time-looms-for-higher-education More Info - Click here for all your Socialist Party link: https://linkin.bio/socialistparty/ We need your help campaigning! The establishment political parties have the backing of the capitalist elites. We need to build a mass movement of working class fighters to take them on. Find out more details about your local campaigns and how you can help by filling in this form: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/join The Socialist Party has no big-business backers, so we rely on your donations to fund all our campaigns. Donate at https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/donations Subscribe to our weekly paper, ‘the Socialist', and our monthly magazine ‘Socialism Today': https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/subscribe-2

01:37: Workers Strike Back first national convention;08:32: Green Party announces national meeting;09:06: state senator switches from Republican to Forward Party;10:15: Forward Party reveals plans for this year;11:05: Democrat Dean Phillips calls for third party;13:56: former Libertarian Party chair to speak at forum;15:12: & a new electoral reform organization.

In the latest RevDem podcast our co-managing editor DrOliver Garner discusses processes for becoming an MP today in Europe with Dr. Emiljana Krali.Dr Krali is a generalist Equity Research Analyst who has experience in telecommunications, fintech, software,and hardware among other fields. She holds degrees from the University of Bari in physics and from the University of Surrey in nanotechnology. Her Ph.D. was obtained from Imperial College London. She is currently undertaking the selection process to become a candidate for the governing Socialist Party in Albania.

pWotD Episode 2867: International Women's Day Welcome to Popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.With 327,957 views on Saturday, 8 March 2025 our article of the day is International Women's Day.International Women's Day (IWD) commemorates women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. Spurred by the universal female suffrage movement, International Women's Day originated from labor movements in Europe and North America during the early 20th century, with the modern holiday, March 8, being declared by Vladimir Lenin.The earliest version reported was a "Woman's Day" organized by the Socialist Party of America in New York City on February 28, 1909. In solidarity with them, communist activist and politician Clara Zetkin proposed the celebration of "Working Women's Day" approved at the 1910 International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen, albeit with no set date; the following year saw the first demonstrations and commemorations of International Women's Day across Europe. Vladimir Lenin declared March 8 as International Women's Day in 1922 to honour the women's role in the 1917 Russian Revolution; it was subsequently celebrated on that date by the socialist movement and communist countries. The holiday became a mainstream global holiday following its promotion by the United Nations in 1977.International Women's Day is a public holiday in several countries. The UN observes the holiday in connection with a particular issue, campaign, or theme in women's rights.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:55 UTC on Sunday, 9 March 2025.For the full current version of the article, see International Women's Day on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm generative Olivia.

This week on The Sound Kitchen we'll celebrate International Women's Day. You'll hear the answer to the question about the French Socialist party and the no-confidence vote, “The Listener's Corner” with Paul Myers, and Erwan Rome's “Music from Erwan” – all that, as well as the new quiz and bonus questions, so click the “Play” button above and enjoy!  Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll hear the winner's names announced and the week's quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you've grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr Tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!Facebook: Be sure to send your photos to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner!More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write “RFI English” in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI” has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bilingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”. According to your score, you'll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you'll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!In addition to the news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.There's Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we'll surprise you with!To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you'll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. Another idea for your students: Br. Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English - that's how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it's a good method for improving your language skills. To get Br. Gerald's free books, click here.Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!This week's quiz: On 8 February, I asked you a question about our article “French PM pushes through budget, faces second no-confidence vote”. That's because French Prime Minister François Bayrou used Article 49.3 – a special executive power - to push the budget through. The Parliament does not take kindly to Article 49.3, because the executive branch can use it to bypass their votes.After it went through, a no-confidence motion was immediately brought forward by the hard-left France Unbowed party. At that time, it was not thought the no-confidence motion would pass, because the Socialists said they would vote against it. My question to you was: Why did France's Socialist party say they would vote against the no-confidence motion brought by the France Unbowed party? The answer is, to quote our article: “The Socialist Party said in a press release that it did not want to see France in an extended period of financial limbo and would therefore, ‘in a spirit of responsibility', not back the no-confidence vote.”They held to their word: The Socialist party did not back the no-confidence vote - France has a budget now, and the same prime minister, François Bayrou. In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “Is the favorite child the worst child?”Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us! The winners are: RFI English Listeners Club member Nasyr Muhammad from Katsina State, Nigeria. Nasyr is also this week's bonus question winner. Congratulations, Nasyr, on your double win !Also on the winner's list this week are: Reepa Bain, the secretary of the RFI Pariwer Bandhu SWL Club in Chhattisgarh, India; Mukta Banu, a member of the Shetu RFI Listeners Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh; RFI English Listeners Club member Dipita Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India, and last but not least, RFI English listener Murshida Parvin Lata, the vice - president of the Sonali Badhan Female Listeners Club in Bogura, Bangladesh.Congratulations, winners!Here's the music you heard on this week's programme: “One Woman” by Beth Blatt, Graham Lyle, and Fahan Hassan, performed by the United Nation Women Singers; “Toy Symphony” by Leopold Mozart; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children's Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Nubian Lady” by Kenny Barron, performed by Bobbi Humphrey and her orchestra.  Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.frThis week's question ... you must listen to the show to participate. After you've listened to the show, take another listen to the first story on Alison Hird and Sarah Elzas' Spotlight on France podcast number 124, which will help you with the answer.You have until 31 March to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 5 April podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.Send your answers to:english.service@rfi.frorSusan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFranceClick here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club.   

Today's podcast is a discussion with former socialist MP Dave Nellist, the national chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). We will be discussing some of the main themes from this year's TUSC conference, which had the heading ‘Fighting for a new party under the Starmer government. And what role for TUSC?' If you are not yet a member of the Socialist Party and agree with the points raised here, then that's a very good basis for getting in touch and finding out what being a member will mean for you. Fill in this form for more information: www.socialistparty.org.uk/join Here is a list of socialist party branch meetings: www.socialistparty.org.uk/events You can also read more of our analysis in our weekly paper 'the Socialist' and our monthly magazine 'Socialism Today,' Here is a link to subscribe: www.socialistparty.org.uk/subscribe-2/ The socialist party has no big business backers, all our campaign work is funded by donations from individual supporters. Make a donation here: www.socialistparty.org.uk/donations/donatejan2025/ We also recommend checking out the Committee for a Workers International, the international organization the Socialist Party is a part of. With analysis of world events, and for those listening in other parts of the world you can get in touch to join the fight for socialism in your country, that's www.socialistworld.net.

Arthur C. Townley was one of North Dakota's colorful characters. Born in Minnesota, he moved west with his brother to try farming. After facing failures in Colorado and North Dakota, he turned to politics. He joined the Socialist Party, where he found success due to his organizational and oratorical skills, but his abrasive nature eventually led to his expulsion from the party. He then had to find a new outlet for his political ambitions.

Today's podcast is a discussion with Socialist Party General Secretary Hannah Sell, introducing the party's new document on British perspectives produced by the National Committee. This important document is being distributed to all members for reading and discussion ahead of the Socialist Party National Congress in March. At the Congress, the document will be debated with a vote of delegates from the branches. There are many more points in it than can be discussed in one podcast! Socialist Party branches will be organising meetings nationally to discuss it and the chance to discuss it individually too. Here is a list of socialist party branch meetings: www.socialistparty.org.uk/events If you are not yet a member of the Socialist Party and agree with the points raised here, then that's a very good basis for getting in touch and finding out what being a member will mean for you. Fill in this form for more information: www.socialistparty.org.uk/join You can also read more of our analysis in our weekly paper 'the Socialist' and our monthly magazine 'Socialism Today,' Here is a link to subscribe: www.socialistparty.org.uk/subscribe-2/ The socialist party has no big business backers, all our campaign work is funded by donations from individual supporters. Make a donation here: www.socialistparty.org.uk/donations/donatejan2025/

As Stanley Tucci reflects, "Given the circumstances in today's world, the parallels between then and now are impossible to ignore. It's an incredible story, but it's also happening today, to millions of people . . . It's a story about people in a certain place and time, and what happened to them, and what happened to them has happened before, and has happened since, and will continue to happen. Unless we as the human race begin to understand that we are all the same.” What would you do if fascism and antisemitism seized your homeland? In his award-winning podcast, documentarian David Modigliani takes listeners on a gripping journey through his family's escape from Italy in 1938. Pack One Bag, featuring actor Stanley Tucci, delves into Modigliani's grandparents' love story—his grandfather, a prominent book publisher who once advised Mussolini but later turned against him. As Modigliani retraces their steps across Italy, he uncovers hidden Fascist spy documents, personal family diaries, and a poignant Jewish love story that echoes through time. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.  Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  Gov. Josh Shapiro and AJC CEO Ted Deutch on Combating Antisemitism Mijal Bitton on What It Means to Be a Jew Today The Next Chapter in Catholic-Jewish Relations What's Next for the Abraham Accords Under President Trump? You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with David Mogdiliani and Stanley Tucci: Manya Brachear Pashman:   As a documentary filmmaker, David Modigliani has created a variety of works on politics in America, improv comedy, and the improv comedy of politics in America. But during the pandemic, he discovered the love letters of his grandparents, written moments before they fled fascist Italy. Those letters led him to produce a more personal project – an award-winning podcast series starring Stanley Tucci, titled Pack One Bag. David is with us now to talk about that journey.  David, welcome to People of the Pod.  David Mogdiliani:   Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So, at the core of your podcast, Pack One Bag, is the story of your grandfather, a Nobel Prize winner who fled Italy in 1938 and this was a story that you heard as a young man, as a teenager, right? But if you could share with our listeners what that story was, when you originally heard it. David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, so my grandfather, I was just a five year old kid when he won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1985. But as I became a teenager and started to grow up, I became sort of fascinated by their love story, the story of escape.  Which was basically that my grandfather, Franco Modigliani, had been a 19 year old kid in Rome when Mussolini passed the racial laws against Jews like him, and he didn't know quite what to do, and he was so fortunate that he had fallen in love with this girl from Bologna named Serena Calabi, whose family had really been planning for this moment for many years, had had the foresight and the privilege to move resources outside of the country, put together an exit strategy, and when they fled Italy for Paris in the fall of 1938 they invited him to join them. They invited their daughter's boyfriend to join them. And the family was in Paris for about nine months and then made it onto the Normandie, a French ocean liner that left the coast of France in August of 1939 and turned out to be the last boat out of mainland Europe before Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began. So that kind of fairy tale escape, a whirlwind romance, that getting married, you know, in Paris on the run, and arriving in the US, kind of just in the nick of time, was the kind of origin story that I grew up with as a kid. Manya Brachear Pashman:  And how did your grandmother's family know how to read those tea leaves?  David Mogdiliani:  My grandmother's father had been known as ile de libri, the king of the books in Italian because he had founded and run along with his wife, something called La messaggerie italiane, which was the biggest book distribution business in all of Italy. It gave him resources and an understanding of where things might be going in Europe in the 1930s so I had known all of that. But when I sort of became more interested in this project and wanted to learn more, and dug into some boxes that my dad had, 19 boxes of my family's documents, we found inside them, a couple of letters from Benito Mussolini to my great grandfather, the king of the books, and that kind of was a staggering moment to see the signature of the future dictator of Italy there at the bottom of the page.  Mussolini had been a lefty socialist newspaper editor in 1914, 1915, and when he had been kicked out of the Socialist Party for supporting Italy's intervention and involvement in World War I, the Socialist Party had kicked him out, and he had decided to start his own newspaper. He needed help doing that, and it turns out that my great grandfather had not only advised him on sort of launching his startup newspaper, but had also funneled a secret subsidy from the French government to Mussolini to fund this paper. So I was relieved to learn that he later had broken with Mussolini, you know, didn't follow sort of the whole fascist experiment, but that he had a sense of Mussolini's temperament, his character. And really, after Mussolini killed a political opponent of his in 1924, a couple of years after coming into power, that is when my great grandfather said, if things continue this way, there's no future for us in this country. Manya Brachear Pashman:  And when you say your great grandfather, the king of the books, concluded that there was no future for us, did he mean your family, or did he mean the Jewish community? David Mogdiliani:  I think at that time, in 1924, he meant our family, and I suppose also those who were not interested in kind of following a blindly fascist authoritarian dictator to the extent that he might transform the country. One of the things that I was sort of fascinated to learn in this project was that Italy was, in fact, a very inclusive place for Jews.  In 1870, the country was sort of unified, and the Jews who had been in ghettos across Italy for hundreds of years, were released, became really central part of Italian society, which was a very tolerant society. Mussolini, in fact, had a couple of Jews in his cabinet. As late as 1935 had a Jewish lover. And it was not really until a later stage of Mussolini's fascism that he very swiftly turned against the Jews, eventually passing the Leggi Razziali, the racial laws, which really instituted a whole set of restrictions that only got worse. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So talk a little bit about your process. I mean, how did you piece together this saga and all of the many pieces of this story that you had not known before, this saga that eventually became 10 episodes of your podcast. David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, you know, during COVID, a lot of people baked banana bread. I pulled out my grandparents' love letters. I had always wanted to interview them to document– I had been a documentary filmmaker for many years and to capture their story–and I kind of just never got around to it. Before I did it, they died. They passed away. And so I had kind of been living with a sense of guilt about that.  But I was in a new romance with a woman named Willa. We had become quarantine mates during the pandemic, she was really curious about the seeds of this family story that I'd shared with her. And we pulled out these love letters, which, in fact, my grandmother had translated into English for her grandchildren, because she really wanted them to know how you know, love had gotten them through the horror of that period. And pulling out those love letters, I was sort of stunned by how fresh and relevant they seemed. Not these kind of black and white mementos from a time gone by, but in a world where there was increasing authoritarian leadership around the world where antisemitism was on the rise, again, their letters to one another, which were going back and forth between Rome and Bologna. They were dealing with these questions, how do we deal with rising fascism? How bad is the antisemitism getting, and what do we do about it? And inside of those boxes, we found not only letters from Mussolini, but kind of the other part of the story. You asked me about the story I grew up with the fairy tale escape that was kind of the baseline that I was operating from. What I had not fully understood was that when my grandfather fled Italy with his girlfriend, and the king of the books, and was so fortunate to escape with them, he left behind his whole family, including his mother and his older brother, Giorgio. And eventually, as World War II kicked off, as they got into the Nazi occupation of Rome, all he could do was read about, you know, the Nazis invading his hometown, what was going on abroad, and he had lost touch entirely with his brother, and yet, what We found inside of these 19 boxes was a 25 page letter from my grandfather's brother, Giorgio, from the older brother that he'd left behind.  And that 25 page letter, it had come just after the war ended. And it said, essentially, you know, we survived. And there's so much to tell you, you know, here's how. And it was just this page turning epic of how my grandfather's brother had shepherded his young family through the war, how they had hid in a small hill town outside of Rome, how he had taken on fake identity, and his little children had learned their fake names and identities and how to cross themselves and go to church and pose as though they were Catholic, and ultimately, how they had made it all the way through to the liberation of Rome. And that, to me, felt like this whole other world, the kind of parallel universe that my grandparents had escaped, the experiences that they might have had if they'd not been so fortunate to be among. Those who were able to flee, and that, along with the question of, why do we have these letters from Mussolini, you know, in the basement, and what's going on with the king of the books, all of that made me want to go back to Italy to dig into my family's past, to better understand this story, to find, you know, answers that could inform my present moment.  At the time, you know, I thought, well, I'll need someone to help me, an audio engineer, at least if we're going to do a podcast. And Willa said, Well, you know, or I could do it. She had learned some audio skills in film school, and I had this question of, like, is this a good idea? Like mixing my budding romance with, you know, digging into my family's, you know, unknown history, but her curiosity had kind of inspired me to dig into this story in the first place, and so we set off together back to Italy with kind of no idea of just how far that adventure would take us. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So I should explain that that saga, you tell that saga in the 10 episodes of the podcast, and the voice of your grandfather is actually that of actor Stanley Tucci. How did you connect with Stanley about this project, and what was it about the project that appealed to him? David Mogdiliani:  I knew that we wanted to bring not only the personal investigative nature of kind of solving some of these mysteries, putting together the pieces, but also to bring to life the experiences and the stories of the characters in this podcast. And so I knew that I could bring to life the voices of my grandparents, which I remembered so well, but I really wanted to bring to life as well the king of the books, my great grandfather, and whenever I thought about him as this kind of debonair Italian, you know, media magnate who got his family out of dodge just in time, he seemed like this kind of cultured, congenial hero that someone like Stanley Tucci might play.  And I'd been in touch with Stanley Tucci a few years prior in regards to his searching for Italy series, we almost worked together on that the scheduling didn't work out, but we'd formed a relationship, and so I shared with him, Hey, I'm digging into the story. I'm finding all this incredible stuff. I want to tell it in audio. And he said, I'd love to help. How can I be part of this? In addition to those more standard documentary techniques. We also do a little bit of kind of creative storytelling, and it's wonderful to have Stanley Tucci do that.  We travel to London, where he lives, and did two long recording sessions with him, and he, having Italian parents and grandparents of his own, speaking Italian well, was able to snap right into that character. He needed very little direction, and it was a great joy to hear him kind of bring that character to life. Manya Brachear Pashman:  And in fact, you had a conversation with him about his own family history and the importance of connecting to that. And I want our listeners to hear a clip of that conversation.   __ David Mogdiliani:  Okay, so tell me, I guess what drew you to the story. Why spend some time doing this?  Stanley Tucci: Well, a number of things. I'm interested in Italian history, Italian stories, Italian people. I'm interested in World War II, and given the circumstances in today's world, you can't help but be interested in the parallels of that time and our time. It's your family story. It's an incredible story, but it's something that's happening today. It's happening as we speak. It's happening all over the world to literally millions of people. David Mogdiliani:  I know you get asked this a lot, but what was your first connection to learning about Italy and its history and what happened to there? Stanley Tucci: My mother's father fought in World War I. He was a corpsman, and he was up in the Alps, and I mean, like the worst fighting, but he never spoke of that. But we were always told about our family history. We were able to live in Italy when I was a kid, and we were able to go visit my family. This is in the early 1970s down in Colombia, and that was fascinating, because it wasn't even 30 years after the war. But that history was really important to us, and the way that those stories were really funny that they would tell, or really frightening that they would tell. And like basically every Italian family, those stories were always told at, you know, dinner parties, at gatherings, at holidays, and you always had a connection with your family. You were always doing things with your family.  Sometimes you were like, Why are we here? No one seems to be getting along, you know. But that said, it's invaluable. Understanding that history, knowing those people. And I really love this story because it's a universal story. It is an Italian story, but it's not an Italian story. It's a Jewish story, but it's not a Jewish story.  It's a story about people in a certain place and time, and what happened to them. And what happened to them has happened before and has happened since and will continue to happen. Unless we as the human race begins to understand that we are all the same. That's why I like this story. It's about hope for equality. ___ Manya Brachear Pashman:  David, you use the word refugee. I'm just curious if your grandparents considered themselves refugees, given the timing of their departure and then the timing of what their relatives that they left behind experienced. David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, and I know actually they specifically did. There's a letter, when my grandmother fled with her parents in early September of 1938. Her father had told her, we're going to leave in the morning. We're going to make this look just like we're going on vacation so we don't draw any undue attention. And I want you to pack one bag and we'll take off in the morning. And they went ahead to Paris, and they were joined there a few weeks later by my grandfather, who had to settle some of his affairs in Rome and get his act together.  And so there are letters from my grandmother, having just arrived in Paris, writing to her boyfriend back in Rome and hoping that he's going to come soon. And she says, quite specifically, we're in this tiny hotel room, and we're really refugees now, everything feels quite different. She, of course, had come from this privileged background. She grew up in this beautiful villa on the hill above Bologna that her father had built, a villa that they had to abandon very quickly. And so she was sort of encountering the reality of being outside of her comfort zone, of not having sort of the comforts that she had grown up with and wishing and hoping that her beloved would join her soon, which would kind of allay some of her anxiety as a refugee.  I think they also felt that sense of being unsettled through their nine months in Paris, from the fall of 1938 until the summer of 1939 being unsure of whether war might break out during that period, my great grandfather, my grandmother's father, the king of the books, he found that his bank accounts inside of Italy had been blocked by the fascist regime, something that we uncovered in more detail in the archives in Rome as we dug into these fascist documents that were kept about all of this persecution, and they had this sense of being unsure of quite when they would leave and how far kind of the tentacles of the fascist regime might extend. And so I do think that they felt like refugees, even if they themselves did not encounter one tenth of the horrors that the family members who remained behind did.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  We have a narrative podcast series called The Forgotten Exodus that really speaks to that. It's about Jews fleeing the Middle East and leaving their homes behind. I mean, that's what you're doing, is you're leaving your home behind, even if you were hated in your home, even if you faced violent antisemitism, it was still home. I'm curious how much your family was fleeing fascism, or were they fleeing antisemitism? Were they fleeing more of one than the other, or did they go hand in hand? David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, well, I think that their initial plans that my great grandfather, the king of the books, was making, were related more to fascism, to his understanding of Mussolini and to political violence and how far things might go. But in the summer of 1938 as he began to get information about the coming racial laws against Jews, and in early September of 1938 when the racial laws were passed such that Jewish children could no longer go to public schools. Teachers couldn't teach at public schools or universities if they were Jewish. Jews could not own a business with more than 99 employees. They couldn't have domestic help of non Jews.  And that initial, you know, set of restrictions against them only increased that fall in the following months, you know, obviously getting to the point eventually that Jews could own nothing, that even the debts that they owed to other people should be diverted to the state. But the beginning of those racial laws is quite literally what they were fleeing when they then decided to execute their exit strategy. It was the promulgation of the racial laws that caused them to leave. Manya Brachear Pashman:  In other words, they began to develop that exit strategy because of fascism. It was initially kind of envisioned as a flight from fascism, but when the culture became antisemitic. That was the trigger. David Mogdiliani:  Exactly. Manya Brachear Pashman:  What have I not asked you, David, that you think is a really important point to mention. David Mogdiliani:  I would say, just about the love and humor that's such a big part of this story. My grandparents were, you know, constantly bickering at one another in this very loving way that we capture in the podcast, just the jump start of their romance was amazing to me. I mean, my grandmother came into Rome with her father, the businessman. She encountered this young kid who she later called il tipo ridiculo, meaning the ridiculous character, because he was just sort of a pesky all over the place, you know guy. And when she came back a second time, he had this plan to take her out, and he had concocted this outing up the Via Appia Antica, which is the ancient road outside of Rome. They got to know each other a little better, and she let him just steal a little kiss at the end of that little date. And the next morning, when she was going back to Bologna, he showed up at the train station in this suit, you know, two sizes too big for him. He's pacing the platform, and he had come to declare his undying love for her.  He was so worried that she was going to get a marriage proposal from a fancy guy in Bologna, and he felt like he had to state his case. And she was like, you know, you got to calm down. You know, it was just a kiss. You know, this is really over the top. And she told him, I want you to not write to me for three months. She really wanted this kind of cooling off period. She said, then write to me if you want. And let's see, you know, if we really have a connection. And so three months later, she's in Bologna, and she gets this package from Rome, and on the top it says: Oh aspettato tre meze, signora di tatoreza. (I waited three months, Madam Dictator.) Ma ogna notte teo scritto. (But every night I wrote to you.) And she opens it up, and there's 91 little letters inside. So every night he had written to her, and then he had saved them and sent them all at the end. So these kind of dramatic, you know, acts of romance and love, the way that they got married inside of the fascist Italian consulate in Paris, that was a huge part of their story, and I think a huge part of what got them through that very anxious, you know, experience. Manya Brachear Pashman:  You talk about how this moment in history jumpstarted your grandparents' romance. Do you mind sharing with listeners what happened to that girlfriend who tagged along and helped you with this project? David Mogdiliani:  It's probably about 3% you know, of the overall story. We're really focused on the story of my grandparents, my great grandparents. But yes, this girlfriend Willa that I had, that had sparked curiosity about my grandparents story when we pulled out the love letters four years ago, as she then came with me as we went back to Italy, digging into the archives, interviewing our cousins, bringing this story to life, and of course, brought us a lot closer together.  Our own relationship continued on, and we were married last year. And just about three and a half months ago, we welcomed our first child, Marcello Vita Modigliani, Vita meaning life in Italian which was a family name. So yes, my own romance has been part of this story as well.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  David, thank you so much. I really appreciate you doing this project and then coming and speaking with us about that. It really is quite relevant and quite instructive. And so thank you so much.  David Mogdiliani:  Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here, and folks can find pack one bag anywhere they listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, but really anywhere, including at packonebagshow.com. You can stream it straight from the website there at packonebagshow.com and thanks so much for this wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  If you missed the last episode, be sure to tune in for the conversation between AJC CEO Ted Deutch and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. In that conversation on the ground in Philadelphia, Governor Shapiro and Ted talked about the antisemitism the governor has faced, the importance of nuance and how simply there is none when it comes to expressions of anti-Jewish hatred. 

Peter Mertens, Secretary General of the Workers' Party of Belgium (PVDA-PTB) sits for a wide-ranging interview with Brian Becker, longtime socialist organizer and founding member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.  They discuss everything from Europe's economic and political crisis, the window of opportunity for socialism, the U.S.'s goal of encircling China, to how the PYB renewed itself as a mass force in Belgian politics by changing its internal culture and digging deeper roots into the working class. The interview is full of lessons and insights from the movement in Europe and the United States. Mertens is a member of the Chamber of Representatives since 2019, and as a Municipal Councillor in Antwerp since 2013. Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join and submit questions to the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

It has been a year of near constant parliamentary deadlock for Spain's left-leaning government but also one of strong economic growth in comparison to other eurozone economies. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist Party won the Catalan elections in May and were once again the largest social democratic force in Europe after June's European parliament elections. Yet Sanchez and PSOE have also be subject to a long string of judicial investigations - most of which seem politically motivated. Yet beyond the headlines of these cases, and with the government's legislative agenda largely blocked, the country's acute housing crisis and the difficult clean up operation after the floods in Valencia are both ongoing in the background. To discuss the year's political event Alan and Eoghan are joined by Laura Seoane and Joe Haslam, a professor at IE University. I hope you enjoy our discussion. Please consider supporting the podcast during our end of year fundraising drive at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thesobremey

In a turbulent political summer, few surprises were greater than that caused by French president Emmanuel Macron's decision in June to call early parliamentary elections. Macron's party had just been trounced in the European Parliament elections; and victory for the far right seemed likely. In the end, thanks to some last minute deals, Marine Le Pen's National Rally did not win. Rather, it was an alliance of the left that secured most seats in the National Assembly. France's Socialist Party was regularly in power from the early 1980s till the mid 2010s. But it collapsed spectacularly in the elections of 2017, and its very survival today seems in doubt. So what has been going on? And have the recent elections brought any signs of revival? Joining us to explore these questions is Philippe Marlière, Professor of French and European Politics in the UCL European and International Social and Political Studies department. This episode of UCL Uncovering Politics is the first in an occasional series of episodes based on pieces in Political Quarterly. Mentioned in this episode: Marlière, P. (2024), French Social Democracy in Turmoil. The Political Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13442 UCL's Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings. https://ucl-uncovering-politics.simplecast.com/episodes/french-social-democracy-in-turmoil/transcript

PREVIEW: EUGENE V. DEBS: JAILED CANDIDATE: In "1920: The Year of Six Presidents," historian David Pietrusza recounts how President Wilson imprisoned socialist leader Eugene V. Debs for opposing America's entry into World War I after April 1917. Despite his cell in an Atlanta prison, Debs managed a vigorous presidential campaign. More later. undated Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party of America

The election victory of Donald Trump opens a new era internationally, and domestically in the United States. This election win is not merely a changing of the guard at the White House. Although the US has had right-wing presidents in the past, for example, Ronald Reagan, who presided over a neo-liberal onslaught, including brutal attacks on the trade unions, which he tried to cripple, Trump's new regime will be of a different order in an entirely different world situation. Trump's win will have a decisive impact on the domestic situation and on the geo-political struggle unfolding between rival imperialist and capitalist powers. The working class and socialists must be prepared for the storm that is already crashing down on society to intensify in the coming months and years. In this episode of the podcast, socialist party general secretary hannah sell draws a balance sheet of what the election of Trump represents, and the prospects for working class struggle under his presidency. To contact the Socialist Party about this podcast or to find out about becoming a member visit: www.socialistparty.org.uk Check out the CWI, for analysis of world events, and for those listening in other parts of the world, get in touch to join the fight for socialism in your country, that's www.socialistworld.net Further reading: Trumpism and its limits - the editorial of Socialism Today Capitalist opponents of Trump are frightened that he could damage, or even destroy, the current international order – and the US state institutions – through which the US capitalist class rules. In opposing Trump, Marxists do not give one iota of support for the existing ‘world order', or the Democratic Party government which maintained it on behalf of US imperialism over the last four years. https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/133317/27-11-2024/socialism-today-editorial-trumpism-and-its-limits/ Trump's election victory and the new world order - Analysis by the CWI Like the COVID pandemic, the new Trump regime will act as a great accelerator on all of the existing trends, contradictions and conflicts currently unfolding under capitalism in its protracted death agony. World events will now be marked by ‘pre-Trump' and ‘post-Trump' benchmarks. Trump's victory represents the coming to power of a particularly right-wing nationalist, protectionist regime – one that will include aspects of Bonapartism, of repression, rule by presidential decree, and a further weakening of democratic rights for the American people. https://www.socialistworld.net/2024/11/26/trumps-election-victory-and-the-new-world-order/

In this next to last Ashley Frawley episode of the Sublation Magazine Show we'll discuss Compact Magazine, my recent debate with Ashley's next co-host Geoff Shullenberger, the escalation in Ukraine, and what's next for the Campaign for a Socialist Party.Support Sublation Media on Patreonhttps://patreon.com/dietsoap

Trump selects Sean Duffy as Transportation Secretary and Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary, respectively. Rep. Nancy Mace proposes a bill to stop newly-elected trans Rep. Sarah McBride from using the women's bathroom. The Southern Poverty Law Center plans to dox writers from The Babylon Bee's news website, Not The Bee, over a piece they published. Farmers drive their tractors into London to protest the new inheritance tax. The Socialist Party in Norway has a “wall of shame” in their office with “rich people who have left Norway” due to the outrageous taxes they're now being charged. Luxury car brand Jaguar puts out a woke ad that has no mention of cars and features drag. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks out on the newly elected tr*ns representative. A radical circuit judge was confirmed to a lifetime appointment because some GOP Senators didn't vote. Dana reflects on Biden's awkward encounters at the G20 in Brazil.Please visit our great sponsors:Black Rifle Coffeehttps://blackriflecoffee.com/danaUse code DANA to save 20% on your next order.  Byrnahttps://byrna.com/danaVisit today for 10% off and get the protection you need.  Hillsdalehttps://danaforhillsdale.comTake some time to learn more about what makes Hillsdale College unique.KelTechttps://KelTecWeapons.comInnovation. Performance. Keltec. Learn more at KelTecWeapons.com today.Patriot Mobilehttps://patriotmobile.com/danaGet a free smart phone with promo code FRIDAY.  Limited-time offer, or while supplies last.  PreBornhttps://preborn.com/danaHelp a woman meet her baby for the first time by donating to PreBorn!  To donate securely dial #250 and say keyword BABY or visit Preborn.com/DANA. ReadyWisehttps://readywise.comUse promo code Dana20 to save 20% on any regularly priced item.Relief Factorhttps://relieffactor.comDon't mask pain, fight it naturally with Relief Factor.  Visit online or call 1-800-4-RELIEF today!Tax Network USAhttps://TNUSA.com/DANADon't let the IRS control your life—empower yourself with Tax Network USA. Visit TNUSA.com/DANA

Chris Cutrone discusses the meaning of the Trump victory, how politics really works, and what is coming for the Campaign for the Socialist Party.Support Sublation Mediahttps://patreon.com/dietsoap

In this episode of the podcast, Tony Saunois, General secretary of the Committee for a Workers International, analyses the general trends in the leadup to the US elections and why the outcome will have a major effect on the global capitalist system. Tony will be speaking on Sunday 10th November from 11am-1pm at Socialism 2024, the weekend of socialist discussion hosted by the Socialist Party. Here's the full details of the weekend: •⁠ ⁠SOCIALISM 2024 Sat 9 Nov - Sun 10 Nov •⁠ ⁠Institute of Education, London WC1H 0AL A weekend of discussion and debate on ideas to change the world, with a main rally at Saturday 5.30pm on the theme of 'Building the socialist opposition to Starmer's war & austerity agenda' Even if you are free for just one of the days, there are day and rally-only tickets available as well, and also the option to get a 'golden ticket' that includes hostel accommodation. If you can't come at all a donation to the fighting fund appeal is appreciated so that members with low incomes can come along. Here is the website where you can see the brochure and book your tickets: www.socialism.org.uk Further Reading: Neither Republicans nor Democrats offer a pro-working class agenda https://www.socialistworld.net/2024/10/28/neither-republicans-nor-democrats-offer-a-pro-working-class-agenda/

Eugene V. Debs is a reminder of the possibility of a different kind of American politics. Five times the Socialist Party's candidate for president in the first two decades of the twentieth century, Debs argued that the promise of America -- the last best hope of earth -- could be fulfilled only through socialism. Debs lived in an era that, like our own, was characterised by dramatic economic dislocation, extremes of wealth and poverty, and high rates of immigration. So what is his legacy, and why does he still matter? Presenter: Adam Smith, Orsborn Professor of US Political History at Oxford and Director of the Rothermere American InstituteGuests:Michael Kazin, Professor of History U of Georgetown, the author of War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 (2017), American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation (2011),The Life of Wm Jennings Bryan (2006), and most recently What it took to win: A history of the Democratic party (2022).Allison Duerk, Director of the Eugene V. Debs Museum, Terre Haute, Indiana.The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. For details of our programming go to rai.ox.ac.ukProducer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the podcast Josh Asker the editor of 'The Socialist,' explains the tactics and strategies needed to build a mass movement against the far right. Socialism 2024 Get your tickets for socialism here: www.socialism.org.uk Do you want to be part of building the socialist opposition that we need to end austerity, poverty, climate crisis, racism and discrimination, and war? Taking place on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 November, the Socialism 2024 weekend will arm you with the ideas to fight back under the Starmer government against the capitalist system it defends. Socialism 2024 will be taking place only days after Rachel Reeves' autumn budget which will show Labour's plans to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system while the rich get richer. Join hundreds of trade unionists, students, community campaigners, and those who just want to find out about socialist ideas to discuss and debate ideas to change the world. The centrepiece of the event will be the main rally on the Saturday evening where you will hear from leading socialists. There will be over 40 workshops running throughout Saturday and Sunday on all sorts of topics. And there will be closing rallies on the Sunday afternoon. Smash racism The large counter-protests on 7 August pointed to the potential to build an anti-racist movement. We must challenge attempts by racists and the populist and far right to take advantage of the anger at Starmer's attacks on living standards. The workshops in this theme at Socialism 2024 are an opportunity to look at the ideas needed to do that and include: You can't have capitalism without racism: The origins of racism and the struggle to end it today Capitalism and Islamophobia After the riots: the role of the trade unions in a Community Defence Stewards organisation Further Reading: Lessons from the Fight against the Far Right: The working class has a long history of mobilising to resist attempts by far-right forces to attack and intimidate our communities. The Socialist Party and its predecessor Militant has a long history of taking part in those struggles, including at times playing a leading role. In all these struggles, the fight to stop the far right is completely bound with the fight for a socialist alternative, and mobilising the working class to fight for decent jobs and homes, fully funded services, and all our communities need. https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/130801/02-10-2024/lessons-from-the-fight-against-the-far-right/ The first lightning flashes – and what to do One month after Sir Keir Starmer's Labour party was ‘swept to power' by a paltry 20% of the electorate – the lowest support base of any government since the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1918 – violent protests and riots, instigated by far-right groups, broke out across the country. For those trapped in asylum-seekers' hostels or mosques under brutal attack from gangs of rioters, the experience was terrifying. More generally, many Black, Asian and Muslim people feel that their safety is increasingly under threat. Tell Mama, a monitoring group tracking Islamophobic hate crimes, reported a five-fold increase in threats to Muslims compared to the same time last year. https://socialismtoday.org/the-first-lightning-flashes-and-what-to-do

In a turbulent political summer, few surprises were greater than that caused by French president Emmanuel Macron's decision in June to call early parliamentary elections. Macron's party had just been trounced in the European Parliament elections; and victory for the far right seemed likely. In the end, thanks to some last minute deals, Marine Le Pen's National Rally did not win. Rather, it was an alliance of the left that secured most seats in the National Assembly. France's Socialist Party was regularly in power from the early 1980s till the mid 2010s. But it collapsed spectacularly in the elections of 2017, and its very survival today seems in doubt. So what has been going on? And have the recent elections brought any signs of revival?Joining us to explore these questions is Philippe Marlière, Professor of French and European Politics in the UCL European and International Social and Political Studies department.This episode of UCL Uncovering Politics is the first in an occasional series of episodes based on pieces in Political Quarterly.Mentioned in this episode:Marlière, P. (2024), French Social Democracy in Turmoil. The Political Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13442 UCL's Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

It's Tuesday, October 1st, A.D. 2024. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 125 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Kevin Swanson South African homeschoolers face jail if kids not in school Last week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the controversial Basic Education Law Amendments Bill into law in an effort to federalize and centralize control over the nation's education program. The law would levy a year-long prison sentence for truancy, ban all corporal punishment, and require parents to apply to the National Department of Education for permission to homeschool their children or face charges. Christian View Network has been warning for years that the bill is a radical threat to parental rights. Estimates put the number of homeschooled children in South Africa as high as 300,000, reports the South African Broadcast Corporation. An organization dedicated to protecting parental rights in South Africa, The Pestalozzi Trust, has informed the president they will be appealing the Act to the nation's high court. The Trust argues that “the Act imposes excessive regulatory burdens on parents who opt for homeschooling.” Austrian Freedom Party gaining ground The Left is facing a backlash in Europe. The right-leaning, Freedom Party of Austria gained more votes than any other party in the elections held over the weekend — now holding 29% of the seats in parliament. However, the Socialist Party, the left-leaning People's Party, the Greens, and the Communists together hold 67% of the seats. Germany and France witness political gains on the right Last month, the German election yielded more gains for the right-leaning Alternative for Germany Party than any other election since World War II.   And, in July, the French elections expanded the rightist party by 50% at the expense of the center. Hurricane Helene's death toll climbs to 116 Hurricane Helene has come and gone, and left a mass of destruction in its path. Ryan Cole, a North Carolina county emergency official, told The Independent Mail, “We have biblical devastation through the county. This is the most significant natural disaster that any one of us has ever seen.” The death count has topped 116 thus far. There are still 600 people missing in North Carolina. Officials count 46 fatalities in North Carolina, 27 deaths in South Carolina, 25 deaths in Georgia, and 13 in Florida. This makes for the second most deadly hurricane in the last 12 years. Could Amish save Western Civilization from Kamala? Could the Amish save Western civilization from Kamala Harris and the socialists?   That's what Scott Pressler from Early Vote Action thinks. Scott pointed out on X social media platform that  “there are 90,000 Amish voters in Pennsylvania, and the last presidential election was decide by 80,000 votes.” 2 pro-lifers get long prison sentences for peaceful civil disobedience A federal judge sentenced three more pro-lifers for participating in a protest at an abortion clinic in Tennessee on March 5, 2021, reports World Magazine. Chester Gallagher, the leader of the pro-life rescue, received a harsh sentence of 16 months. Heather Idoni was sent to prison for 8 months. And another pro-lifer received a 3-month probation sentence.   Four others -- Paul Vaughan, Calvin Zastrow, Coleman Boyd, and Dennis Green -- had already received sentences back in July. Attorney Steve Crampton with The Thomas More Society argued that the protest was “a peaceful demonstration by entirely peaceable citizens—filled with prayer, hymn-singing, and worship—oriented toward persuading expectant mothers not to abort their babies.” Calgary Pastor vs. Drag Queens Today, as I guest host for Kevin Swanson on Generations Radio, I interview a gutsy Canadian pastor named Derek Reimer in Calgary, Alberta. He dared to speak the truth at a Drag Queen Story Hour event at the library. Listen. McMANUS: “When you heard about these drag queen events where men dress up as women, really caricatures of women, with ridiculously heavy makeup, big wigs, crazy attire, long false eyelashes, and five-inch tall heels, what was your reaction when you heard that it was coming to your town, to your library?” REIMER: “That this was disgusting. It was vile. It was appalling, repugnant. I don't even have enough adjectives to describe it. “So, it's like this righteous indignation that rises up in protection of these little ones. Because when I went to drag events, there was a sign up, ‘Reading with Royalty,' ages zero to eight years old. That's disgusting, how they want to indoctrinate, sexualize and corrupt these little children.” Not only was Pastor Reimer arrested that time, but two additional times and spent 43 days in jail for simply objecting to drag queens in the library. To hear my whole 39-minute conversation, go to Generations.org/radio. That's Generations.org/radio.  Will Arizona imprison grandmother who feeds the homeless? And finally, Bullhead City, Arizona is looking at putting a grandmother in jail.   A U.S. district court ruled that Norma Thornton is guilty of providing food to the poor in a city park.  She was arrested in July 2022, and faces a fine of up to $1,431, 120 days in jail, and 24 months of probation. The city ordinance forbids any “food-sharing event” at a public park. For now, Norma continues to use up about half her income to feed 30 people a day in an alley behind a jet ski shop that has no shade, no tables, or no restrooms, reports WorldNetDaily.com. In Mark 8:6-9, “Jesus commanded the people to sit down on the ground, and He took the seven loaves and gave thanks and broke it, and gave to His disciples to set before the people, so they did eat, and were filled. And they that had eaten were about four thousand.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Tuesday, October 1st, in the year of our Lord 2024. Subscribe by Amazon Music or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

n the latest episode of "Connecting the Dots," Dr. Wilmer Leon drops bombshell revelations on the U.S. government's alleged attack on free speech. Featuring Chairman Omali Yeshitela recently cleared of shocking charges of being a Russian agent, this episode dives deep into systemic oppression, global politics, and the fight for freedom of expression. Despite government seizures and legal battles, Yeshitela and his colleagues triumphed in court. Don't miss this urgent call to action—your rights could be next!   Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!   Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!   Wilmer Leon (00:00): I opened with this piece last week, and I'm going to open with it again because it's as applicable today as it was last Thursday. The linguist, no Chomsky tells us the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum, even encouraged the more critical and dissident views that gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. That's from Noam Chomsky. Is this what the so-called Justice Department is doing via selective persecution and mainstream American media, and those in Western established press are complicit in promoting and protecting. Let's discuss it, Announcer (01:00): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (01:08): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon. 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, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events in the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables 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 very simply the first amendment, freedom of speech and the US government's attack on this inalienable, right? And my guest is a political activist and author, co-founder and current chairman of the African People Socialist Party, which was formed in 1972 and which leads the O Movement and he's one of the oi, he is Chairman Omali Yeshitela. Chairman Omali, welcome back to the show. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (02:15): Thank you so much. It's very good to be with you, Dr. Wilmer. Wilmer Leon (02:22): Not a problem. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (02:24): But the reason I really want to express appreciation to you and even the comments that you just quoted from Chomsky is that one of the reasons that we were able to come out of that courtroom after going to trial on September 3rd with an amazing victory, and we were able to fracture the total or the absolute solidarity of opinion regarding black people and the righteousness of our struggle and the validity of the criticism that we make against the United States government. Because as you know, we were charged the three of us, me, penny Hess and Jesse Neville with being Russian agents. And then we were charged with conspiring, I guess, to be Russian agents. And what they have done is taken issues like reparations, like the charge of genocide against the United States government for treatment of black people. Our opinion that differed from theirs on the Ukraine war and things like that. (03:35): They're saying that it was the Russians who were responsible. In fact, in the trial itself, they went so far as to say the Russians came up with the reparations idea. Russians came up with the genocide idea. Russians were responsible for the institutions that we've created over the number of years for the liberation of African people. So they would maintain that kind of position, and so that would protect them from any criticism that black people had about our treatment in this country. So they would restrict the discussion so that if we said something that challenges acceptable narrative, then it was because we were paid by the Russian. Some foreign entity was responsible for that. And so I think it was really important that we went to trial and that the jury was able to see through the essential question here, and the state lost in terms of its efforts to criminalize black people fighting for freedom. (04:43): It lost by saying that what we were doing was a consequence of being hired by the Russians. The jury said they didn't believe that the jury said not guilty. We were not guilty of being paid working for Russia and without registering as foreign agents. And the conclusion there was that the struggle of act people is legitimate, that we have legitimate wives, we have legitimate criticism of the government, and we showed the whole history of our fighting around these interests going back many, many years. We connected the struggle of African people here and African other places around the world. We did that during this trial. And so the jury said that they agreed that we had the right to do that. The problem, of course, was the confusing second charge, if you will. I say second, I don't know if it was a second charge, what order if you want to put it in, but there was the secondary charge. (05:45): It was secondary in the sense that not just because the penalty is like five years as opposed to a maximum 10 year penalty that we would've gotten for the conviction of working for the Russians. But also the fact is that the jury was confused by what that meant as I am even as we have this discussion now, what was the conspiracy? If the jury said that we were innocent, that we were not guilty of working for the Russians, then what was the conspiracy? And are they saying that we wanted to work for the Russians but it didn't work and so we conspired to do something and fail to carry it out? Is that what they're saying? And I think it's a lot more to it than that. And of course, we're going to be appealing this and there's a lot of work we have to do between now and then and the work that you have done, the doors you have opened for us and others, forces like yourself contributed to I think this magnificent victory that we had. (06:50): They couldn't put us on trial in the darkness. People were aware of it. People came to Tampa, the courthouse was full, and they had to get a larger courtroom. And every day the courtroom was full. And when the jury looked out at that courtroom, they saw people who looked just like them. And I doubt if they saw anybody that they would've characterized as a Russian there. So that was really important to get the people there, to get people from September 3rd throughout the duration of the trial and to make them have to put this thing carried out in the light of day. And that's what we are contending with right now because we still have to go for sentencing for on November 25th, we'll be going to sentencing and it's going to be important to get people to Tampa to that courthouse for that as well. Wilmer Leon (07:42): You talk about September 3rd, and the trial started on September 3rd. And if my memory serves me correctly, they were expecting a four to five week trial. (07:55): What said. And what they wound up with was not even 10 days. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (08:00): No, no. Wilmer Leon (08:01): They ran out of ammo. They ran out Chairman Omali Yeshitela (08:03): Of ammo. Wilmer Leon (08:04): Go ahead, go ahead. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (08:06): Really important to mention that because the thing is that the government attacked us and according to their own testimony, their witnesses and what have you, they took something like terabytes of materials that constituted at least 1.5 million books. So all the stuff they took from our cell phones, from our laptops, from other devices that we had, it was enough material for 1.5 for one and a million, half million books. And the thing was that out of all of that, I think they used something like four or five emails or stuff from Facebook because there was nothing. There was nothing there. There was no there. And the state did not even have a human being or people who testified against us. All of their witnesses were people who worked for the state FBI agents, they had 12 FBI agents. They had two. So-called experts and experts who didn't know how much under cross examination had to admit, first of all, they knew nothing about the case. Secondly, one of whom had to say that he didn't even know how much he was getting paid for doing this. And he was actually a Russian who was waiting to get his citizenship to be able to achieve citizenship in this country. (09:48): And they were unable going through stuff for more than 10 years of materials and the two year duration after this attack on us. They could not bring a single human being into that courtroom who would validate anything they said about what we stand for, who we are, that we somehow working for Russians, that anything we're doing now is different from what we've done for the last 50 years. They couldn't do that. We were the only human beings in that court when it comes to testimony and what have you. The state testified and then they saw people, and we were the people. And the people in that audience who came to this trial were the people and the jury. The jury. Those were the people as well. Wilmer Leon (10:34): Is this a test case? The ARU three were on trial, but was this a test case? Pennys, Jesse Neville, yourself Chairman, Mali Ello, the three of you, the O three were on trial, but if the government had been successful, if they had gotten a guilty verdict returned on that first charge, how dynamic of a problem for free speech for the Wilmer Leons of the world, for the Scott Ritters, for the professor Danny Shaws and the Dan Vallis of the world. Would this have been Go ahead. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (11:25): Yeah, I think so. I think that very smart people, I think the FBI and the Justice Department are going to have to recalibrate how they take this issue on because it doesn't mean they're going to stop just because of what we have been able to do up to now. They will try to find ways to make even this conspiracy charge unfold in a fashion that challenges free speech rights of people even more. And that the conspiracy charge itself is a challenge to free speech. But this one, I think they'll have to recalibrate this whole thing about working for Russians, et cetera. And I think that people have been watching this, smart people, especially people like Scott Riter, especially people who have the audacity to share views about situation in the world, US foreign policy, what's happening in this country that challenges the narrative that the United States government puts forth itself. I think that people who have been dealing with the cop city question, I think there's a whole array of forces out there who have stakes in the outcome of this trial. And I think that so far we've done much better than I think many expected. And I think we can go ahead and further this by winning this case in the conspiracy. But beyond that, we are going to be doing more Dr. Wilmer. We think that the law itself is a political law. (12:57): When you got a law, it's a political law. It's not a law against robbing, killing, shooting, stealing or kidnapping, anything like that. It's a political law. The law was created for the purpose of carrying out political objectives in the contest with whomever was decided to be the enemy at any given moment. Wilmer Leon (13:19): Lemme jump in really quickly just to say, because I think it's very, very important for people to understand at this juncture, you were not charged with sedition, you were not charged with trying to overthrow the government. You were merely charged with saying things the government didn't like because what you said was consistent with some of the things that the government of Russia and other people in the country have said, which by the way, the things that you're articulating are true. So simply put it, if Russian President Putin comes out and says, the world is round, and you come out and say, the world is round, but Washington will have us believe the world is flat, all of a sudden now you're conspiring with Russians, you're working with Russians, you're operating on behalf of Russians. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (14:28): Well, it doesn't even matter if Putin says the Russian, the world is round and we say the world is round. What they're saying is that we don't have to be lying. What we say has to be something that undermines the United States. Wilmer Leon (14:45): No, I use that example simply to make the point that what you're saying is actually accurate. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (14:52): Yes, yes. Wilmer Leon (14:53): That's my point. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (14:54): Yeah, I think that's true, and I think that's real because at one time we had talked about bringing in experts of our own to testify about the whole history, for example, of the Ukraine War and how all of that stuff got started. And it wasn't just some evil Russians who decide, let's jump on this helpless and defenseless and innocent Ukrainians or something to that effect. And the point is, of course, that it is true what we said. It is true. But even if it were, this is what the court is saying, what the judge affirmed at one juncture, I think, and certainly the prosecution, that even if it was true, even if it's true, the Russians told you to do it and therefore it's a crime, and they say, we will move it from the element of speech now to an action, it becomes an action because the Russian told you to do it. (15:52): So they liquidate the free speech question, and this is what they try to do, and this is their dilemma, not ours, because we didn't write the first Amendment, we didn't write the Bill of Rights. They did it. And they say this is what they stand on and believe in. So they find themselves in this very treacherous and insidious thing all the time of trying to find out how we can have the First Amendment and our first amendment and attack it without attacking it, without obviously attacking it, without saying that we are attacking it. In fact, at one juncture, I think one of our lawyers wrote in a brief calling for the dismissal of the charges that we could have been talking about Russian cuisine, and would that have served the purpose of a charge working for Russian? They said, yes, if the Russians told us to say something about Russian cuisine and we did it, that would be working for the Russians. (16:50): It's garbage. It's a garbage law, and we intend to take it on. I mean, because this is just one aspect of it, fighting against these particular charges. But the law itself is a political law. It is a law based on politics. It's not a law based on criminal activity or anything except what the political climate at the moment requires. And so that's something that all of us have to be really concerned about as well, not just the winning in this particular case, in this particular instance, because it's still there and it's still something they can use. And they need to be put on the back foot around this question of having this 9 51 or whatever it is that they can say, somebody's working for Russia or somebody's involved in some kind of conspiracy because it meets the political objectives. Objectives, yeah. Yeah. Wilmer Leon (17:46): In fact, let me take a moment here and read the First Amendment, quote. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peacefully to a assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances and What I think is also important for people to understand about the First Amendment, the framers of the Constitution, we're very, very careful. Every word, every comma, every is in a particular place for a reason. So when they open the first Amendment by saying Congress shall make no law, what that is telling everyone is that this is a protection of the American people against action by the government. They could have said, you have the freedom of speech. They could have said, you can say what you want, you can write what you want. No, it's not. They are protecting individual rights by prohibiting action by the government. It's called a negative, right? Chairman? Yes. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (19:16): I think that's really important. And I think this is what we've been talking about all along because that is in the Constitution, who has fought harder for the Bill of Rights than black people in this country. Historically, we started out with no rights that didn't apply to us. So free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association. We've been fighting like hell for this since we've been here. Every aspect of our existence in this country has been fighting for the benefit of the Constitution. So that is true. And I think that part of what we are looking at, so African people, black people, we've led around that question, we've led around this question of the Bill of Rights and the free speech, and we still are. And that was because even when this was put forward, when this was ratified, but the Congress, it didn't include us because we were enslaved in 1791 when this was ratified. (20:06): So we've been fighting forever up to now to this very moment until a trial that we just went to for the right to free speech, the right to freedom of association, the right for freedom of assembly, the right for freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. We've been fighting for that. And now the problem is because it is in the Constitution, how can they attack us on the one hand without obviously offending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? And so that's the problem they're trying to solve. And so they're saying, except for now, they're trying to come up with an exception. And that's what even this law, this political law that they've come up with, it calls on the people, the court and everybody to overlook this constitutional right under these circumstances that's chosen for political reasons at political times in place. That's what we are looking at right now. (21:02): And the thing about that too, Dr. Wilmer, that's so important to us. I mean, the whole thing is important to us and to all the people. Make no mistake about it. When they come at us, it is not us because we never had the free speech. But it's for all those other people who, but the presumption that they had these rights presumption of free speech. So when they attack us and using attack on the First Amendment, it's on everybody's right to the First Amendment that's under assault. But I think it's especially and particularly significant for us, what we've seen just transpire because what they have concocted is this notion that everything is wonderful and peaceful. Everybody is acting civilized. There are no oppression of black people. There are no contradictions that we have that are legitimate contradictions. If we are criticizing the government, if we are criticizing our treatment, it's because we are working for some foreign agent, not because it's a legitimate criticism that the government has to respond to. (22:01): So as opposed to responding to it, as opposed to responding to the genocide convention that we are talking about, they have violated, they steal all of the 130,000 signatures and they say, the Russians are the one who got us to do this. Instead of dealing with the questions of what is happening to us as the people, a huge number of African people in prison and stuff, like they said, you can't make that complaint. That's not you making that complaint. It's Russians making that complaint through you. So they were nullified, they were nullify criticism by black people against the government itself. So not just an individual, it's the whole black population that has denied the right to criticize our treatment by the United States government. And that's been the fundamental thing that's really important, and that's why this winning this, at least on the question of working for Russians, that's why that was such an important thing to occur. And we still in the trenches having to fight all the way down the line around the other aspect of this charge. Wilmer Leon (23:07): Do you see similarities between the persecution that you all are enduring and what the United States did to Julian Assange, the Australian publisher who through WikiLeaks released documents that he had received government documents that he had received that exposed a number of American diplomats and a number of American elected officials for lying to the American people and to the world. The United States through an attempt of extradition, held Julian Assange in Belmar prison in London for seven years. He now has been released. He's now back in his home country of Australia. And when in fact, the United States was going after somebody for violating espionage and acts when he's not an American, never been to the United States, they were using their extra judicial reach in getting one of their proxies Britain to try to carry out their torture of another individual. Are there similarities between that and what the United States did to you? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (24:24): There certainly are, and I think that many, if not of the people who are tied to the Assange struggle, recognize that as well. We have been in touch with members of his family and they're members of the Assange resistance that have come on board in terms with us and even going into September, and we expect they'll be with us going to November 25th when we have to go and face the sentencing. So it is an absolute thing, and I'm old enough and dumb enough to have been impressed when we were hearing this stuff coming from our civic classes, et cetera, about free speech. I mean, I believed in free speech. Absolutely. I still do. Yeah. I don't think nobody believes more than freedom than slaves. You know what I mean? (25:19): And all of our children, all of our teachers taught us around this. I mean, they were really preached that to us. And so we were firm believers in this. We didn't need any Russians. We had our own experiences and we had magnificent training from teachers who really passionate, believed in free speech and had to believe in free speech to survive and to be able to pursue our interests. I mean, I was the same age as Emmett Till when he was killed. What was that murdered? It was at 1955. 55? Yeah, I was 14. He was 14 years old. And they murdered him. They said, because he whistled at a white woman, which was really dubious. And even if he did, so what? But the thing is, they murdered this kid, and it was something that traumatized the entire black community when his mama refused to allow him to bury him to have a closed casa at his funeral, she wanted Wilmer Leon (26:19): Mamie till, Chairman Omali Yeshitela (26:20): Yeah, Wilmer Leon (26:22): Mamie Till wanted the world to see. I think the quote was, I want the world to see what they've done to my son. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (26:29): Yes. And Jet Magazine blew it up, and all the Africans saw that, and it traumatized us all and to know that people can kill you like this with impunity. But anyway, yeah. Wilmer Leon (26:47): So people listening to this that may not have seen you on the show before, many may be asking why. Why was this done? I will posit that the world is changing the empire, the United States, what was formerly the Empire after World War ii, its power is on the wane. Other forces is turning from a unipolar world to a multipolar world. China, Venezuela, Russia, the Middle East, A number of countries have decided we're not going to follow that playbook anymore. We're going in another direction. They're doing it peacefully, much to the United States dismay. And there's a story, there's a narrative that the United States wants to continue to tell that isn't true. And through social media, through the internet, through the use of technology, there are more voices out there now that are exposing that lie for what it is. And I believe that's really at the heart. That's the crux of your problem. What say you, sir? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (28:11): I think you're absolutely correct. I think it's really important for our listeners to understand that when we talk about how the world is changing and what have you, this is not just some abstract issue. Announcer (28:26): It has a lot to do with the cost of oil and gas and properties and the relative power that the United States versus other countries that it is contending with for domination in the world, et cetera. There are all kinds of important issues. I mean the aspirations and hopes and et cetera. The majority of the people who live in this country are tied to the maintenance of the status quo, maintaining the control of the people in Iran and Afghanistan and Nicaragua and Venezuela and the black communities in this country, and maintaining control of the people in these concentration camps, reservations that Indian reservation they call concentration camps. So there's a lot at stake here. I mean, all of the petroleum in the world, I mean it is located in these countries that's contesting for freedom like Iran, like these other places. And the others who have been pushed out of history. I mean China, up until recently, people used to refer to China. People who were not doing well or who didn't appeal to have good promise, they were saying, you got as much. You don't have a China mans chance at Wilmer Leon (29:42): This time. China used to be called the sick man of Asia, and they decided that they were going to shred or shed that moniker and that they were going to readjust their culture. They were going to readjust their economy. They were going to readjust their society and that they were going to rise from the ashes. And to that point, another example, the Association of Sahel States, if we look at Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso and how they have been able to throw off the yoke of colonialism by removing France and the United States from their countries, they're now trying to stand. Talk a little bit about what the association of Sahel states, what some of these African countries are doing now, taking control of their own economies. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (30:36): Yeah, I mean that's a fundamental thing. And they're moving toward it. And the association SA Health states more effectively at this point, apparently, than most of the African entities that have come to be independent, because they're not just independent. They are combining. They, because as you know, Africa and its current designation countries and stuff like that, that was created by Imperialists, by the colonizer. They drew those lines, they drew those board split up people, et cetera. It makes it very difficult for Africa to even access his access own resources collectively. But France can access all of our resources as France. They can get resources from Burkina Faso, Mali, all of them and 14 different entities. France could play one off against the other, but we couldn't get our access to our own resources, right? When France would overthrow entities, governments that tried to do that, independent of France. (31:38): So that's a real kind of issue. And so I'm really appreciative of what these forces are trying to do, but it's very, very, very difficult because as you've probably seen since, because the France and the United States were using the basis for having these foreign troops, French troops in the Sahel, that they had to fight these jihadists, the jihadist terrorists and et cetera, and the moment the people kicked them out, then you see the rise of terrorism again. They say, you see people getting killed, slaughtered, and I'm convinced that the same forces are slaughtering them that are responsible for overturning the government of Ukraine when it did not suit their requirements and needs. They want to be able to have us say that we can't govern ourselves or to indicate we can't govern ourselves, and therefore the white man has to come in and take charge of our affairs. (32:35): Look at what's happening in Haiti right now. Look at how they're doing in Haiti. They've been doing for how long in Haiti. Right? And that's an aspect of the contradiction. We have to understand that there are all kinds of ways in which the colonizers attempt to advance their interests. And part of what they would try to do is to create a situation where you beg for them to come back. And they have succeeded in doing that. They're almost succeeded in doing that in Nicaragua. But Nicaragua people won their freedom and they started bombing and hurting people in Nicaragua to extend and demanding, and that the Nicaragua was having an election. The people were so terrified that they actually voted the revolutionary organization out of power for temporarily. So they will do that kind of thing. And this is really serious stuff. And I just want to say Dr. (33:28): Wilmer, that the oppressed never determines what methods are going to use to be free, the oppressor. If we could walk up to the White House or walk up to important staff and say, please, let's be free. Let us be free. And they say, okay, you're free now. And that was real. That would be cool. But that's not the case. Every instance you see all around the world, the oppressive, the determination of what it was going to take to be free was made by the oppressor. The oppressor. I mean, everybody tries to solve the problem the easy way. African people go, we pray, we beg, we nonviolent, do all of those kinds of things, and then they kill us and all around the world, not just us, but other oppressed peoples everywhere. So it is never been up to us to determine what methods are going to be used to be free. We don't want violence. We want violence out of our lives, but they employ violence of all sorts against us, and sometimes they disguise where the violence is coming from. Wilmer Leon (34:33): A couple of things that come to mind. First of all, let me be sure I explain why we went from the discussion of your trial to the discussion of the Association of Sahel States. And I brought that up as an example of how the world is changing, how we are shifting from a unipolar one control United States in control to a multipolar world. That's why I brought that up. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (35:03): Right? Wilmer Leon (35:05): You mentioned mentioned hate Chairman Omali Yeshitela (35:06): sounds like, What sounds like Putin. Wilmer Leon (35:09): Well, okay, movement of Russia, hey, right is right. The world is round, the world is round, and one plus one does equal two. Even in Russia, one plus one equals two. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (35:23): That's right. Wilmer Leon (35:24): The other point you mentioned, Haiti, and I just want to point this out to show some of the contradiction and some of the hypocrisy at the debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Harris. Donald Trump made that utterly racist, ridiculous, asinine statement about Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. And Kamala Harris was aghast at that statement. She was mortified by that statement as she should have been. But here's the question. Where is the outrage of the United States tried to reinvade Haiti? Kamala Harris as Vice President, went to the CARICOM meeting, the meeting of the Caribbean states trying to convince and twist the arms of the leaders of CARICOM to back the United States invasion of Haiti. So on the one hand, she's aghast to Donald Trump's ridiculous assertions and racist assertions about Haitians eating animals in Springfield, Ohio. But if the Biden administration wasn't trying to invade Haiti, most of those Haitians wouldn't have been there in the first place. They'd be in their own country enjoying their own meals, living in their own space, doing their own thing. So I'm waiting for people that are as aghast at Trump's racist statement to be as aghast at the Biden administration for the Biden administration's racist policy. Your thoughts, sir? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (37:06): I think you take us right back to Chomsky's observation. Like they define this reality and they place constraints on even how people can see. You can't see the whole world. They've reinvented what the quote left and the right are. So now the Democratic Party is left wing and the Republican party, the right wing, et cetera. When did Joe Biden become a leftist or Kamala Harris for that purpose? What has happened to the concept of left and right? I mean, they've redefined everything and they've placed constraints on the ability to, people see anything outside of these parameters, ideological and political parameters that they've established. And I think that's right on. I mean, I even saw that when people proclaimed to be aghast, that Trump talking about building a wall dealing with Mexico and Mexicans, but they ain't saying nothing about the walls that's being built all over Palestine. (38:04): The same people had the ability, the walls built, not unusual and peculiar. It's the thing that people do when they steal land, steal territory, and they want the people to be kept out of their own lands and what have you. So we allow them to define stuff, and that's one of the reasons they would attack us. That's one of the reasons they would attack the whole Bill of Rights in the First Amendment and things like that. Because the matter, the fact is, it's not just a matter of my right to talk. It's the matter of the people's right to hear what I'm saying. And that way they don't have to agree, but that gives them the ability to make an educated disagreement if that's what it is. They don't want that. They can't handle that anymore. And I think the crisis that you just talked about in terms of a changing world, this is critical. (38:50): I mean, it is hard to overstate how profound this transformation in the world that is happening now. It is one that's moving away from the grasp of a soul hegemon. This unipolar world as it's been characterized, is something that's under tremendous amount of stress. And you can see it fracturing and when it happens because so much of the political economy revolves around that. It has serious implications inside the country too. And so that people who have relied on being able to suck the blood of forces from around the world when this stops happening, you see greater amounts of suicide. The death spike, death rate of white people of certain ages began to happen. Alcoholism began to happen. And you see also people attacking the capitol. They attacking politicians who they feel have betrayed their ability to remain the top dogs in the world. And this is not something that's left to just Republicans or Democrats. I mean, this is something that permeates the consciousness of people in this country, and there's a certain presumption of the right of America to dominate the whole world, et cetera. Otherwise even people couldn't even see what's happening in the that under American leadership and dominance without protesting mightily. So yeah. Wilmer Leon (40:15): One of the things also that I think one of the assumptions that a lot of people may have made as it relates to your case is you are engaged in dialogue at a time when America is at war, and that that's what makes your narrative so dangerous. Here's the thing that people need to understand. The United States is not at war. Congress has not declared war in Ukraine. Congress has not declared war against China. Congress has not declared war in the Middle East. There's a whole lot of fighting going on. There are a whole lot of bullets being shot and a whole lot of artillery rounds being launched. But the United States has started those conflicts. But more importantly, the United States is not at war. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (41:16): There's no declaration of war. Wilmer Leon (41:17): There's been no declaration of war by Congress. So this whole thing about the sensitivities of the government and it needing to protect itself against domestic insurrection because this is a time of war, that's not true. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (41:37): No, it's not true. I mean, I'm really disturbed sometime Dr. Wilmer about what often appears to be the gullibility. I don't think this is something generally true in the African community. I mean maybe sectors of the African community, but ordinary black people, we have this experience with the government. We know like treachery abounds as it relates to Cointel Pro. Yeah, coin Pro. And even black people who didn't know about Cointel Pro and just ordinary black people, the dealing that we have with the cops on the beat, everything. I mean, most black people who have a relationship with the government, it's through the police. You know what I mean? That's the direct relationship through the police and the housing projects. Everybody's given the corner, et cetera. And so we don't have the same illusions, not fanciful illusions about the state. And that's one of the reason we used to work hard to pass out, know your rights information to just poor people. (42:40): Because at the moment, poor people know that the Constitution says, I'm supposed to have these rights. And many people don't know. The Constitution say that says that. And because there's nothing in our lives that suggests that we have these rights. But if we say, these are rights, the Constitution says, you have these rights. You should have these rights. And then that often is alone is enough to foster resistance to what's happening to us. They say, I'm not taking this. If the Constitution says I don't have to take it, I'm not taking that. So this tendency too often of people to simply vow to the current iteration of a lie that's based on political domination of peoples and extraction of their wealth and their values, this tendency is something that we have challenged and continue to challenge. And almost everything we've done contributes to that. Almost everything is tied to tactics and strategies. (43:48): We want to be a free people and for us and the African people, social partner who movement, it means like all dignified people, we want to be self-governing. We don't want foreigners and aliens extracting all the value of being able to say that my laborer should not go toward benefiting my community and my children and their children. We don't want that. We opposed to that, we don't want somebody to be able to start wars, that black people are going to be in front lines fighting and all wars. That could actually lead to nuclear, conation, obliteration of the people on earth. We don't want people to be able to do that, and us simply to be here without having any ability to confront the powers that are making these kinds of choices and without even sharing the ability to do that with those of us who live here, who work for a living, who try to work, et cetera. Wilmer Leon (44:47): Well, and also something even more basic than that, you talked about these wars, the wars that we as citizens are paying for. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (44:57): Yes. Wilmer Leon (44:57): And how that money is being wasted, how that money is being stolen. We talk about the military industrial complex in many regards. For example, the United States just authorized almost $600 million to send money for military aid to Taiwan so that Taiwan can turn around and use that 600 million for this year to buy weapons from American arms manufacturers. Well, how many teachers' salaries could you pay with that 600 million? There are so many projects. There are so many things that could be done to truly ensure the safety of this country by improving the standard of living in this country. But unfortunately, those dollars go to Lockheed Martin. They go to Raytheon, they go to the military industrial complex instead of paying people's salaries, providing for healthcare and better education. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (46:07): Yeah, I mean, it's criminal. It would be criminal if the people had any power. Wilmer Leon (46:14): Exactly. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (46:15): It's not criminal now in the sense that the ones who have the power make the laws. The ones who want to do this stuff, make the laws, or if they don't make the laws, they tweak the law. They manipulate how people perceive law and things like that. And every time we get closer to the goal, they move the goalpost on us. They say, well, the law has changed. It used to be that way, but now it's changed. It's no longer that way. Now Wilmer Leon (46:38): The First Amendment doesn't matter anymore. Doesn't Chairman Omali Yeshitela (46:41): Matter anymore. Doesn't matter. There's, Wilmer Leon (46:44): As we wrap this up, what are the three most important things? First of all, there's going to be a rally. There's a rally coming up very shortly. Your sentencing is coming up very shortly. What are the three most salient things you want this audience to take away from this conversation today? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (47:04): Thank you very much. I really would like to win people to come to Washington, DC for the Black is Back coalition mobilization. That's going to happen along with support partnership with the hands off of Rural committee. We still fighting this conspiracy charge and what have you. That's going to be on the 16th annual mobilization, Black People's March. But this Black People's March is going to be an anti-colonial march that will see leadership coming from Palestinians, from Africans, Mexicans, Filipinos, you name it. The people coming together. And for white people who can unite with the rights of black people to have free speech and self-determination. So that's on November 2nd, go to black is back coalition.org. Black is back coalition.org for more information on that. On November 25th, we are going to be sentenced and we are going to be in Tampa, Florida for that at the Federal Courthouse. (48:09): And I'm really calling on everybody, all of you who were able to put off things and put on your calendar coming to the trial. And some people came several times to the trial, believe it or not, no matter of few days, people like Pam Africa and Cam Howard and others, they came several times to the trial. And we want you to come there because we think it's really important for the court to continue to see that the people recognize the significance of what we do and what we stand for. And then finally, we are engaging. And so to get more information on that, go to HANDS-OFF-UHURU, U-H-U-R-U.org. And then finally, what we are involved in is a letter writing campaign. We are asking people to write letters. This is pre-sentence stuff. So some of this is letters that we want to affect the sentence that's going to be handed out on November 25th, which could be as extreme as five years in prison. (49:18): And so we want people to write letters, and you can get more information on that by going to hands off uru.org and continue to support the work that we do because the final analysis, they attacked us because we've been effective in neutralizing or minimizing to some extent the colonial impact in our communities, the economic development programs that we've initiated and things like that. So continue to support us. And again, go to hands off ulu.org. Go to black as black coalition.org, and you can, that will get you everywhere. I'm not going to try to throw out anymore. Yeah. Wilmer Leon (50:01): Chairman Omali Yeshitela co-founder and current Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party, which leads the movement. I want to thank you for your work. I want to thank you for your commitment to our people, and thank you for being a guest on my show today, Chairman Omali Yeshitela (50:18): Dr. Leon, I will not be able to overstate the significance of being here with you and the work that you do and helping the world to see when the corporate and colonial media does do everything they can to keep us invisible. This is extraordinarily important. I think the victories we have up to now are do in part to your ability to keep us linked to the people. Thank you so much. Wilmer Leon (50:42): Well, thank you again, sir. I greatly, greatly appreciate it. I want to thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for 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. And remember, folks, that 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: Uhuru - Uhuru - Uhuru... Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (51:32): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

If you're wondering which house in Terre Haute, Indiana has the most followers on Twitter, I think it's safe to say it's the one on N. 8th Street, surrounded by Indiana State University parking lots, just south of the marching band's practice fields.  It's the Eugene V. Debs museum. Long before it was a museum, it was the home of Eugene V. and Kate Debs.A hundred years ago, Eugene Debs was the most famous socialist in the U.S. He was the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party's first five attempts, which suggests how well he did on that front. The last time he ran, he was in prison. He got 6 percent of the vote. At the time, it seemed not bad for a convict.Now it's a museum, dedicated to the memory of the most popular American socialists before Bernie Sanders, and, along with Larry Bird, who got his start playing basketball for ISU, one of Terre Haute's most famous sons.The museum is run, as it should be, by one of Debs's biggest fans. Allison Duerk started giving tours of the house in college, and, just as she was graduating and looking for her first job, the Debs Museum opened up a search for a new director. She's been there ever since.This episode is about Eugene Debs and Allison Duerk. They've got some parallels. It's also about what makes a person devote their career to a house, and a man who died almost a century ago.

Voting in the 2024 presidential election is about the begin, but controversy over counting the ballots of two independent candidates - Cornell West and Socialist Party candidate De la Cruz - remains unresolved.On today's episode of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Politically Georgia podcast, host Bill Nigut is joined by deputy secretary of state Jordan to discuss that and other issues surrounding the election.  Then, AJC elections reporter Mark Niesse continues the conversation about the upcoming election. And Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander discusses the star-studded celebration in music of Jimmy Carter's upcoming 100th birthday, and gives her take on President Carter's legacy.    Links to today's topics:   Want to vote in Georgia? National Voter Registration Day is today Votes for Cornell West & Claudia De la Cruz will count - for now Why Tim Walz is visiting Georgia today JD Vance blames "ridiculous" political rhetoric for Trump assassination attempt Fox Theater celebration in music of Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday  Musicians share stories about Jimmy Carter ahead of birthday concert Here are Georgia events planned to mark Carter 100th birthday   Have a question or comment for the show? Call the 24-hour Politically Georgia Podcast Hotline at 770-810-5297. We'll play back your question and answer it during the listener mailbag segment on next Friday's episode.   Listen and subscribe to our podcast for free at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also tell your smart speaker to “play Politically Georgia podcast.”         Credits  Executive producer- Shane Backler Producer- Natalie Mendenhall  Engineer- Shane Backler  Editor- Matt Owen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1919, the Supreme Court of the United States voted unanimously to uphold the conviction of Socialist Party activists whose only crime was distributing a pamphlet critical of conscription during American participation in the First World War, even though the pamphlet did not advocate any lawbreaking -- not even civil disobedience. Links Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon Check out CJ's Patreon shop to buy his Dangerous History of the US Dollar collection (more collections of older series & episodes to come) Come meet CJ & see him speak at the Oct. 2024 Self Reliance Fest in Camden, TN Other ways to support the show Subscribe to the Dangerous History Podcast Youtube Channel Get CJ's Dangerous American History Bibliography FREE Hire CJ to speak to your group or at your event Like this episode? You can throw CJ a $ tip via Paypal here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=D6VUYSYQ4EU6L

In April 2023, the U.S. government indicted 82-year-old African People's Socialist Party chairman  Omali Yeshitela, as well as Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel — together known as the Uhuru 3 — on charges of “failing to register as foreign agents,” merely for expressing their views on Ukraine. The indictment followed the FBI's July 29, 2022, raid on Yeshitela's home and several other homes and offices of Uhuru solidarity movement leaders with flashbang grenades and assault weapons.   Jimmy speaks with Yeshitela about the FBI raid on his home, the government's case against the Uhuru 3 and why the group has been so aggressively targeted.   Plus a segment with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Chris Hedges about his recent bout with censorship by TikTok over his criticism of Kamala Harris.

133. Trade Union Congress 2024 If the trade unions were to take the first steps towards building a political alternative it could rapidly build into a mass force to challenge Labour, the populist and far right, and to fight for the socialist change we need. So far, the union leaders have stubbornly resisted such an initiative. But in this changed political landscape, more and more workers will inevitably come into direct conflict with Starmer's pro-capitalist government as it is compelled to attack them under the impact of economic crisis. Even those union leaders who are today buying into and sowing the illusions of Labour being the workers' friend will find it difficult to resist the impact of the stormy events to come. In this Episode of the podcast, Rob Williams, the socialist party's industrial organiser, discusses the upcoming Trade Union Congress which is taking place on the 8th-11th September in Brighton and what industrial and political strategy the Socialist Party is putting forward within the workers movement. To contact the Socialist Party about this podcast or to find out about becoming a member visit: www.socialistparty.org.uk Check out the Committee for a workers International, for analysis of world events, and for those listening in other parts of the world, get in touch to join the fight for socialism in your country, that's www.socialistworld.net Further reading Trade unions must fight New Labour austerity As things stand, Reeves is planning a ‘blood and tears' budget on 30 October. No extra money for local councils facing ‘bankruptcy' – sacking more workers and decimating more libraries, children's centres and other services. Nothing to resolve the crisis in the universities. Forcing more children into poverty by refusing to scrap the two-child benefit cap. The horror list goes on. But the message that union leaders should be taking from the first few weeks of this Labour government is that when working-class people organise and fight back through strike action they can win. If given a determined lead, workers in the public sector will be confident that they can fight to win increases that go much further towards restoring what they lost under austerity, while defending public services for everyone. https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/129342/28-08-2024/trade-unions-must-fight-new-labour-austerity/ The first lightning flashes – and what to do The summer riots have brought a new immediacy to the task facing the workers' movement of building a new, mass vehicle for its political representation, and the debate on the way to achieve this must be urgently stepped up. But to put things in proportion, just weeks into the new situation of a Starmer premiership, they are but the first lightning flashes of the wild and stormy weather to come which will further enormously develop the conditions needed to realise the goal. https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/129342/28-08-2024/trade-unions-must-fight-new-labour-austerity/

Today's Daily Friend Show with Terence Corrigan, Nicholas Lorimer and Chris Hattingh. They discuss a tweet from ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula that claims the ANC is neither a capitalist or socialist party. They also discuss the failure of so many land reform projects and political party funding. Subscribe on Google Podcasts · Subscribe on Apple Podcasts · Subscribe on Spotify · Website · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter

Get ready for a game-changing episode of Connecting the Dots! Dr. Wilmer Leon and Caleb Maupin dive into the seismic shifts happening worldwide—where the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower and what that means for our future. They explore a growing movement challenging America's global influence and break down what the 2024 election could mean for the future of U.S. politics. If you care about where our country is headed, this is a must-listen. Don't miss out on insights that could change how you see the world!     Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links to find @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!   Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!   Wilmer Leon (00:00:00): As we are living through a pivotal moment in world history, the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world, anti-imperialism is at the core of this global movement as the US is at the center of this global shift. How did anti imperialism take hold in the us? Let's find out Announcer (00:00:27): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:00:35): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am 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 historical context in which these events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historical context in which they take place. This enables 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, the issues before us, are the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world. How is this happening and what does it mean? As well as the developing 2024 US presidential political landscape to help me work through these issues. Let's turn to my guest. He's an author, independent journalist, political analyst and reporter for RT, and his latest book is entitled “Out of the Movement to the Masses, Anti-Imperialist Organizing in America”. And he's also the author of Kamala Harris and The Future of America, an essay in Three Parts. He is Caleb Maupin, my brother. Welcome back! Caleb Maupin (00:01:53): Sure. Glad to be here. Wilmer Leon (00:01:55): So first of all, your thoughts on my introduction, is that a hyperbole or is that a fairly accurate description of the dynamics that we find ourselves dealing with? Caleb Maupin (00:02:13): Trying to stop the rise of a multipolar world would be a lot like trying to stop the sun from rising in the morning, maybe trying to stop gravity. That's the way the world is moving. But our leaders are committed to trying to keep the world centered around Wall Street and London and they are going to fail. The question is how much of a cost in terms of human lives, in terms of the economy, in terms of political repression, are we going to have to endure before they come to the terms of reality, which is that we're going to have a world where there are other centers of power and countries trade with each other on a different basis. So I would agree with you, Wilmer Leon (00:02:54): And so as we look at this changing dynamic from the unipolar to the multipolar, we've got China, we have Russia, we have India. There are a number of countries that over the years have been targets of American sanctions, regimes and all other types of pressure from the United States. With all of that or from all of that, we now have the rise of the BRICS nations, we've got Brazil, we've got Russia, we've got India, we've got China, we've got South Africa, and now what about how many, I've lost track now about 15 or 17 other countries that have joined this organization, this economic organization, which also seems to be an anti imperialist organization. Caleb Maupin (00:03:49): Sure. I mean, if you understand imperialism in the economic sense, imperialism is a system rather than a policy, right? Kind of layman's terms imperialism is when one country is mean to another country or attacks another country. But we're referring specifically to imperialism as an economic system when the world is centered around financial institutions, trusts, cartels and syndicates centered in the Western countries that dominate the world through the export of capital, sending their corporations all over the world to dominate the economies of developing countries, to hold back economic development, to keep countries as captive markets and spheres of influence. That process whereby countries are prevented from lifting themselves up, from electrifying, from building modern education systems, developing modern industries, developing their own economies, and just kind of used to dump the excess commodities of Western countries and have their economy dominated by a foreign country and a foreign monopolies and big corporations from another country from the west. (00:04:55): That process refers to, that's what I mean when I say imperialism. I'm referring to a global economic setup, and that economic setup is on its way out. And that's been pretty clear and a lot has gone on, went on in the 20th century to kind of erode imperialism. And in the 21st century, imperialism continues to be in the decline, and there is this new economy rising around the world, centered around the two U superpowers, Russia and China. They are kind of at the center, the linchpin of a global network of countries, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba. But then there's even other countries that are willing to trade and are kind of on the one hand friendly to the United States, but on the other hand are happy to work with Russia or China if they give them a better deal. The shape of global politics is changing, the world is changing, and this is just something we need to embrace. The world is not going to be centered around the West as it was for so long during the age of colonialism and sense. Wilmer Leon (00:05:54): In fact, what we're finding out is that on the 27th and the 28th of August, Moscow is hosting the sixth annual, the sixth International Municipal BRICS Forum. And what might surprise a lot of people is there are delegations from 126 countries that are expected to take part, more than 5,000 participants from 500 cities around the world. This isn't getting very much attention or coverage here in the western media, but folks need to understand, as we talked about the shift from the unipolar to the multipolar, this is a perfect example of that shift isn't happening, that shift HAS happened. Caleb Maupin (00:06:45): Sure. When I was at the Valdi Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia in the mountains near the city, I saw Ael Togi, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and he pointed out that in the Eurasian subcontinent and outside of the Western countries, this is like a golden era. The amount of electrification that's going on, the amount of roads and railways that are being constructed, I mean, there is a whole exploding new economy happening in the world. And I saw that when I was at the Yalta Economic Forum in Crimea in 2018, and other people have seen it when they go to the Vladi Stock Economic Forum in the Russian Far East. People have seen it with the Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that China is building. There is this whole new economy in the world now that is focused on development and growth, building power plants, building schools, building universities, building hospitals, and it's a really, really big part of the global economy. And our leaders are being very foolish by trying to just barricade it and blockade it and oppose it because they're locking the United States out of that economic growth. When somebody's growing economically, they have more money to spend, they have more products they can buy, and we could be benefiting from this new economy that's rising, but instead, our Western leaders are committed to maintaining their monopoly at all costs. And so we are getting locked out of an explosion of growth. It's just a very, very mistaken approach. Wilmer Leon (00:08:18): And I want to, with that intro shift to shift to your book out of the movement to the masses, anti-imperialist organizing in America, because as I said in the intro, one of the major elements I believe of this shift from the unipolar to the multipolar is anti imperialism. And you write in the second paragraph of your introduction, what made the Communist party USA important was that it was the first anti-imperialist organization to take hold in the country. There were certainly anti-war organizations such as Mark Twain's, anti-Imperialist League. There had been pacifists and socialists like Eugene Debs, who opposed War on a Class basis, but the Communist party of USA was founded on the ideological breakthroughs of the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia specifically the teachings of Vladimir Lenin. So I wanted to use this book out of the Movement to the Masses, which is a textbook, and wanted to start the conversation with what motivated you to write this book and what motivated you to write this as a textbook? Caleb Maupin (00:09:33): Well, it's important to understand that I think the ultimate interest of we the American people is in a society free from imperialism. I don't think that helping ExxonMobil and BP and Shell and Chevron dominate the global oil markets really benefits American working people in the long run. There might be some short-term bonuses, but those things are fading and that there is a long Wilmer Leon (00:09:57): Short-term bonuses such as, Caleb Maupin (00:09:59): Well, we've had a higher standard of living at least in the past, but that standard of living is in decline, and the future of the United States is not in this decaying western financial system. It's in a new order where we're trading with countries on the basis of win-win cooperation. And the reason I wrote the textbook is because I wanted people to be aware of the fact that there has been a strong anti-imperialist movement in this country, and that we can learn from these struggles of the past and these organizations that existed and what they achieved as we figure out in our time how we can build an anti-imperialist movement to rescue our country from the nightmare of the emerging low wage police state and the drive toward World War iii. And I mean, really, you don't have anti imperialism as we understand it, right? You don't have the rise of Russia and China. (00:10:50): You don't have the bricks. You don't have any of that without the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. That was a pivotal moment. That was a country that broke out of the Western imperialist system during World War I and started on an independent course of development. And it came out of the Bolshevik started out as part of the Marxist movement. Marxism was the ideology of the labor movement, right? The worker versus the employer. But there was a division in the labor movement increasingly between wealthy labor union bosses and higher paid skilled trade jobs that increasingly became supporters of empire and supporters of their country, colonizing countries in Africa and countries in Asia, et cetera. And the lower levels of the labor movement of more oppressed workers, the American Federation of Labor, the A FL was the big labor federation in the United States. And the people who started it, like Samuel Goer's, they were socialists or Marxists, but they were not anti-imperialist. (00:11:55): And by the time World War I came along, the A FL was a union that largely was for whites only. Most of the unions that were part of it banned black people from joining, banned people not born in the United States from joining, banned people who did not speak English as their first language from joining. And they were big supporters of World War I when it happened. And there was a divide in the labor movement and Marxism that had been the ideology of the labor movement got very much divided. And you had parties like the British Labor Party, the ruling party of Britain today. It originated as a Marxist party of labor organizers, but it became a pro imperialist party. Well, Bolshevism and the people who took power in Russia, the Bolsheviks, they were a breakaway from the Marxist movement that had developed this new theory of imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. (00:12:48): And they said, we're not just fighting against regular capitalism. We're fighting against the monopolistic capitalism of Britain and France and Germany and America, and that means that we support nations, right? Originally, Marxists and the labor movement said, there are no nations workers of the world unite. It's just the workers versus the bosses. No borderers in our struggle. Well, Lenin says, actually, we do support nations in their fight against imperialism. And after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, one of the first things they did is they called a conference in Baku in Azerbaijan. And at that conference, they invited all kinds of people from all over the world and they said, we will support you as long as you're fighting imperialism. And one of the people that came to that conference and was given military support by the Bolsheviks was the Amir of Afghanistan. And the Amir of Afghanistan was a conservative monarchist. (00:13:40): He was not a Marxist, not a socialist of any stripe. He was a conservative monarchist, a very conservative Muslim, but the Bolshevik said, you're fighting imperialism and so and so, we support you. And he gave them support. And many people around the world were inspired by the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist message that the Bolsheviks had, which was kind of a breakaway from the standard Marxist movement. The understanding was we're not just fighting capitalism, we're fighting against imperialism, and we support nations and colonized people of all different classes, workers, capitalists, whoever who are struggling against imperialism. That is the basis of this new movement that we are trying to build. And the Communist Party of the United States was the incarnation of that movement, and that's why it was embraced by many different sections of the population, most especially the black community in America, because they viewed black people as a colonized people, an oppressed nation within US borders. Marcus Garvey had been leading the black nationalist movement in the United States, the Back to African movement, and many black people saw African-Americans as a colonized people within the US borders. And the Communist Party agreed with that, and that was a winning point that they had with many people in the United States. And the Communist Party was supportive of anyone around the world who was struggling against British American or French imperialism. Wilmer Leon (00:15:04): And as we look at that history and we bring it forward to the current moment and the Russia phobia that we find ourselves subjected to, I submit, and please if I'm wrong, correct me that one of the things that's at the crux of this Russia phobia is the fact that America is an imperialist nation and a neo-colonial power, and Russia has the Soviet Union and then into Russia has been anti-colonialism, which is one of the reasons why we find now Russia gaining so much traction with countries on the continent of Africa. Caleb Maupin (00:15:53): Well, I got to tell you, just a few weeks after the special military operation in Russia began a couple of years ago, I was in New York City with Tanner, 15 of my friends, and we were marching around with American flags and Russian flags chanting, Russia is not our enemy, Russia is not our enemy. And we chanted this in Union Square, and then we went up to Grand Central Station, we marched around Grand Central Station chanting that, and while we were doing that, we got thumbs up from a lot of different people. Now, many people did not agree with us, but the people who did give us thumbs up, many of them were people that were not from the United States. New York City is a big international center. You have the United Nations that's there. You have Wall Street that's there. And I would say the majority of the people who gave us thumbs up and gave us support were from the continent of Africa. (00:16:40): They were people from West Africa, from Nigeria. They were people from South Africa. And that the economy of Africa is very tied in with the Russian economy, and Russia provides fertilizer to many countries. Russia has partnerships with many countries to help them develop their state run mining industries or their state run oil and natural gas industries. So support for Russia on the African continent is widespread. Now, this doesn't match the narrative of liberals. Liberals would have us believe that Russia is a white supremacist country, and that's why they rigged the elections in 2016 to get white supremacist. Donald Trump elected, and that just does not match reality. The Soviet Union, which modern Russia is built on the foundations of the Soviet Union, was the best friend of anti-colonial and liberation movements on the African continent, and those relationships still exist. When I was in Russia, I sat down with people from various African countries. (00:17:43): I sat down with people from Namibia. Well, the ruling party of Namibia is the Southwest People's Organization, which was a Soviet aligned, Soviet funded organization that fought for Namibia to become independent. The ruling party of South Africa, the African National Congress was armed and funded by the Soviet Union. If you go to Ghana, the man who created modern Ghana was Kwame Nkrumah, who was a big friend of the Soviet Union and was called himself an African socialist and developed his own interpretation of the Marxist philosophy that was specific to the African continent. I mean, there was Julius Nire, there was Gaddafi who built Libya into the most prosperous country on the African continent. There are just so many examples of how Russia is intimately tied in with the struggle against colonialism on the African continent with the struggle of African countries to pursue their own course of development. (00:18:43): And that is rooted in the foundation of the Bolshevik Revolution. And the Bolshevik ideology, which I will emphasize was a break with the standard Marxist view. Marx himself, he believed that the first communist revolution would happen in Germany, and it would be the European countries that had the communist revolution first because they were the most advanced. And it was Lenin who came along and said, well, actually, that's wrong. The center of revolutionary energy is going to be in the colonized and oppressed countries of the world. And the working class in the imperialist homeland is largely being bought off, and it's going to be the division between what we now some academics talk about the global north and the global south. It's going to be that division that brings socialism into the world. And that is kind of the defining aspect of what Lenin taught. And as much as the global anti-imperialist movement is not explicitly Marxist Leninist in the Soviet sense, they don't exactly follow that Soviet ideology. That understanding of imperialism and what happened in the 20th century with the Soviet Union, with later the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese revolution, the Cuban Revolution, all of that laid the basis for what exists today. And that understanding is important, and that's why I wrote this textbook. Wilmer Leon (00:19:55): And to your point about all of these myths and stories and fictions about Russia being involved in our election and all of this other foolishness, mark Zuckerberg just wrote a letter to Jim Jordan saying that he apologizes for having purged stories from Facebook regarding the Hunter Biden laptop and some of the other stories, because he has now come to understand that that whole narrative was not Russian propaganda as the FBI had told him, he now has come to understand that those stories are true. And I bring that up just as one data point to demonstrate how so much of this rhetoric that we've been hearing, so much of this propaganda that we've been hearing about China being involved in our elections and Russia being involved in our elections, and Iran, mark Zuckerberg, the head of Facebook, just sent a letter to Jim Jordan laying all this out, that it was bs. It was a fiction created by the FBI, Caleb Moin. Caleb Maupin (00:21:14): Well, we've been through this before, right after the Russian Revolution, just a few years later in London, in Britain, there was a scandal called the Enovia of letter. And the British people were told, oh my goodness, the Russians are meddling in our elections. They're trying to get the Labor Party to win the election. And Lloyd George, who was the conservative military leader, was playing up the idea that the Labor Party was being funded and supported by Russia, and they held up this piece of paper they said was the smoking gun. It was the proof, the Enovia letter, this letter supposedly from the Russian government official of Enovia to the Labor Party. Well, it was later proven to be a complete hoax. It was fake, right? But that was happening back in the 1920s. And we've been through this over and over and over again. When Henry Wallace ran for president, he was the vice president under Roosevelt, and then when Truman was president, he ran against the Democrats as they became a pro-war party, the party that was leading us into the Korean War, et cetera. (00:22:12): He ran as an independent candidate in 1948, and they acclaimed his campaign was a big Russian conspiracy, and it was a communist conspiracy. There's a whole history of this and the FBI, if you look at the number of investigations they've done into supposed Russian influence in American elections, it's endless, but it's always a hoax, right? American elections happen because of events in America, not because of Russia. However, there is no question that many people in the United States do want peace, and they do want peace with the Soviet Union or with modern Russia, and they may vote for candidates who they think are more likely to bring about that peace, but that's not a conspiracy. That's doing what you're supposed to be able to do in a democracy expressing yourself at the ballot box. And what they're really worried about is Americans thinking wrong. They're really worried about not having a monopoly over the information that we receive. They're really worried about us questioning what we're told and not marching in lockstep behind their agenda of war and dividing the world into blocks and isolating certain countries. And this story has happened over and over and over again in American politics. We've been through it so many times. Wilmer Leon (00:23:25): Final point on this, I don't want to get back to the book. As you just said, events happen in American elections due to America. Well, all of this chicken little, the sky is falling and the world is interfering in our elections. Well, there was a story in the New York Times about what, three months ago, about APAC spending $100 million to unseat what they consider to be left-leaning Democrats, whose position on Israel was not consistent with the Zionist ideology. I'm going to say that again. This was in the New York Times. I'm not making this up. This is an anti-Semitic dialogue. It was in New York Times APAC spending $100 million on primary campaigns to remove Democrats that they consider to be anti-Israeli. What happened in New York with Jamal Bowman? That's what happened in Missouri with, what's her name? I think she's in St. Louis, the Congresswoman. I'm drawing a blank on her. Anyway, and they were successful in a number of campaigns. So we're running around chasing ghosts, chasing Russian ghosts, and Chinese ghosts when the real culprits are telling you right upfront in the New York Times what it is they're doing and why it is they're doing it. With that being said, you can either respond to that or how did you organize your textbook and why is it organized in the manner in which it is? Caleb Maupin (00:25:16): Well, I went over like case studies of three different anti-imperialist movements or organizations in the United States. I started with probably the most successful, which was the Communist Party of the United States, which at one point had a huge amount of influence During the Roosevelt administration, they entered an alliance with Roosevelt, and in the late 1930s, the Communist party controlled two of the city council seats in New York City. They had a very close ally in the US Congress representing Harlem named Veto Mark Antonio. They also had a member of Congress in Minnesota who was their friend and ally and read their newspaper into the congressional record. They had meetings at the White House with President Roosevelt. On multiple occasions, members of the Communist Party or the Young Communist League were brought to the White House to meet with Roosevelt, and they led the CIO, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which was a new labor federation they had created as an alternative to the American Federation of Labor. (00:26:14): And they were a very influential group in the labor movement among intellectuals in Hollywood. And they put forward an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist message, and their successes are worth studying. There were certainly mistakes that were made, and they were very brutally crushed by the FBI in the aftermath of the Second World War with the rise of McCarthyism. But there were studying then from there, I talked about the Workers' World Party, which was a Marxist Leninist political party that really came into prominence in the late sixties and really kind of peaked in its influence during the 1980s. And they were a party that took inspiration, not just from the Soviet Union, but from the wave of anti-colonial movements that emerged. They were sympathetic to Libya and Gaddafi. They were sympathetic to North Korea and others, and they did a lot of very important anti-war organizing, building anti-war coalitions. They were very close to Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney General who left the Lyndon Johnson administration and became an international lawyer and an opponent of the International Criminal Court in his final years and such. (00:27:17): And then I talked about the new communist movement of the 1970s, which was a number of different organizations that emerged during the 1970s that were trying to take inspiration from China. They wanted to take guidance from the Chinese revolution. China had argued that the Soviet Union had kind of abandoned the global anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle. They felt it was holding back revolutionary forces, but China was at that point presenting itself as a bastion of anti imperialism. And so there were a number of new political parties formed during the 1970s that modeled themselves on China. And all three of these case studies, all three of these groups made big mistakes, but also had big successes. The most successful was the Communist Party prior to it being crushed by the FBI during the McCarthy period. All of them had big successes and were able to do big important things, and I studied all of them. (00:28:08): And then from there, the fourth chapter talked about divisions in the ruling class, and why is it that we see, at this point, we're seeing a big all-out fight between Donald Trump and those who oppose him. And when you talk about the Watergate scandal and you talk about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, what was really going on behind closed doors? And then in the final chapter, I tried to kind of take from all of that what we could take and what we could learn when trying to build a movement in our time. One thing I made a point of doing in the book is that every chapter is accompanied by a number of original texts from the period discussed. I have a number of texts from the Communist Party, from the Workers' World Party, from the new communist movement of the 1970s, so that we can hear from the horse's mouth, so to speak, what these people were preaching and what they believed as they were building their organizations. Wilmer Leon (00:29:01): So how does this history, how relevant is this history you just mentioned Donald Trump? How relevant is this history to where we find ourselves today with our politics? Caleb Maupin (00:29:15): I would argue it's extremely relevant. And if you look at Roosevelt and who opposed him, and if you look at the Kennedy assassination, and if you look at the Watergate scandal, there has always been a divide among the American elite between what you can call the Eastern establishment, the ultra rich, the ultra monopolies, the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, the Carnegies that are now at this point aligned with Silicon Valley, the tech monopolies, bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and others. There's always been a divide between these entrenched ultra monopolies and a lot of lower level rich people who are not part of the club and feel that those entrenched monopolies are kind of rigging things against 'em. And I quote, there's a very good text called the Anglo-American Establishment by Carol Quigley that talks about this divide. I think he was one of the first people to talk about it. (00:30:06): But then from there, you also have a great book by Carl Oglesby called The Yankee and Cowboy War that talks about this and specifically applies that analysis to what went on with the Watergate scandal, with the assassination of JFK and the political crisis in the 1960s and seventies. And I would argue that in our time, this is the fight that kind of defines things when we talk about trying to build a movement against colonialism and imperialism in the United States, these lower level capitalists would gain if America had paved roads, if America had a stronger economy, and if we were doing business with the countries around the world that are growing right now in alliance with China, right? If we were trading with them and some of that wealth was flowing into our economy, we would be benefiting. However, it is the ultra monopolies that are very much tied in with the intelligence apparatus, the people who brought us, Henry Kissinger, the people who brought us z, big new Brozinsky. (00:31:01): They are determined to keep the United States at the top and keep Western imperialist this financial system at the top of the world at all costs, even if that means kind of playing a long geopolitical game and if it means dramatically decreasing the standard of living and kind of collapsing the domestic economy of the United States. And so when Trump talks about America first and his supporters rail against globalists, this is really what they're getting at is the lower levels of capital are fighting against the Eastern establishment. And that creates an opening for those of us who want to build an anti-imperialist movement in this country to intervene. And I talk about that, and unfortunately, it seems like really since the 1970s and since kind of the end of the 1960s and seventies, political upsurge, much of the left has kind of just deteriorated into being the foot soldiers of that Eastern establishment. (00:31:56): They see those lower level capitalists as being the most hawkish and warlike as being the most anti-union and the most authoritarian. So they think, okay, we're going to align with the Eastern establishment against them. And I argue that that's not the correct approach because right now it is those lower level capitalists who feel threatened, and it is among them that you found support for Julian Assange that you find interest in being friendly with Russia and with China and anti-establishment sentiment, you find opposition to the tech monopolies and their censorship. And that really we're in a period where those of us who are anti-imperialist need to pivot into trying to build an anti-monopoly coalition. And that's what the Communist Party talked about at the end of the Second War as the Cold War got going, as they were being crushed by the FBI, they said their goal was to build an anti-monopoly coalition to unite with the working class, the small business owners, even some of the wealthy against the big monopolies in their drive for war. (00:32:54): And I would argue that's what we should be aiming to do in our time, is build an anti-monopoly coalition. And that's what I've pulled from that textbook and from that history going over what has been done and what has been successful and that the Communist Party really gained from having an alliance with Roosevelt that was very strategic on their part. And I would argue that similar alliances are necessary, but the main thing is that there needs to be a network of people that are committed to building anti-imperialist politics in America. We need a network of people who can work together, who can rely on each other and can effectively carry out anti-imperialist operations. And there are examples of this. I'm about to go to Florida to support the Yahoo movement, the Yahoo movement, the African People Socialist party. They are an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist organization, and they're doing it. And if you go to St. Louis, Missouri, and if you go to St. Petersburg, Florida, Wilmer Leon (00:33:50): Who, Cory Bush, I'm sorry, her name you said St. Louis, Cory Bush, sorry, is the other congresswoman that was defeated by the, sorry, I had to get it out. Go ahead. Okay. Caleb Maupin (00:34:01): But you'll see the huge community centers that they've built, the farmer's markets that they've built, I mean, they have built a base among the African-American community in these two cities where they are providing services to people while teaching an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist ideology. Now, I don't necessarily agree with their entire approach on everything, but I see why they're being targeted because they are laying the foundations of building a broader anti-imperialist movement. And what they are doing is a great model to look at. They are building a base among the population. The title of the book is Out of the Movement to the Masses. I've been going to anti-war protests, and I've been going to socialist and communist spaces, and very rarely did I ever encounter the African People's Socialist Party, but they were organizing where it counted not in these kind of obscure academic bohemian spaces. (00:34:54): They were organizing in communities and they were providing real services, and they were building community centers and having classes for pregnant mothers and having organic farmer's markets. And they were doing things among the masses of people, not among the, so-called movements of people that like to read books about communism or whatever. And that is why they're being targeted, because they are actually building the kind of movement that needs to be done. They're doing what the Communist Party did during the 1930s. They're doing what the new communist movement of the 1970s attempted to do and was pretty unsuccessful because of global circumstances, et cetera. They are doing what needs to be done to build a real anticolonial movement. And that's kind of what I'm in the text is we have to have a reevaluation and we have to figure out how we can reach the bulk of the American people and not confine ourselves to kind of left academic and intellectual spaces. Wilmer Leon (00:35:50): Is it too simplistic to, when you look at this battle between the elites, is it too simplistic to categorize it as the financials versus the industrialists? Caleb Maupin (00:36:01): Yes. It's a little bit too simplistic because there is a lot of financialization, a lot of the lower levels Wilmer Leon (00:36:07): Of capital. Caleb Maupin (00:36:09): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not exactly right, but you're pointing to a certain trend that there is one faction that favors economic growth because economic growth will mean more money for them. There's another faction that is not concerned about economic growth so much as they're concerned about maintaining their monopoly. And in order to maintain their monopoly, they need to slow down growth around the world, and they're actually pushing degrowth or slow growth economics. So that's probably the primary divide is pro-growth and anti-growth, right? You would think that every businessman would be pro-growth, but the ultra monopolies that are heavily involved in finance at this point, they're blatantly talking about degrowth as a way to stay at the top. Wilmer Leon (00:36:51): In fact, one of the ways that they maintain their position is through consolidation. One of the ways that the banks control their monopoly is by buying smaller banks and bringing the or. So that's just one example. Caleb Maupin (00:37:10): Sure, sure. I mean, we live in a time where at the end of the day, the issue is technology is that it is human labor that creates all wealth, right? It is only human labor that creates value at the end of the day, and it is the value that workers create that lays the basis for the profits that capitalists can make, et cetera. And we are in a period where the technological revolution is reducing the role of workers at the assembly line. There's a lot of jobs that are no longer in existence because of technological advancement. And in a rational society that would be great. But in our society where profits are in command, that's leading to an economic crisis. Great example is self-driving cars, self-driving cars should be a great thing. It should be great that this job called driving this chore, this human labor of driving cars is no longer necessary. (00:38:02): But if they introduce self-driving cars, you would immediately in this country have millions of truck drivers unemployed, millions of Uber drivers unemployed, millions of traffic court employees unemployed. You would have riots in the streets. And Andrew Yang talked about how if self-driving cars came to the United States, we would have a society-wide crisis of unemployment and chaos like we never seen. How is that rational? Why should technological advancement lead to greater poverty? And that is the problem that we are facing. Human creativity and brilliance has outstripped the narrow limits production organized to make profit. We need a rationally planned economy so that economic growth can continue and technological advancement leads to greater prosperity for all Wilmer Leon (00:38:46): That sounds like China. Caleb Maupin (00:38:47): Yeah. And China, by controlling their economy and by having the state assigned credit based on their five-year plans and having state controlled tech corporations that are in line with the Communist party's vision, they're able to continue having growth despite having technological advancement. And that's ultimately what we need to have. And that is what Marx wrote about. One of the writers I quote extensively from is a brilliant thinker from the new communist movement named Nelson Peery and his autobiography, black Radical, which is very good, talks about his involvement in the Communist Party and then getting kicked out of the Communist Party and FBI infiltration of the Communist Party and then starting the Communist Labor Party during the 1970s. But also his very important book that he published before he died, I believe in 2004, called The Future Is Up To Us, which really gets into this contradiction of technology leading to impoverishment. (00:39:42): And he's saying this like during the Bush administration before ai, before any of what we're saying now he's laying out how this is going to lead to a big economic crisis that's going to necessitate a new economic system. Nelson Period is a brilliant thinker who had this kind of understanding. I also draw from Fred Goldstein, from Sam Marcy from some of the other writers who said the same thing. But this has always been kind of the understanding is that technological advancement should not lead to impoverishment, it should lead to greater prosperity. I often quote, there's an old story called the coal miner's riddle, the coal miner. He's sitting in his house with his son. The son says, father, why is it so cold in the house? And he says, because I can't afford to buy any coal. And he says, well, why can't we afford to buy any coal? (00:40:30): And he says, because I lost my job at the coal mine. I was laid off. And he says, father, why were you laid off from the coal mine? Why did you lose your job? He says, because there is too much coal. That's capitalism, but that's not rational. It's poverty created by abundance. I keep hearing our politicians talk about a housing shortage. Have you heard this? A housing shortage in America, there's no housing shortage. I live in New York City, there's four empty apartments for every homeless person. There's millions of empty housing, there's no housing shortage in America. There's a shortage of affordable housing black, because the national economic system, Wilmer Leon (00:41:06): BlackRock bought up a lot of the housing stock and instead of putting those houses back on the market, they held those homes off the market and then put 'em out for rent. So in many instances, it's not a matter of oh, $25,000 credit to those first time home buyers allegedly to lower the price of housing or to make housing more affordable. No, all that's going to do is raise the price of houses by $25,000. What you need to do is get that housing stock that BlackRock has as bought up and put that on the market, make that available. Because if you look at the Econ 1 0 1 supply and demand, you put more houses on the market, chances are the price of houses is going to decline. Caleb Maupin (00:42:02): Absolutely. Absolutely. When we talk about imperialism and we talk about anti-imperialist movements, one great example is the situation with Yemen, right? Yemen right now, this is one of the poorest countries in the world, and right now, this country that has a big movement called the Houthis or Anah, they're shaking the world. But if you go and listen or read the sermons or the founder of the Houthis movement, Hussein Al Houthis, what he's fighting for is economic development because he points out that Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, but yet it has a huge amount of oil. It has a huge amount of arable land to grow food, but the people there are very, very poor. And the Houthis movement that is now at this point, stopping ships in the Mediterranean and standing with the Palestinians and sending drones to the Indian Ocean and just shaking the world. (00:42:56): That was a movement of very, very poor people in one of the poorest countries in the world that demanding to take control of their natural resources and take control of their economy. My understanding of imperialism and such very much had a lot to do with the fact that in 2015, I participated in a humanitarian mission attempting to deliver medical aid to Yemen after the upsurge of 2015 when the Houthis movement and their revolutionary committee took power, I went on a ship from the Islamic Republic of Iran with the Red Crescent Society, and we tried to deliver medical aid to Yemen, and we were blocked in doing so. And reading about this anti-colonial movement that was formed in Yemen, a very religious Shia Muslim movement, demanding economic development, demanding, taking control of their resources, reading about that was very inspiring in the aim of building an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement in the United States. (00:43:54): Now to see what the Houthis are doing as they're blocking ships to support the Palestinians as they're withstanding us attack, this is a movement of impoverished people fighting for their economic development and fighting to build a new country. This is a mass anti-colonial movement that is worth studying. And the fact that they align themselves with Russia and China, they're not blocking ships from Russia, they're not blocking ships from China. They are blocking ships from Israel and any country that trades with them, that shows you that this global anti-imperialist movement that is about mobilizing millions of people to fight for their rights, this global movement has a real strength. Wilmer Leon (00:44:34): Let's shift now to the 2024 presidential election. We've come out of the Republican Convention, we've now come out of the Democratic Convention and the Democratic Party convention, and Donald Trump was shocked when Joe Biden stepped down, Kamala Harris stepped in. That has changed the dynamic, at least in terms of the dialogue, and we're starting to see some shift in the numbers. Your thoughts on where we are now with this landscape. Caleb Maupin (00:45:09): I think that Kamala Harris is a completely manufactured candidate. She was created by the people who brought us the Hillary Clinton State Department when it was made clear that Hillary Clinton couldn't run for president once again in 2020, all of Hillary Clinton's financial backers put their money behind Kamala Harris. She was not popular with the American people, but yet powerful forces twisted Joe Biden's arm and put her on the ticket as vp. She has not been popular or successful as vp, but she is the candidate that the forces that are committed to regime change and all out efforts to oppose Russia and China at all costs. She is the one that they have invested the most in supporting. And I don't think she's going to win. I think that Trump will win the upcoming election. And that doesn't mean everything about Trump is good or I endorsed Donald Trump. (00:46:03): I'm just telling you that I think Trump is going to win. But I also believe that there are very powerful forces that see Kamala Harris as their best bet at getting what they want, which is more regime change wars, more destabilization around the world. I did write a book in 2020 about Kamala Harris four years ago, and I thought it was very odd that right after she got the Democratic nomination, this book that had been on sale for four years on Amazon suddenly got removed from Amazon. And for seven days my book was banned from Amazon and then restored with no explanation seven days later. I thought that was very, very odd. It raised a lot of eyebrows, but it also points to the amount of power the tech monopolies really have. It seems like everything was being done to support Kamala Harris. What I also thought was interesting is that in my book, I talked about Tulsi Gabbard and how Tulsi Gabbard kind of represents forces in the Pentagon that are really worried about another Arab Spring and what Kamala Harris and the Hillary Clinton State Department forces people like Samantha Power, people like Anne-Marie Slaughter, what they might engineer if they come back to office. (00:47:11): My book highlighted Tulsi Gabbard as being kind of a faction that is opposed to Kamala Harris. And the very same day that my book was pulled from Amazon, Tulsi Gabbard was added to the Quiet Sky's terrorism watch list by the American government. When she tried to board a plane, she found out she was accused of being a terrorist. And I thought that was interesting as well. And it just kind of points to, and there was all kinds of weird stuff going on in terms of social media and Google searches that was being manipulated around that time. But the book that I wrote about Kamala Harris and who has backed her and the ties that she has getting pulled from Amazon, it was interesting to see the timing, Wilmer Leon (00:47:52): The position of the Democratic Party as it relates to Gaza. And I was at the DNCI was also at the RNC conventions, but there were protestors in Chicago demanding a change in the US policy as it relates to the genocide in Gaza. Then you had uncommitted delegates that were able to have a sit-in at the DNC right outside the front door of the entrance to the United Center, demanding that a pro-Palestinian spokesperson be added to the speaker's list. And none of that was agreed to. In fact, it was basically dismissed summarily. So your thoughts on the dangers that the Democrats are playing with taking that position as it relates to the general election? Caleb Maupin (00:48:55): Well, if the Democrats are going to win this election, they're going to need lots of votes in Minnesota, lots of votes in Wisconsin and lots of votes in Michigan. And what do all three of those states have in common? Those swing states, Wilmer Leon (00:49:06): Large Arab populations. Caleb Maupin (00:49:08): That's right. Lots of Muslim Americans, lots of Arab Americans, and with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris giving a blank check to Israel to do what they're doing. I think it's very unlikely to see those folks lining up to vote for them. Now, Kamala Harris has made some noise about this or that, but she's basically the president already. If she was going to do something, she could do it right now. I mean, she's the vice president, but Joe Biden doesn't seem to be as actively involved in the political running of the country as some people might expect. That said, I will say that Donald Trump, I mean his position on Israel Palestine, I mean, is pretty reprehensible, and he continues to play up the idea that Kamala Harris and the Democrats are somehow anti-Israel, which they are not. What I think is interesting though, and I noticed that it seems like anti-Israel voices in the Trump camp, they may not be on the front stage, but they do have a lot of influence. (00:50:03): And I'm not saying all these people are doing what they're doing for necessarily good reasons, but I noticed when Elon Musk was interviewing Donald Trump in the chat, it just exploded. And all over Twitter, it exploded. The phrase, no war on Iran that came from Nick Fuentes. Now, Nick Fuentes is somebody that I don't agree with on many, many things and find a lot of his views and just his presentation style to kind of reprehensible and gross, but he, for his own reasons says no war with Iran. I also noticed that Candace Owens, who is a conservative and was very pro-Israel at one point, she was not pro-Israel enough. Now she's kind of moved for interesting reasons that are very different than anything I would say. She's moved into an anti-Israel direction and she has also got a lot of people in the Trump camp who listen to her and she is making noise, no war in Iran and urging Trump supporters not to support Israel. And this points to the fact that opposition to Israel, I think is much more widespread in both parties than anyone wants to recognize. (00:51:07): It's an element of the emperor has no clothes. Both parties pretend that everyone in their camp just supports Israel. But anyone who talks to a typical Democrat, you were at the Republican Convention and the Democrat Convention, and you could probably confirm that opposition to what Israel is doing is boiling beneath the surface, amid both political parties and amid all sections of this country. And that there is a lot of growing outrage about the influence and power of Israel and American politics, even among people who might support Israel otherwise, but just don't appreciate the arrogance and grip that they seem to have over policymaking. Wilmer Leon (00:51:46): And some people just help me understand why, but some people just have a problem with genocide. It's a bit os there are growing groups, Republicans for Harris, and there are those who are positing that this is because she's a stooge of the elite and this represents how she who's truly backing her. What about the argument that many of those in those types of organizations see her as an opportunity to reclaim the Republican party by getting rid of Donald Trump? And it's almost a any port in the storm kind of mentality, they see her as the stalking horse. If they can back her, if she can defeat Trump, they then can, the old school, the traditional Republicans can regain control of their party. What say you Caleb Opin? Caleb Maupin (00:52:58): Well, I would say that the Bush era Republican party is gone. It's never coming back. And Donald Trump is a symptom of that. And that's very clear. And that Donald Trump's recent embracing of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, that indicates that Donald Trump is taking his campaign in an anti-establishment direction. Now, that doesn't mean that he's going to necessarily do good things as president. That just means that he's increasingly realizing that his appeal is to people that are opposed to the establishment. And I think that means the establishment is going to fight him a lot harder. There's no question about that. And that there are your regular traditional neo-conservative Republicans, my country, right or wrong, if you don't like it here, move to some other country, support the military, support the wars, support America dominating the world, and showing the world about our great American way of life. (00:53:51): Those folks are increasingly finding the Republican party to not be their home. And this is all very interesting. I noticed in Kamala Harris's DNC speech, she attacked the Republicans for denigrating America. And that made me smile because it reminded me of what I always heard about the far left, right? It was the far left. They hate America. They're always saying things are bad. Why are you always running down our country? And a lot of things that Kamala Harris said in her speech almost sounded like Neoconservatism. She attacked Donald Trump for meeting with Kim Jong-Un. She said he was cozying up to tyrants and being friendly with tyrants. And it seemed to me like there was very much the Republican Party, I believe over time is going to become more of a catchall populist, anti-establishment party, whereas the Democratic party is more and more becoming the party of the establishment of the way things are supposed to be. I think that what I would call the late Cold War normal in American politics is being flipped. It used to be the Republican party was the party of the establishment, and the Democrats were the party of opposition. Not very sincere opposition in many cases, but they were the party of, if you didn't agree with what you're supposed to think necessarily, if you're a little more critical, you become a Democrat. Well, Wilmer Leon (00:55:05): If you were proc civil rights, if you were pro-environment, if you were anti-war, that's where you went. Caleb Maupin (00:55:12): Yeah. And I think it's being flipped. And that doesn't mean that Republicans and the MAGA base that are talking a certain way are sincere at all. That just means who they're appealing to. The Republican party has an anti-establishment appeal more and more every day. The Democratic party has a ProE establishment appeal. And I think this Republicans for Harris is a great example of that. Wilmer Leon (00:55:32): So as we move now, spiraling towards November 5th, you've already said you believe that Donald Trump is going to win the election. One of the things that I find very, very telling, and I check it every day when you go to the Harris website, there's still no policy positions stated. There's no policy tab. In fact, when I asked that question a couple of times at the DNCC, I was told, oh, you don't understand. She hasn't had time. There hasn't been. I said, wait a minute. She ran for president four years ago. So she had to have, we hope she had established some policy positions as a candidate. She was the vice president going on four years now, we hope during those four years she could have figured out some policy and it's now been almost a month. You can't tell me that she couldn't pick up the phone and call a bunch of people in the room and say, Hey, I need policies on education, on defense, on the economy, on these five positions. I need policy in 10 days. Go get it done. Caleb Opin. Caleb Maupin (00:57:00): Well, I think there are three possible outcomes for the election. In my mind, probably the worst case scenario would be Kamala Harris winning. And I think that would be followed by a number of, there'd be chaos in the streets. A lot of Trump supporters will not accept it as a legitimate election. And I expect there will then be a big crackdown on dissent, and I expect there'll be a lot of provocations, et cetera. And that will be used by the establishment to crack down on dissent. Wilmer Leon (00:57:26): Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And people need to understand the crackdown on dissent has already started by looking what's being done to who's being platformed from social media sites. Look at what's happening to folks who are getting arrested, the guy that started Instagram and all of these folks, the three Scott Ritter, your book taken off of taking all of these things are data points to support your position that the crackdown on descent has already started? Caleb Maupin (00:58:02): No, I mean the Biden administration has already indicted. Sue me, Terry, who was the top advisor to Obama and Bush on South Korea. And I mean the fact that she's been indicted as a foreign agent of South Korea just because South Korea wants to have mattered negotiations with North Korea. I mean, it looks like blatant retaliation. Wilmer Leon (00:58:22): And South Korea is an ally. Caleb Maupin (00:58:23): Yeah, their closest friend in Washington dc Sumi Terry has now been accused of being a foreign agent. She's facing decades in prison. I mean, this is craziness. This is a top CIA person who's been a top advisor on career matters. So that would be kind of what I think the worst case scenario would be. The most likely scenario is that I think Donald Trump will win. But all the negative things about Trumpism will amplify. I think the pro-Israel stuff, the pro-police stuff, the anti-immigrant stuff will amplify Wilmer Leon (00:58:55): Project 2025. Caleb Maupin (00:58:56): Yeah, the government will try to, the powers that be will try to ride the wave of Trumpism to push forward their own agenda, which is not good But I do think there is a third possible scenario, which is a real long shot. It's a real long shot, which is that Donald Trump takes office in a completely defensive position. And under those circumstances, he may be compelled to do a lot of good things because he's just at odds with the establishment and needs popular support. So much so we shall have to see. But those are my three predictions. But in all of those circumstances on anti-imperialist organization, a network of people that are committed to anti imperialism and building a new America beyond the rule of bankers and war profiteers is going to be vitally important. And at the end of the day, what really matters is not so much who is in office, it's what the balance of forces is in the country and around the world, and what kind of movement exists, what kind organizations. (00:59:58): There are people that are involved in the political process and to change the world and taking responsibility for the future of their country. And I wrote the book as a textbook for the Center for Political Innovation. My organization as we try to do just that, as we try to build a network of people who can rely on each other and build an anti-imperialist movement in the United States to support the Hru three, to study these ideas to be out there. That is one thing we aim to do. If Donald Trump wins the election, one thing that we aim to do is and intend to get that picture of Donald Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong-un and get it everywhere and say that this election is a mandate that the peace talks on the Korean Peninsula should continue. And that could be a way to nudge the discourse toward a more peace oriented wing of Trumpism. (01:00:46): That's one thing that we intend to do. We have other operations that we intend to carry out with the aim of nudging the country in an anti-colonial direction. One thing that I think is very important is Alaska, right? Alaska is right there close to Russia and there's the bearing Strait that separates Russia and Alaska and Abraham Lincoln had the idea of building a bridge to connect Alaska to Russia. And a lot of great people have had the idea of doing that since. And I think popularizing the idea of building a world land bridge to connect Alaska to Russia and pivot the US economy toward trading with the Russian Far East and with the Korean Peninsula and with China that could nudge the world and a direction of Multipolarity pivot away from Western Europe and towards the World Land Bridge and the bearing Strait and all of that. (01:01:36): So there are various things that we can do to try and influence discourse, but I must say the explosion is coming, right? I mean, you can feel it rumbling in the ground. The avalanche is going to pour, the volcano is going to go off. It's only a matter of time. Those of us who study these ideas and understand things, we have the job not of making the explosion come, but rather of trying to guide it in the right direction. The conditions in this country are getting worse. Americans are angry at the establishment. Things are going to change. But what we hope to do is guide that change and point it in a good direction toward a better world. And that's all we can really hope to do. I quote Mao the leader of the Chinese Revolution. He said The masses are the real heroes and at the end of the day, it will be the masses of the American people and their millions who determine what the future of this country will be. I think they are going to awaken and take action. The question is only what type of action will that be? And I think guys like you and I have a role to play in shaping what kind of action they might take when they do awaken. Wilmer Leon (01:02:39): Well, thank you for putting me in that group. And if we are able to build a bridge across the bearing strait between Alaska and Russia, I'm sure Sarah Palin will be the first one. Should be operating the toll booth. My brother. Alright, my brother Kayla mopping. Man, thank you so much for being my guest. Thank you so much for joining the show today. Caleb Maupin (01:03:05): Sure thing. Always a pleasure Wilmer Leon (01:03:07): Folks. Thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Woman Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, follow us on social media. The Patreon account is very, very important. That helps to support the effort. You can find all the links below in the show description 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 here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (01:03:50): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.    

In this episode, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Chairman Omali Yeshitela to explore the fight for free speech as the Uhuru Three face charges for opposing U.S. government narratives. Together, they uncover the shocking connections between the trial, colonialism, and the global struggle for freedom. Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube! Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey! Wilmer Leon (00:00:00): The first amendment of the Constitution reads as follows, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. With that, here's a very simple question. If Congress cannot make a law abridging, which in law means to diminish or reduce in scope the freedom of speech, then why will the Yahoo three have to go on trial on September 3rd, 2024 in the federal court in Tampa, Florida? If you want to know the answer to that, let's find out Announcer (00:00:53): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:01:03): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am 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 much broader historical context in which most of these events take place. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events and that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is or are the indictments of the Uru three are the indictments of the Uru three a test case for the federal government. If Chairman Yella, penny Hess and Jesse Neville are convicted in this political attack, will free speech as we know it in this country, no longer exist for anyone. Let's talk with my guest. He's a political activist and author. He's the co-founder and ker chairman of the African People's Socialist Party, which was founded in 1972, and he also leads the Uhuru movement and he's one of the Uhuru 3 Chairman, Omali Yeshitela. Welcome back to the show. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:02:23): Thank you so very much. It is good to be with you again. This question of free speech is something that reverberates so many means, and this you give me access to speak with your show, and that's extremely important because some people recognize that how people who want to speak affect it negatively if they cannot speak. But many people do not recognize that a free speech attack does not only prevent me from speaking, it prevents people from hearing what I got to say. So it's an assault on people's ability to hear something that the government might not want heard or any other source. And so it's a critical question and it's one of the things that gives such significance being able to be here with you Brother Leon. Wilmer Leon (00:03:19): So the three of you are being charged with a violation of statute 18 USC, section 3 71, conspiring to commit an offense against the United States and acting as an agent of a foreign government and foreign officials to wit the Russian Federation without prior notification to the Attorney General as required by law in violation of 18 USC 9 51 A. With that as the technical description of what you all are charged with, what does that mean and what is the basis of these baseless charges? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:04:00): I think it's a really important question because what the government is doing is using some facts to obscure truth, to hide truth. The fact is, I did not register with the United States government as a foreign agent. That's a fact. But the truth is I'm not a foreign agent, never have been one, and I've always only worked for African people. They said that we ran candidates for office in 2017 and 2019 because the Russians wanted us to do that and paid for it. It's a fact we ran candidates for city council and mayor in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2017 and 2019. But the truth is the Russians did not pay for this. The Russians was not the idea of Russians, and we've been involved in Micropolitics and have been teaching other Africans how to be involved in Micropolitics for decades. They used the fact that we participated in a tour that was actually hosted by Fran fan's daughter throughout the United States, a committee of the United Nations checking on the conditions of African people, and we collected petitions on the question of genocide and fact. (00:05:29): We did go on that tour, we called it a winter tour, went to Jackson, Mississippi, Washington DC I think New York, and one or two other, Chicago, Illinois. That's a fact. We did those things. But the truth is that we did not do this for Russia. We did it because we wanted the United Nations to deal with this issue of genocide and reparations for African people in this country. So what they've done is take these facts and then construct a false conclusion for people, and it's extremely dangerous. And they do this at the expense of First Amendment because everything they've charged us with has to do with us speaking with us utilizing the Bill of Rights or utilizing the First Amendment that you just mentioned in the opening of this show. But they cannot say that we are attacking them because they use speech. They cannot say they're attacking us because just because we ran for office, which is something that we are supposed to have a constitutional right to do, it says not because they spoke. (00:06:35): It's because they spoke because the Russians wanted them to speak. The Russians wanted them to sow discord. The Russians wanted them to run for office in St. Petersburg, Florida as a stepping stone to somehow Russian interfering in the election, the national elections in this country. So that's dangerous because that means that anybody, oh, and it's a fact that I went to Moscow in May and September of 2015 at the invitation of a non-governmental organization, anti-global movement of Russia to participate in discussions with other people around democratic rights and around self-determination for peoples from various places around the world. So those are facts. I did that, but it is a lie that I was a Russian agent and I did it in the service of Russia. I did it because Zuckerberg and because the New York Times and because the Washington Post and because the Democratic Party and various other entities refuse to give access to black people so that we can speak independently about what our situation is. And you got to remember what was happening in 2014, 2015 with Mike Brown uprising because of the police murder of that young man in August of 2014, I think it was because of all kinds of police murder right before that one, the brother who was choked to death in New York, just all kinds of things were happening and the story of our people from our own initiatives could not be heard. And so I wanted to be heard, and I've been struggling for our story to be heard all around the world for the longest period of time. Wilmer Leon (00:08:35): Well, everybody knows that if you are planning to conspire against the government, if you're planning to bring down the American empire, the City Council of St. Petersburg, Florida is where you're going to start. That's the underbelly. That's the soft spot. That's the weak link in the American Empire is St. Petersburg, Florida. So I can see where the government would get the idea that, oh my gosh, the City Council of Florida and then the world, you mentioned that when you said you were brought to Moscow on behalf of an NGO, A non-government organization that made me think about the myON coup in Ukraine and Samantha Power and the NGOs that the United States has used to overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine. How the United States has been trying to overthrow Venezuela through NGOs. (00:09:48): They've got a playbook as it relates to non-governmental organizations. They've got a playbook and they understand very clearly how that game gets played. So that's one of the hypocrisies that immediately jumps out at me. And another one is they, they're claiming or they're charging you with running people for elected office. When apac, it was published in the New York Times back in April, that APAC came out and said they are committing 100 million to the 2024 election to unseat democratically elected officials who they deemed to be operating against the interests of Israel. And Jamal Bowman has been a victim of that. And Co Bush became a fell victim to that in Kansas City. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:10:48): She's from St. Louis, Missouri. So Wilmer Leon (00:10:50): St. Louis, thank you. Thank you. I get my Kansas City and my St. Louis mixed up. I got you. Yeah, in St. Louis. So here we have APAC operating on or for the interests of the Zionist government of Israel saying publicly we're spending a hundred million, I think they spent 7 million to 1C Bowman. So there seems to be some inconsistency if not in the rule of law, at least in the practical applications here. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:11:22): Yeah, and that's true. I mean, especially APAC is a splendid example, and it doesn't have to register as the people who accept that money as foreign agents. They don't have to register anything like that. And tremendous amounts of money, as you said, are involved in that. And there are corporations who do the same thing who work for foreign governments and it's well known and they haven't had to file as foreign agents. And the thing is that they claim that our movement took, I think they said either $6,000 over seven years or $7,000 from the Russians over six years. And they have taken, you talk about how they use facts to obscure truth because we do forums and we do events online and people make contributions to us online. And the A GM, the Russian anti-globalization movement may have made some contribution to us online, but you're talking about they say that over six years or seven years, we got something like $6,000 from that movement. (00:12:52): But even if we had, it would not have been illegal. But the point is that we raised $6,000 in a few hours. We raised 300 and some odd thousand dollars just to defend ourselves in this case that we are involved in. So they would take this poultry sum of money compared to the millions and billions of dollars that come from groups like APAC and from other kinds of, and from corporations funnel into this country and to employ people, corporations from other places around the world. And so this is just a fabrication, and they play upon the ignorance of people. They say, for example, there are someplace in this indictment, they said that we went to Moscow in 2015 or 16 and with all expense paid trip, this gives some impression of some great luxury that we, what was afforded to us. And by all expense, they mean that they paid for the air flight there. (00:14:05): They paid for where we stayed and for food. Now, I've gone on events, I've gone to international events sponsored by NGO, close to the government of Spain, and they spent a lot of money. They spent money to bring me there and two other people, one of whom was from England into Spain, they paid us, paid me for coming as well. But they would take this thing with Russia because the plot there is they've done so much work demonizing Russia saying Russia is the key. That's why Donald Trump, they say, Hillary Clinton didn't lose the election. Trump the Russians won the election. This is the kind of stuff that they're feeding the public. And so it doesn't matter. That's why it's so important for us to have this kind of discussion because they don't want this kind of stuff to get out even in a courtroom. They will place restrictions on what we can talk about in the courtroom. And that's why it's important for us to recognize that the trial has already begun. And this is some of the testimony that we are involved in at this very moment. Wilmer Leon (00:15:14): From what I understand, you have gone and spoken and gone to conferences in Ireland, in France, in England, in Spain, but all of those countries are European countries. And so long as Europe is paying the tab, then everything's fine. I've gone to Iran twice, similar types of programs, been brought to peace conferences and human rights conferences in Iran, and they pay my airfare, they pay my hotel bill, they pay my meals while I'm there. That's standard operating procedure. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:15:58): But you're talking to them and Wilmer Leon (00:15:59): They give you an honorarium. Many of them will give you Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:16:02): An honor, but we didn't even get an honorarium from Russia. But you think about this, you're talking to a jury that many of whom never even leave the United States, don't have an understanding of how this stuff is. And so that sounds like some real esoteric can thing to people, local people here in the Tampa Bay area or in this district where they intend to put us on trial, they intend to lynch us. Wilmer Leon (00:16:31): In fact, I don't know the events that you attended, but when I went to Iran, I was there for the first trip. I was there for 10 days, and not only did I participate in this human rights conference, I lectured at 13 universities throughout the country. I was in constant motion. It was not a vacation. In fact, I even got to spend two hours with former President Deja while I was in Iran. But I'm saying that traveled all over the country by car, by plane, man. It wasn't easy work. The honorarium, for as much as I appreciated receiving it, if you broke it down to an hourly rate, no. When I say it wasn't worth my time, I don't mean that it wasn't worth my time. I mean, it didn't equate to a decent hourly rate. So Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:17:37): I just thought it was really important and I think it is important. And every time I get an opportunity to tell the world about the conditions of African people in this country, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to say even when you are involved with the United States to other countries, because it's designated almost the entire world, its enemy. And I'm saying that the United States accuses other countries of these egregious kind of things that you have to hold the mirror up to the United States and force it to look at the treatment of African people, forced it to look at the situation that they've had. Mexicans in cages at the southern border forced it to look at the fact that 2024, now you've got a situation where there are concentration camps just like Gaza, so to speak, that they refer to as Indian reservations. (00:18:30): This is the reality of the United States. And I want people to be able to recognize that the condition of African people are similar and that we want support. I've told them we are not looking for pity. We are not looking for charity. We want solidarity in the struggle that we are involved in. We believe that we have the right to be a self-determining people, and we believe that there's nothing in the Constitution of the United States that should prohibit us from saying that we have that right. Even if we say it in Russia, even if we say it in places like Venezuela or in Nicaragua where I have been, or Ireland, as you mentioned, we have the right to be able to say that by the Constitution. So either you got to burn it up, tear the Constitution up, and this is the conundrum that they have. And as you know that since they've attacked us, we've seen charges all across the board on so many people. Similarly charged being agents for foreign government, Scott Riter, et cetera. Yes, Scott Ritter just the other day, Wilmer Leon (00:19:37): Scott. Scott Ritter is a friend of mine, and I just had Scott Ritter on another show that I do. And the FBI just raided his house last week, took his computers in talking to Scott, what they really seemed to be after in his case, because he was a weapons inspectors and he had all the evidence that proved there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iran. They took that trove of evidence from him and we'll have to wait and see. And his point was because they want to rewrite the historic record and they want to, no, I'm not going to put words that he didn't use. They want to rewrite the historic record and they want to cleanse the record of the information that he possesses. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:20:30): Yes. And of course we see Assange just getting out of prison right now for, I've forgotten how many years he was locked up, Wilmer Leon (00:20:39): His Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:20:40): Speech, it's Freedom of Press, some of the charges against us attack assaults on free press. They had chat us because we did an interview on burning spear.org. That's our newspaper, that's the.org. We did an interview with the Russian saying that the people have a right to know the position that's coming from Russia. We, Zuckerberg, Facebook, everything had blocked anything that people were trying to talk about that represent the position that might be coming from Russia just like they do now about Palestine. And so we did an interview, and so they said that was evidence of the fact that we worked for the Russians. So I mean, this is the kind of stuff that they've done, but it's a real treacherous situation because they're at a place where they say that if you have a position that is the same position of another government, another country, and what have you, then they can charge you with working as an accomplice of that government in some crime that they claim that government is creating. And that's a dangerous kind of thing. I mean, you talked about your trips and stuff to Iran, and that's especially true when you look at Iran because they've identified Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Wilmer Leon (00:22:01): China, Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:22:02): China, Korea as these enemies that they're contending with and they don't want anybody to know a truth that's independent of what it is that they have to say. Wilmer Leon (00:22:15): And when you peel back the layers of the onions, whether you're talking about Russia, talking about China, talking about Venezuela, Iran, what we're dealing with is anti imperialism. What we're dealing with is what's really at the crux of this issue. It's not communism, it's not socialism, it's not any other kind, ofm, anti-fascism, colonialism and anti imperialism at the crux, because that's what the empire sees as being the greatest threat. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:23:02): It is the question. And from our analysis, the whole emergence of the Soviet Union, things like that came about as a consequence of the Communist Party. The Bolsheviks at that time refusing to participate with the rest of the colonial powers in the world in that first imperialist world war to redivide the world. And that was a world that was an extreme crisis for the whole social system. That's the timeframe. You look at this 1917 being the Russian Revolution, you're looking at the time of World War I, as they call it, a timeframe that saw a struggle even happening throughout this country bombing of Tulsa, Oklahoma. People everywhere resisting this colonial domination and Russia became a serious factor because unlike the rest of the colonial powers, Russia refused to participate in that world war, to Redivide the world. And that turned all of them against Russia too. So the Russian revolution happens in 1917, and by the way, much of some of the law that we have been victimized has its origin in that timeframe as well. Russian Revolution in 19 17, 19 18, all the colonial powers, including the United States and Japan invade Russia. They invaded Russia to crush it. And that struggle that they talk about with Ukraine and what have you, some people are able to see a beginning in like 2014 when the Wilmer Leon (00:24:47): Maidan coup Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:24:49): Maidan coup. But I'm saying even Wilmer Leon (00:24:50): Before, thank you, Samantha Power. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:24:52): Yeah, but even before that, they've been dealing with Russia going back, like I said, a more than a hundred years. And even the NATO that they use in Ukraine and NATO that they use to kill Gaddafi, this NATO has its origin. It was created for the purpose of containing a crushing Russia. So this is not a new phenomenon. This is something that's been going on for a long time because they saw at one time Russia being aligned with the colonized peoples of the world and with the working peoples of the world. And this was a system that could not tolerate that and could not tolerate it spreading globally. Wilmer Leon (00:25:40): In fact, if you fast forward to the late fifties and the sixties, and you look at the anti-colonial movements in a number of African countries such as South Africa, such as Angola, which you find is the Soviet Union was involved in providing funding, training weapons to freedom fighters, supporting anti imperialist, anti colonial movements in those countries leading to the freedom of a number of those countries along with Cuba and some others. So people really need to understand the broader, they need to connect the dots here and so that they can understand the broader, in fact, historic context in which these events take place. People need to ask themselves, where is Patrice Lumumba University folks who was Patrice Lumumba? Where is Patrice Lumumba University? It's not in Nigeria, it's not in Swaziland, it's in Moscow. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:26:49): And I spoke at Patrice Lamu before an organization of migrants that were located in Russia. That was one of the things I spoke for. And I think it's really important to say that they intend to provide some kind of Russia expert who will testify that Russia has a history of creating foils, creating forces like our party and our movement to undermine the United States and undermine Western powers, et cetera. And they will use the kind of stuff that you're talking about as evidence of complicity of Russia in being in control of us, because Russia did support the struggle in Angola and various other places and trained and funded and supported. Then they go back all the way to that to show that there's this historical trend coming from Russia, even though it was the Bolsheviks that they're talking about, that was for the purpose of corrupting, undermining the United States and the Western powers, the democracies. (00:28:04): They would show that that's the typical thing that we are typical of dupes of Russia, if not dupes cooperatives of Russia based on the stuff that you just mentioned, which you and I think is right on you, and I think is glorious. I mean, that puts them in a situation. Have they saying Mandela, who they love, he is the Negro. They love that. Mandela took support from the Soviet Union and was refused along with other African countries to condemn Russia around the Ukrainian question precisely because of the history of Russia as it relates to people who are struggling for freedom. Wilmer Leon (00:28:45): And the Palestinian question as well Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:28:47): Palestinian Question, Wilmer Leon (00:28:49): Nelson Mandela was very clear that as he was fighting for the rights of South Africans, he was on record as saying, even when we win this struggle, we will not have completed our mission until the Palestinians are free. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:29:08): Yes, yes. Wilmer Leon (00:29:09): So in fact, a lot of people don't know the first person, the first head of state that Mandela went to see when he was released from Roobben Island was Fidel Castro. A lot of folks don't know that history, but in fact, Mandela said, and I'll paraphrase, your enemy is not my enemy, and I am not going to allow you to select who my friends and who my enemies are. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:29:37): Sure, sure, sure. That's the thing. 60 years ago, African people in this country initiated the freedom summer in Mississippi, and we dealt with the freedom summer in 1964. It was revolving around just democratic rights for black people been murdered, especially in Mississippi, which was the headquarters of much of the terror being murdered, African people being denied access to the ballot just as what's happening with us as quiet as Kept, I fought for the Civil Rights Bill, I fought for the Voting Rights Act, and now I'm being charged because of participating independently in the electoral process. But 60 years ago, freedom Summer student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was the key force in creating the freedom Summer. And people came from all around the country into Mississippi, a lot of white people came, and this was something that SNCC did deliberately in part because they knew that if white people came the ruling class media that was no longer paying attention to the Civil Rights movement, just as they don't in this movement, if white people came, then the media would come with them because some of them children of media owners and big shot white people, and also the white people who came would face some of the same threats that Africans were facing in Mississippi. (00:31:06): And as you know, on the first day of Freedom Summer 1964 and Mississippi, three people died, two of whom were white. Wilmer Leon (00:31:15): Goodman and Cheney. Right. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:31:19): And that brought a lot of attention to it. But off of that movement in 1964, that 1964 that pushed the Civil Rights Act, that pushed them to have to in 1965 passed the voting rights legislation. But 1965 is also the year to kill Malcolm X, so that even though now you can vote that they're doing things to eliminate what you would vote for, they killed Malcolm X 1968. They killed Martin Luther King, 1969. The war against the Black Panther Party was clear to everybody around the whole world that you had the head of the FBI declaring that the Black Panther Party represented the greatest threat to the internal security of this country. They arrested 21 members of the Black Panther Party on a conspiracy charge in New York on a more than a hundred charges, including threats to blow up the flowers in the botanical garden, that thing that lasted for two years, and they beat every one of the charges, and they were ridiculous charges in the first place. (00:32:22): But you had this period. So what we've done is we are now engaged in the Freedom Summer, summer Project, freedom Summer in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is right across the bridge from Tampa, Florida, where the court that we will be going to is located and we are inviting everybody. We've already begun. We're going door to door, talking to people, educating the people in the community about this case and about other things that's happening in the world. We are having forums and discussions of people are doing street corner stuff with banners, et cetera. We are calling people to come in the same Peterburg Florida now. And then of course, on August 31st, we have a massive mobilization that's going to be happening where people again will be coming from. We've got commitments for participation from Cornell West, from Jill Stein, from Charles Barron, from just a host of other people. Everybody's going to be in St. Petersburg, Florida for Freedom Summer. And the Freedom Summer is going to have similar consequences from this, that the freedom summer of 1964 had that gave rise to the civil rights bill, that gave rights rise to the Voting Rights Act. That gave rise to the Black Power Movement in 1966. All of these things came out of that. And we are rebuilding a whole movement, but with this attack on us, we are reestablishing the legitimacy of the entire struggle against colonialism and against imperialism. Wilmer Leon (00:33:52): We're talking about the First Amendment, we're talking about the right of freedom of speech. And there's a whole campaign, as you've mentioned Zuckerberg a couple of times, and there's a whole campaign against social media access and freedom of speech on social media. The United States government is using Zuckerberg, they're using some of the others to assist them in platforming people. And what this really comes down to is the power of the narrative, whose story is going to be told Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:34:32): That's Wilmer Leon (00:34:32): It, and by whom? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:34:34): That's it! Wilmer Leon (00:34:35):  So it's not so much that what you are advocating is seditious. No. The problem the government has is the narrative you are telling, the facts that you are providing is counter to that narrative, and then that threatens the empire. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:34:58): Yes. Yes. That is the truth. And I'm reminded of this movie, I forgot the name of it, but you had these two characters. Tom Cruise I think played some kind of lawyer and Jack Nicholson and Oh, you Wilmer Leon (00:35:14): Can't handle the truth. Yeah, I Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:35:16): Want the truth. I want the truth Say you can't handle the truth. That's essentially the case with the United States. Now, Wilmer Leon (00:35:24): Let me quickly jump in, because there's a reason that your narrative about Ukraine and my narrative about Ukraine and Russia's narrative about Ukraine are basically the same because we're telling the truth, the truth. And all you have to do is Google what we say about it. Google the Maidan coup Google. Now I'm drawing a blank on the agreement that they reached the Minsk courts. Yes, Google the Minsk courts, Google the Midon coup. Go back and look at when Joe Biden met with Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, and Putin told Biden, I'm giving you my security demands in writing. That's, and I expect your response in writing. And Joe Biden ignored him. You can Google Secretary of State Baker meeting with Gorbachev and promising Gorbachev, NATO will, if you agree to the reunification of Eastern West Germany, I guarantee you NATO will not move any further eastward towards Russia, towards the Soviet Union. That's all fact. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:36:43): Yes. But fact, you can't handle fact. You see, because what they've done, first of all, just think about who controls the narrative. I've seen Kamala Harris, she is just thrown this thing out about, the slogan is We won't go back. Now, that's our slogan. Not one step backwards, not one. That's no retreat. Wilmer Leon (00:37:08): No retreat. Not one Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:37:10): Step back, not one step backwards. So what happens is Zuckerberg won't let anybody hear what I got to say. I go on Facebook or on social media, and there are fewer people who see me than there are members of one of our local organizations. They won't let that happen. But so Kamala takes this because it resonates, because it speaks to the reality of black people who say, we won't go back. We're not going backwards, not going to let you push us back in the back of the bus. We're not going to do any buck dancing and shuffling and this kind of stuff. Not one step backwards, right. That's our position. And so now Kamala, because it resonates with black people, Zuckerberg won't let the people hear that from us. So Kamala comes forward, we won't go back. This is a part of the process that they're trying to solve a particular problem of the Democratic party to reenergize it among African people, many of whom are even going to the Republican party and Trump and others was just discussing not going to vote at all. So that's the controlling of the narrative, how that narrative gets out. That's a critical question. And that's the question of free speech as well. And that's why it's so important again, that we are having this discussion now. Wilmer Leon (00:38:24): In fact, there's another slogan that if folks knew the true origins of it, it would have an impact on the narrative that is from the river to the sea, from the sea that is now being described, or it is being used as this racist trope by Palestinians who are using it to say they want to cleanse historic Palestine of Jews. No, actually, folks, and look it up, because it's fact. That was the Zionist slogan. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:04): It was Wilmer Leon (00:39:05): Back in the thirties. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:06): It was, they wanted it all. That's what they were saying. They wanted it all from Wilmer Leon (00:39:10): The river to the sea, Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:11): From the river to the sea. Wilmer Leon (00:39:13): And what they don't tell you about the slogan now is what do the Palestinians say from the river to the sea? Palestine will be free. They're talking about democracy. Yes. They're talking about one person, one vote. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:31): They're Wilmer Leon (00:39:32): Not talking about genocide and removing people from their homes, killing their olive trees Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:39): And taking come back home. They're saying, let the people come back home. Because the truth of the matter is, the way they've distorted this whole history is that in Palestine, there were Jews, there were Muslims, there were Christians all living together in Palestine. And now you have this situation where the settlers brought in by the imperialist Palestine. You can go back to Balfour Declaration in 1917, I think it was. You can go back to the agreement that was made, that SS Wilmer Leon (00:40:21): Pico agreement. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:40:21): Yeah. That created the borders that now Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, white people did that and for their own benefit, et cetera. And then they act like they're surprised because there's chaos happening in those circumstances. So they've distorted this history, and it's all right for them to put lyrics in a song called From Sea to Shining Sea, which was a decoration that all of this land of indigenous people, they wanted all of it. It's not like they brought a million people here when they came. There's just a handful. But they set out to take every square inch from sea to shining sea. And we say from sea to shining sea, the indigenous people will be free and from the river to the sea, Palestine should be free. But history is something else. You can't make it go away just because you don't like it Wilmer Leon (00:41:21): As much as they're trying and they're doing as Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:41:22): Much as they're trying. Wilmer Leon (00:41:24): And again, I have to go back to this whole idea because one of the things that I have found in reading history is that the United States, when the United States finds itself in conflict, that's when the government becomes very sensitive about what's being said and who's saying it, and when it's being said. So you can go back to World War, and you touched on this, you can go back to World War. And that's when we first started seeing anti sedition laws when the United States was involved in World War I and was very fearful about losing the war. Then the United States was very concerned about people speaking out against what the government considered to be their interest. And then after those forces were vanquished and the dust started to settle, well, then things started to relax and folks started saying, well, and then we had the same problem in World War ii, and then after the threats were vanquished, then you could just about say anything. So with the attacks on you, with the attacks on Scott Ritter with the attacks on others, is that a signal to you that the United States is scared? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:42:46): It is a signal that the rulers of this country experience a very fragile situation. It is not like they control the world the way they used to. It is not like they can tell people to shut up and people would do what they say. They couldn't get even stooges in Africa to come out and support their position on Ukraine. They can't get people who they consider backwaters in their backyard, who they've characterized as Banana Republics in the past to just do what it is that they want them to do. They can't control Nicaragua, and they've tried and they can't control Venezuela, and they're even up to this point, they can't control the Palestinian people who are resisting. And so it's a very fragile situation because it's a situation that rests upon a colonial motor production where the entire process of human beings engaged in production in the world today is on a foundation of parasitic foundation of colonialism. And so it is a very tenuous situation for them. And I'm reminded of this statement by George Orwell in the book 1984, when he says, who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past, the past, and this is where they found themselves in a really shaky foundation of controlling the past. Wilmer Leon (00:44:11): That's why they go after Scott Ritter because he has the historic documents. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:44:16): Yes. And that's why they're attacking us, right? They don't want history to start in 2014 when they say that somehow I became a stooge of Russia. That's where they want history to start. They don't want history to start with a murder of black people that would have incentivized us to take the kind of political stance that we take. They want to say the history of our party over the last 50 or more years. And our position consistent around genocide, around reparations, around, and actually I developed, excuse me, a pamphlet tactics and strategy that included looking for allies around the world and the struggle against colonialism, but that they don't want to talk about. So from their perspective, they're trying to control the past in that courtroom. They want to control the past. They've even moved that they want to deny us the right to use the First Amendment as a defense. Do you hear what I just said? Wilmer Leon (00:45:19): Say it again. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:45:20): Yeah. They want to deny us the right to use the First Amendment as a defense in court. Wilmer Leon (00:45:29): And that centers around, I haven't studied that point, but I believe it's because they know on that point, they lose they. So what they're saying is it's not a matter of, you don't have the right to say what you've said. It's that we don't like what you're saying, Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:45:54): But that's the real deal. But the way they cloth that, the way they try to hide their hand, and I think it's so shallow, it's so weak, is they say, well, hell, Wilmer Leon (00:46:03): If I figured it out, it ain't that deep. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:46:08): Oh, that's funny. What they're saying is that we are not attacking them because they said something. We are attacking them because they said it because the Russians told 'em to say it. So they liquidate, they try to liquidate the free speech question by turning speech into an act. Do you see Wilmer Leon (00:46:27): As a foreign agent? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:46:29): Yes, yes, yes. And it's ridiculous. Wilmer Leon (00:46:34): I want to be sure I don't forget this point. To your point about erasing history, another example of that is Hamas' attack on October 7th. The 99% of the narrative is this conflict started on October 7th, ignoring the Nakba in 1947. That has absolutely nothing to do with this and the over 50 years of genocide, oppression, and war crimes. Oh, no, forget that. That had nothing to do with October 7th. That's another example of what you It is. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:47:14): It's an example. And the fact is, one thing we know is that there are people who don't know me, don't know the African people Associates party, the who, the movement. And they hear us say something and then they hear the United States government say something. Sometimes they might have some struggles in trying to understand who might be telling the truth. The fact is that the oppressed must have truth because we cannot win freedom without truth. The oppressor cannot have truth because they can't have slavery where truth is involved. And so this is the thing that you start off knowing that those people who oppress, and there's no way you can deny the historical oppression of African people unless you control the courtrooms like they do now you have guns that can wake people up at five o'clock in the morning or with flash bank grenades and things like that. (00:48:16): The fact is that there are certain things that cannot be controlled, cannot be denied in terms of the history of oppression of African people in this country. And what they would do, of course, is they would use examples like Obama and Kamala Harris because they want to contain the struggle around racism. And you say, well, racism doesn't exist anymore. Not as bad because we elected a black president, or we are getting ready to select another Negro president, Negro Indian president. But it's not about race as such except to the extent that race represents and identifies a colonial population. The fact is we suffer from colonialism. So you can have black people who represent the colonial empire, just like you've had that African people, Mobutu and all over Africa and other puppets like that, and Africa, Wilmer Leon (00:49:08): William Ruto in Kenya being bought off to help the United States invade Haiti. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:49:14): That's right. That's right. And so that's what they've been able to do. And that's why the colonial question, understanding that colonialism is so important, and not colonialism just as a policy, but as a mode of production that came into existence with the first time in human history where there was a single world economy. And that world economy was something that was initiated by Portugal's attack on Africa in something like 14, 15. And then started the dispersal of African people and others who in what is now Europe, jumped in and participated in this process. That's where you got the So-called America from, that's where you've got Brazil, that's where you've got all of these territories throughout the So-called South America as a consequence of that initial attack and the world economy that was knit together for the first time in history, that that is not just a policy of a particular government as it may have been when Portugal started, as it may have been when some other countries started. (00:50:20): But now it's the basis of the whole world economy. It is a colonial mode of production. And to the extent that we understand this and really get a hold of that, we don't have to have somebody, Russians or somebody tell us what to do. We know that when colonialism tries to exert itself or when people are fighting against colonialism, it's part of a common struggle. And so I had never met Nicaraguan in my life when the Nicaraguan revolutions heated up and we organized in San Francisco Bay area, we organized the first mass meeting solidarity with Nicaragua people because we understood that was our struggle too. And we built the whole movement in support of Nicaragua because it is one mode of production. The colonialism is the thing that n this whole process together where you have colonizers and colonized and the vast majority of the people in the world experience the negatives of colonialism through this colonial motor production. It's only a handful of people. And that's something that's not widely understood either. Only a minority of the population benefits from this economic system that they've created on the backs of African and colonized people around the world. Wilmer Leon (00:51:42): And as you talk about Nicaragua, about three weeks ago, Chiquita Brands was found guilty in a Florida court of funding death squads in Columbia, and they were held to have, now they have to pay millions and millions and millions of dollars to the survivors. I just use that as another example of the colonialism that you're talking about. And that whole story right there could take us into another hour about immigration because the question that's not being asked in this political context about border protection and immigration, they keep talking about what are we going to do with all of these people that are at our border? But they don't ask why are the people coming in the first place? And so again, because we could talk about Haiti, why are there Haitians at the border in Texas and Mexico, California, and because the United States is decimating the Haitian economy, why are these people coming from Guatemala, Honduras, all over central and South America? Because the United States has decimated their economies and the people have no other choice? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:53:13): That's true. And I think even a related truth is the fact that when people talk about immigrants, sometimes they like to call America just a nation of immigrants. The melting pot, they call it the nation of immigrants. And we say, first of all, America's not a nation. It's a prison of nations. And that black people are not immigrants. We are captives. That's how we came here as captives. Now we are the only people other than the indigenous people who did not come here looking for a better way of life, but lost a better way of life as the consequences having been brought here. When you look at all the places where Europeans have gone to running from poverty, running from disease, running from despotism, from monarchy, and a feudal system, they came here, they came to the Americas, they came all these other places. They occupy New Zealand, Australia and things like that. (00:54:08): So when you look at immigrants, when you look at immigrants, and when they say that America's a nation of immigrants, what they're talking about is them. They are the ones who are immigrants. And why the hell did they come? They were running from chara, and this is the origin of the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights because they faced tyranny in the divine right of kings. They had no rights. So they came here to this land, and then they initiated laws and things like that to protect them from tyranny. But they won the freedom to oppress because when they were doing this, African people were enslaved. The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment was ratified by the United States Congress in 1791. 1791. African people were under the whip, under being enslaved, beaten and raped and stuff legally. So it wasn't for us. And this is something I'm trying to help white people understand that what they do is they will pick someone that they have made extremely unpopular. (00:55:18): When they want to attack a basic and fundamental right, they would pick someone they think they've made extremely unpopular, and they will use them as the means to attack that, right? They can't attack my right to free speech in many ways because I never had it look at people like Emmett Till, who they butchered because they said that he whistled at a white woman. And the fact is that black people learn how to shuffle and hold their heads down and not look up and not say anything that white people would find offensive. And this has been the history. So when they come at the Bill of Rights, when they come at the First Amendment as quiet as it's kept, they're simply using us as the means by which they can attack the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights, the constitutional democratic rights of everybody in this country, including white people. And we see evidence of that. You talk about Scott Riter, you talk about all these other people who they're attacking now, not in total disregard of what the Constitution is supposed to be about. Wilmer Leon (00:56:21): Hands off uru.org, hands off uru.org. What do you want, folks? And before I ask that question, lemme say this to those of you who are watching this that are just saying, oh, these guys, these guys are tripping. These guys are drunk. Look, folks, just research we're talking about, that's all you got to do. You can either summarily dismiss us or again, look up the Maidan Coup, look up the mens courts. Look up Chiquita brands being found guilty in a Florida court for sponsoring Death squads in Columbia. Look it up. And what you'll find is we're confusing you with the facts. That's what we're doing. So chairman, yes, Ella, what do you want my audience to do as it relates to the Uhuru 3? Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:57:19): Well, one thing I want the audience to do is to understand that we are not guilty of anything they've charged us of. They've used the facts, as I mentioned earlier, that I went to Moscow, that we ran people for office, et cetera. And they've used these facts to obscure the truth and the truth that we didn't do what they said to do. Our lawyers though, for the sake of court argument, says that even if we did it, it's protected by the Constitution. So that's one thing I think is really important. And the other thing is that we are transparent. You don't engage in some kind of conspiracy to overthrow disabuse the government in public. Everything that we talk about, it's in our newspaper. They don't have to use flash bang grenades, bust down doors and stuff like that. Get a copy of the newspaper. It only costs a dollar. (00:58:13): Go to our websites. Everything is spelled out. The books that we were printed, all of it's in the books that we've written. So people should go to Hands Off Hurro, that's HandsOffUhuru.org. HandsOffUhuru.org. We want you to read the indictment. We want you to see it. We want you to see our response to that indictment. We want you to see their response to our response, read it. And because we believe that if people know the truth and the court is aware that people are aware of the truth, et cetera, it makes, it enhances the ability of the court to go by the law, which is what we want them to do, because they are using the law to pursue a political objective, destroying our movement, destroying the struggle of African people to win freedom and to take away basic rights from other people. (00:59:06): So we want you to read the indictments and the political, the court documents that's associated with that. We want you to come to St. Peterburg Florida. Come now, come anytime and stay as long as you can because we are going to be doing this work moving toward a massive event on August 31st, and then from August 31st, which is the weekend before the trial in Tampa, right across the bridge on the September 3rd, there's a trial. And we want you to be at that trial. So come and organize on the ground, come to Summer to the summer project that we've initiated here, the Freedom Summer in St. Petersburg, Florida, where we'll be educating people, organizing, doing forums, doing door-to-Door work, doing political education the whole bit. And that's what we are looking for. And we say HandsOffUhuru.org. And we really appreciate all the support that the people have given. And you comment Wilman, thank you so very much as well. Wilmer Leon (01:00:11): It is Chairman Omali Yeshitela (01:00:12): Melody. Wilmer Leon (01:00:14): Melody Graves. As always, without her, you and I would just be sitting here talking to ourselves. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (01:00:20): I got it. Wilmer Leon (01:00:22): Chairman brother Omai Yeshitela, thank you so much for joining me today. Chairman Omali Yeshitela (01:00:27): Thank you. I really appreciate being here, and I want to thank your audience. It is just splendid to be here with you. Thank you so much. Wilmer Leon (01:00:33): And folks, as Chairman Omali Yeshitela just said, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon, stay tuned. There are new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, and follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. That Patreon page is very, very important because your contributions help and enable us to do the work that we do here. And 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 all again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wier Leon Uru. Have a good one. Peace. We're out Announcer (01:01:31): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Zambia's former president, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, is demanding the immediate release of Fred M'membe, leader of the opposition Socialist Party. M'membe, a former journalist, was recently arrested by the police and charged with seditious practice for publishing an article entitled “Tshisekedi tells DRC Catholic Bishops about the $20 Million dollars Payout to buy Zambia's Silence" on the social media network X, formerly Twitter. The police say the article was aimed at turning public opinion against the government -- an accusation the opposition party denies. Frank Bwalya, Director General of the governing UPND's Presidential Campaign Media Support Program, tells VOA's Peter Clottey, the police must be allowed to carry out their constitutional duties without intimidation or harassment

On Daybreak Africa: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are calling on Zimbabwe's government to stop the arbitrary arrest and detention of opposition and civil society members ahead this weekend's Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Harare. Plus, several senior officials of Tanzania's main opposition Chadema party were in jail as of late Monday night. Nigeria holds a youth summit on national security after protests. Conservationists say large-tusked elephants on the Kenya-Tanzania border are endangered. Former Zambian President Edgar Lungu demand the immediate release of the leader of the opposition Socialist Party. Kamala Harris talks about immigration and leans into her record as prosecutor while Donald Trump promises mass deportations. For these and more, tune in to Daybreak Africa!

Benjamin Studebaker discusses an appearance he made on the Katie Halper show, Matt Taibbi's critique of Herbert Marcuse, and Sublation's new effort to set the table for a new socialist party. Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Not just booted out. The Tories have been crushed. The electorate has punished them for 14 years of austerity, attacks on the working class, lies and corruption. The result, in terms of the number of seats, is a Labour landslide, but enthusiasm for Keir Starmer's Labour was absent from this general election. The absolute vote for Labour was 9.6 million, lower than the 10.2 million vote Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour got in 2019, never mind the 12.8 million he won in 2017. Labour's vote share, at around 34%, is the lowest ever for a general election victor, whereas in 2017 Corbyn got 40% of the vote, the biggest jump for a national party in one election since 1945. The turnout was less than 60%, reflecting massive disenfranchisement from the mainstream political parties. In this Episode of the podcast, Socialist Party General Secretary Hannah Sell breaks down the main trends we can see emerging from the general election results, and what the tasks are for the workers' movement under a Starmer government To contact the Socialist Party about this podcast or to find out about becoming a member visit: www.socialistparty.org.uk Check out the Committee for a workers International, for analysis of world events, and for those listening in other parts of the world, get in touch to join the fight for socialism in your country, that's www.socialistworld.net Further reading Tories smashed – build the socialist opposition The crisis of British capitalism is increasingly being reflected in the volatility of politics. Labour has been swept to power in a ‘landslide', but so was Boris Johnson at the head of the Tories five years ago. At the time we said it would be a pyrrhic victory, but the same will also be true for Starmer's Labour. Any capitalist government will face mass opposition – because capitalism is offering only endless austerity for the working-class majority. Therefore, discussions on how the working class can build its own party, armed with a socialist programme, are being posed increasingly urgently. The Socialist Party will argue for such a party to fight for the socialist transformation of society: for the nationalisation, under democratic workers' control, of the major monopolies and banks that dominate the economy, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need. This is a vital step to breaking the stranglehold of the capitalist class, and laying the basis for the development of a socialist plan of production, where all the science and technique created by capitalism could be harnessed and developed to meet the needs of all. https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/127135/05-07-2024/tories-smashed-build-the-socialist-opposition-2/ TUSC general election report - Everything you wanted to know about the GE 2024 but were afraid to ask This report is a statistical review of the 2024 UK general election. Its purpose is to set the context for a discussion on both the TUSC general election campaign –including the work before the election to prepare for a working class challenge at the polls – and what the tasks are now for the battle to build a new, mass vehicle to politically represent the interests of the working class. Because the one thing that is absolutely clear from the outcome of July 4th – as it was before – is that they won't find representation in the new government now occupying Downing Street. That the July 4th general election was an historic moment is now a commonplace in media commentary. But what exactly is ‘historic' about it is being consciously blurred. That is why this report is structured in the way that it is. It includes statistics detailing: alienation from establishment politics, the long-term changes in electoral support for Labour, the electoral history of the Greens and Reform, and the effects of the Muslim vote on 4th July. https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-GE-The-Fact-File.pdf

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Aziz Rana about the failures of the US Constitution. They discuss the timeframe of 1887-1987, why people resist criticisms of the US Constitution, and creedal constitutionalism. They discuss the positive aspects of the Constitution, empire settlerism and the US state in post-reconstruction era. They discuss the Socialist Party of America, WWI and pro-constitutionalism, the New Deal, and government elites post WWII. They talk about justices with more authority over the Constitutionalism, originalism, Black Panther movement, the future of the Constitution, and many other topics. Aziz Rana is professor of Law at Boston College Law School where his main interests are American Constitutional law and political development. He has his Bachelors from Harvard College, JD from Yale Law School, and PhD in political science from Harvard University. He has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Law and Political Economy Project. He is the author of the latest book, The Constitutional Bind: How Americans came to idolize a document that fails them. Website: https://www.azizrana.com/ Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

Sean and Andy are joined by Reid Kane to discuss the tortured legacy of the Socialist Party of America. Why doesn't the United States have a nominally working class party like the UK, where unions formed the institutional base for an independent party? How come state repression was so effective in undermining working class self-organization in the early-20th century? In which ways did the Old Left and the New Left fail to learn the lessons of the SPUSA and why are we still stuck with the Stalin-era Popular Front? Reid gives a powerful account of American socialism past and how we might vindicate the struggles of past generations.This is an extended preview of the full episode. To access this bonus content and much more, become a patron today at www.patreon.com/theantifadaWorks by Reid:YouTube series on American socialismWritings in Sublation Magazine

131. Prepare a workers' general election stand In the local elections on 2nd May, the Socialist Party stood as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). TUSC is an electoral coalition which was co-founded by the late Bob Crow, then general secretary of the RMT transport workers' union. Its primary goal is to enable trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists who are fighting for a new mass workers' party to stand candidates against pro-austerity establishment politicians under a clear banner. In the 10% of council seats where TUSC stood, voters had the opportunity to support a clear anti-austerity, anti-war candidate. It is no coincidence that these were the best results for TUSC since it was relaunched in 2020 after Corbyn's defeat inside Labour. In total, TUSC was able to achieve over 40,000 votes on 2 May. In the local elections it had a post-relaunch record 46 candidates who got 5% or more, with ten getting over 10% and two scoring over 30%. While TUSC's results were still modest, they point towards the growing search for a socialist alternative to Starmer's New Labour, even before the advent of a Starmer-led government. They are also a positive demonstration of the benefits of democratic collaboration between different forces, around a minimum anti-austerity programme, with trade unionists playing a central role. Check out the TUSC website at www.tusc.org.uk In this Episode of the podcast, Socialist Party General Secretary Hannah Sell breaks down the main trends we can see emerging from the local election results, and what lessons we can draw from this to prepare a Workers' General election stand To contact the Socialist Party about this podcast or to find out about becoming a member visit: www.socialistparty.org.uk Check out the CWI, for analysis of world events, and for those listening in other parts of the world, get in touch to join the fight for socialism in your country, that's www.socialistworld.net

On this day in 1920, the Socialist Party of America nominated Eugene V. Debs as its presidential candidate.     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald and Luke talk with Aziz Rana about his latest book, The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them. Rana discusses why constitutional veneration has remained (for now) "a naturalized, unremarked-upon feature” of American life despite the Constitution's flagrantly undemocratic nature. Along the way, he touches on the Socialist Party of America's constitutional skepticism, the impact of war and foreign revolutions on constitutional ideology, and the risks and rewards of our current moment. Rana integrates the lives of several important people, including Crystal Eastman, W.E.B DuBois, Eugene Debs, Afemi Shakur, and Charles Beard.

March 25, 2024The Daily Mojo is 2 hours of news, commentary, comedy, and auditory deliciousness.Show Notes: CLICK HERE (link will be live when Notes are complete)"Deadline for Trump"It's tough coming up with almost half a billion dollars in ransom for a corrupt court system. Russia does NOT eff around with terrorists, just ask the guy who ate his own ear. We'll bet it hurts to get stung in the testicles by a scorpion. Apparently FOX News is a little gunshy over lawsuits. Boeing officially threw their CEO under the bus, but will that fix the problem? Tucker had an eye-opening interview with the leader of the African People's Socialist Party. Things that make you go hmmmm...Phil Bell's Morning Update: Remember that success often 1) doesn't come easily, and 2) it's often non-linear. Never give up hope!Links:Phil's Morning Updatewww.Freedomworks.orgPBell@Freedomworks.orgIf you missed Brad & Jeffy hanging out on Saturday morning, here's your chance: CLICK HEREOur affiliate partners:We've partnered with The Wellness Company – a based, dedicated group of medical pros – including Dr. Peter McCullough – to bring you a single trustworthy source for your health.www.GetWellMojo.comPromo Code: Mojo50Dave and his crew were roasting historically great coffee before some of these newcomers even thought about creating a coffee brand. He's still the best, in our eyes! www.AmericanPrideRoasters.comNothing says “I appreciate you” like an engraved gift or award. Ron and Misty (mostly Misty) have the perfect solution for you if you need a gift idea for family or your employees!www.MoJoLaserPros.comWe love to support Mike Lindell and his company. He's a real patriot and an American success story!www.MoJoMyPillow.com Promo Code: Mojo50Be ready for anything from a hurricane to man-created stupidity (toilet paper shortage, anyone?). The tools and food storage you need to weather the storm.www.PrepareWithMojo50.com Stay ConnectedWATCH The Daily Mojo LIVE 7-9a CT: www.TheDailyMojo.com (RECOMMEDED)Rumble: HEREFacebook: HEREMojo 5-0 TV: HEREFreedomsquare: HEREOr just LISTEN:The Daily MoJo Channel Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-daily-mojo-with-brad-staggs--3085897/support.

PREVIEW: #WILSON: #DEBS: Excerpt from a two hour conversation with historian David Pietrusza re his study of "1920: The Year of the Six Presidents -- and this detail of Indiana born Eugene Debs,1856-1927, nominated five times for president by the Socialist Party of America, camaigning for the 1920 Election from his cell at the Atlanta Federal Prison because of his conviction under the 1917 Sedition Act.   1894 Harper's Weekly, Eugene Debs

Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, we have a short story about prepping called "Blood, Soil, & Frozen TV Dinners" by Matthew Dougal. It's a parody about two right-wing preppers who are faced with a collapse in society. After the story, there's an interview with the author about prepping mentalities and writing. This episode was reposted from the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness podcast. The story can be read at tangledwilderness.org. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery Reader The Reader is Bea Flowers. If you would like to hear Bea narrate other things, or would like to get them to read things for you check them out at https://voicebea.wixsite.com/website Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Theme music The theme song was written and performed by Margaret Killjoy. You can find her at http://birdsbeforethestorm.net or on twitter @magpiekilljoy Transcript Live Like the World is Dying: “Blood, Soil, & Frozen TV Dinners” with Matthew Dougal **Inmn ** 00:16  Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host today, Inmn Neruin, and today we have something a little different. I host another podcast called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness where every month we take a zine that Strangers puts out and turn it into an audio feature and do an interview with the author. We had a two-part feature called Blood, Soil, and Frozen TV Dinners by Matthew Dougal, and it is a short story about prepping from a very strange perspective, that of two right-wing preppers facing a mysterious collapse of society. This short story is a parody and I promise that the two main pov characters are not the heroes of the tale. It's a fun story and I do an interview with Matthew afterward about prepping mentalities, fiction, and other neat stuff. If you like this episode, check out my other podcast that this is featured from. I did not re-record the outro, so you'll get a little taste of Margaret playing the piano, because she wrote the theme music for the Strangers podcast. You'll also get to hear our wonderful reader, Bea Flowers narrate the story. Follow along with the transcript or at Tangledwilderness.org where you can read all of our featured zines for free. But before all of that, we are a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on that network.  [sings a simple melody] **Bea ** 02:49 “Blood, Soil, & Frozen TV Dinners” by Matthew Dougal. Read by Bea Flowers. Published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness.  Katie sat, wide-eyed, beneath the kitchen table and hugged her knees to her chest. She was shaking, vibrating visibly. Tanner put his finger to his lips and prayed that her silent tears would remain just that. There was no time to stop and calm her down. Not again. He moved slowly around the kitchen, fumbling through cupboards and pulling out pre-wrapped packages of food. Always be prepared. Tanner had practiced this before things went dark, but it was different doing it for real. His hands hadn't been so shaky, back then.  A noise, on the porch. His body froze before his mind registered the sound. Tanner dropped into a crouch and crossed the room to the window, willing every cell in his body to radiate confidence toward his baby girl. His hand found the Glock 17 at his belt and he brought it up in front of him, the familiar feel of the grip reassuring. He took a breath, steadied himself, and raised his eyes to the level of the windowsill. The muscles in his thighs steeled and he remained, unblinking, utterly still, staring out into the darkness.  After thirty or forty nerve-twanging seconds, Tanner drew breath and relaxed. His quads were burning, and they thanked him as he straightened. He could hear the specter of his ex-wife in his head, telling him to lose some weight, exercise more… Well she'd left, and that was 135 pounds gone right there. She'd probably say that was a good start.   An unbearably loud ringing pierced the silence and sent him diving to the floor, landing awkwardly on his gun and sounding a crash through the kitchen. A keening whine came from under the table, Katie shaken from her silence.  The doorbell.  Feeling foolish, Tanner twisted over his shoulder and hissed at his daughter to be quiet. Still prone, he crawled toward the hallway in the most reassuring manner he could manage and pointed his Glock at the front door.  Footsteps outside, then a shadow appeared at the window. Tanner's heart pounded in his ears—more violent pulses of silence than sound—and his vision blurred as panic flooded his body. He'd heard the early reports of armed groups in the streets, some sort of fighting downtown, but he hadn't really believed they would come here. His legs were weak, and he silently thanked God that he was already on the floor. The shape at the window didn't move, frozen in the gloom, silhouetted by flickering light coming from the street. As Tanner's head cleared he tried to take stock of what was happening.  The apparition was vaguely man-shaped but shorter and slighter, an ethereal grace evident even in its stillness. A voice called out, muffled through the door, the guttural singsong completely at odds with the sleek form at the window. Tanner couldn't understand everything, but he thought he caught the words “little girl.” A second shape mounted the porch alongside the first, similarly short but squat and stocky, and grunted something to its companion in an alien tongue. Fluorescent light flooded the yard and the voices momentarily disappeared beneath the growl of an angry engine. Tanner's breath caught. His trembling finger hovered over the trigger and he willed the barrel to still its swaying dance. Two shots exploded outside—loud shots, from a much bigger gun than his. The creatures spun to face this new threat, their chatter rising in pitch and speed. They sounded panicked.  “yalla! hawula' alnaas majnoon.” Tanner sensed his opportunity. He was forgotten. All those hours of training kicked in and muscle memory took over as he rose to one knee, took a two-handed grip, and unleashed a furious hail of fire at his front door.  “Keep your filthy hands off my daughter!” He fired until he felt the Glock stop kicking, the magazine spent. As the cacophony faded he realized he was screaming.  “Tanner! It's me, Blake. Stop shooting goddammit, they're gone.”  “Blake?” Tanner mechanically reloaded his gun. “Why…” His throat was raw, his voice barely audible even to him. He swallowed, fighting to control his breath, and cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”  “Come to see if you were okay. Figured you and the kid might need a hand.”  A stocky, heavily muscled figure wearing fatigues and a plate carrier stepped up to the porch, visible through the splintered ruins that had been the front door. A halogen glow lanced through the holes, like the brilliant aura of some kind of avenging eagle.  “When this shit spread across the river from the city we locked down. It was touch-and-go for a while, but things quieted down eventually. When they did, I came straight over. Good thing I got here when I did. The quick little fuckers ran for it, but I think you hit one of ‘em.”  The figure stopped, pulled down the red, white and blue bandana covering its mouth, and spat. Tanner had never been more relieved to see his buddy's foul-mouthed face. Or his M1A SOCOM 16 rifle.  “We're alright.” Tanner's voice was exhausted, his body shivering as the adrenaline fled. “Thank God I was prepared. Still, it's good to see you.”  “Prepared, shit.” His buddy grinned. “I been telling you for years to get something heavy duty.” Blake kicked the splintered remains of the door and his grin faded. “You can't stay here. Those things'll be back. Grab your girl and jump in the truck. Let's head to mine, she'll be safe there.” The grin returned.“Prepared, shit.”  An hour later they were sitting in “the Hole,” as Blake affectionately called it. The Hole was both name and description, although it perhaps undersold the amount of effort that had gone into its construction. Attached to the garage by a short, downward-sloping corridor, The Hole was a full-blown bunker that spread underneath almost the entirety of Blake's backyard. Tanner was sitting in the main chamber eating Top Ramen, chicken flavor.  They had made the half-mile journey in silence—lights down on the Tacoma, Tanner jumpy, Blake grim, Katie in a state of shock. The streets had looked completely foreign, the usual calming glow of LEDs replaced by the orange flicker of scattered flames. The familiar hum of traffic had been gone. Instead, gunfire had cracked in the distance.  Blake's wife Lauren had buzzed them inside after Blake confirmed his identity via video feed—three times: at the gate, the door, and the entrance to the Hole. The security was impressive. Lauren had ushered them inside, AR-15 at the ready. “This is prepared,” Blake was saying, as Katie stared blankly at her untouched ramen. “Old owners, they had this backyard full of fruit trees, vegetables, fuckin' kale and kohlrabi. What good is that gonna do, I said, you gonna hide in the pumpkin patch with a slingshot? Idiots.  “Anyhow me and Lauren, we wanted to be ready, so I been building this the last two years. Ain't no one knows about it, not even the contractors…” Blake sliced a finger across his throat, then laughed, “I'm joking, but they were from one of them Mexican countries. Had no idea what they were building. Good workers, though, came here the right way. And I did the security all myself.”  Tanner laughed too, but at what he didn't quite know. “You took this all real serious.”  “Yessir. You never really believed, but we did. Earl Swanson was right, this here's been a long time coming. It's just like he said, and we listened. And here we are, while you was laying on the floor waving round that little waterpistol of yours.”  Tanner had listened too, but apparently not well enough. There was only so much time he could watch an angry man on TV shouting about the state of the nation, no matter how prophetic he was turning out to be. Tanner tried to put up a strong front and flex his knowledge. He had listened, dammit.  “Is this it, then? The invasion? Earl said they've been preparing it for years, brainwashing people. Recruiting sympathizers and traitors…”  “It's worse than that. The invasion started way back, we just didn't notice. Well, most of us didn't. Earl did. He tried to warn us, that the aliens'd started infiltrating, landing in remote parts of the country, blending in, looking just like us…” Blake spat. “Well, not quite like us. But close e-fucking-nough, hiding out and biding their time.” “And now it's out in the open…” Tanner looked from his friend's face to his daughter's, scared and staring, and trailed off. He may have been listening, but he sure as hell didn't understand.  “What's happening?” Tanner asked. “We've been laying low at home, locked down and trying to wait out whatever this is. We haven't heard a thing since the power cut out three days back.”  He could feel a surge of emotion building, pent-up adrenaline and stress and fear and loneliness rolling over him in a wave as they were released. His stoicism wobbled.  “We're… Katie's scared and confused, and tired and sick of hiding and we're all alone! What is all this? What's happening?” Tanner realized he was shouting and stopped, taking a deep breath and lowering his voice. “Blake, man, what the hell is going on?” Blake never flinched, just ran his tongue over his teeth in thought while he watched Tanner's outburst through hooded eyes. “Naw, we don't know nothing for sure. Swanson's been off-air for two days, since just after shit started going down. Said he was right, that it sure as shit seemed like those aliens he'd been warning us about were making a move, and the whole fuckin' lot of us did nothing. Well, seems like it blew up in our face. Last thing he said was he's heading somewhere safe to keep broadcasting, and he'd let us know when he found out more,” Blake paused, sucked his teeth, “We've had the TV and radio on non-stop since then, since we fired the generator up. Nothing.”  Lauren lent forward. “There was something, couple days back…”  “Nothing useful,” Blake cut in. He spat. “Same old fuckin' commie stations, same old crap. They took over the channels, emergency broadcasting. Said there was a ‘protest.' Stay inside, all under control, daddy government's here, blah blah,” he laughed “Hell of a protest. More like an insurrection. Doublespeak bullshit.”  “So what's the plan? We hide out? Lay low? Wait for the military?”  “The troops ain't coming, chief.” Blake grimaced, “Alien tentacles go deep. Probably strolling around in general's stars by now, the politicians just handing over the keys. This President'll have us kissing their feet before dinner.  “Nah, if we wanna fight back we can't rely on that fuckin' bunch of secretaries and scribes. We hole up here, wait for instructions.” He laughed again, “Huh, hole up in the Hole. That's funny.”  That grin was starting to get on Tanner's nerves. “Instructions from who? How long is that gonna take? Who's gonna fight back against… this?” “I know some people, from back in the old days. Good people. There's still patriots out there who won't give up this country without a fight.”   Tanner still bristled with questions, but he was starting to feel relieved. There were people in charge, and they had a plan. That was something he could work with. “What if it takes weeks? Months? Do we have food for that long?” Blake settled further into his chair, grinned that cocky grin. “I do, don't know about you.” Before the words were even out of his mouth he was already raising his palms, “Chill out, I'm joking. I'll put it on your tab. You're a lawyer, I know you're good for it. Show him, babe.”  Lauren got up and went over to a large yellow flag hanging on the concrete wall, pulling it aside to reveal a long, narrow room that ended abruptly at a large steel door. She flicked on the light.  “Dry storage,” she said, gesturing at the shelves lining both walls. Packets of ramen, boxes of cereal, rows of whiskey, and gleaming stacks of cans stared down at Tanner. “And cold storage,” Lauren continued as she stepped over to the door, kicking aside two enormous tubs of supplements and pulling it open to reveal a walk-in freezer. Tanner followed her inside as she happily chatted away, showing everything off like a house-proud hen.  “We've got everything we need. Steaks, hotdogs, chili, hamburgers, mac and cheese, chicken parmesan, mashed potatoes--whatever you want. There's a well, too, over the other side, we had that dug last summer. Tastes a bit funny, but it won't hurt you.” Tanner was hardly listening. He had never seen anything like it, never imagined anything on this scale. Blake really had taken preparing for the end of the world seriously. The freezer room was filled, wall to wall, with a treasure trove of gourmet excess; thousands upon thousands of frozen TV dinners.  Tanner stared at his microwaved salmon filet, fries drooping from his fork. Out of habit he was eating in front of the TV with Katie, though the display hadn't changed in… however many days it had been. Just the red, white and blue logo, a tile flipping between ads for pillows, brain pills, and frozen food, and the same scrolling red banner:  Breaking: The United States of America is under attack. Stand by for updates.  Katie was poking at her food silently, barely eating. Still no appetite. Tanner had told her they were safe, told her he wasn't going to let anyone hurt her, told her a hundred times in different ways that she was his precious little girl and he would make sure she was okay. It had made no difference. She had just looked up at him with big, frightened eyes that pulled at Tanner's heart. The only time she had spoken in the past 24 hours was to ask why he had tried to shoot people. Of course she didn't understand. Maybe he should ask Lauren to talk to her.  The TV display glitched, blipped, flicked to static and then to black. Tanner shoveled the fries into his mouth and rubbed his eyes. He'd been staring at a blank TV for too long. He chewed and stretched, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to straighten out his aching back.  Earl Swanson was on TV. Tanner blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing straight. Swanson's shirt was wrinkled, his hair a mess and his signature bowtie slightly crooked, but his face wore that familiar expression of righteously indignant bewilderment. It was him.  “Blake. Blake, get in here!”  Swanson was in what looked like a large living room rather than his usual studio. Bookshelves and a TV cabinet were visible behind him. There were shadows under his eyes and his wrinkles were clearly visible without his usual TV makeup, but his eyes were as sharp as ever. There was a strength to them, piercing the screen, full of faith and fire. It felt like he was in the room. He looked like he'd been in a fight, and won. He was back.  “Good evening America, and welcome to Earl Swanson Tonight.” “Blake!” Blake stuck his head through the door.  “What? I'm working out, give me a…. No shit.” Blake stepped into the room. He was topless, breathing heavily. His stomach was shiny with sweat, pooling and running down the chiseled channels between his well-defined muscles before disappearing behind the low-riding waistband of his camo pants. Tanner realized he was staring and felt his cheeks flush as he snapped his eyes back to his friend's.  “Blake, it's--” “Shut up, I'm trying to listen.” The rebuke slapped Tanner back to the present and back to the TV. He surreptitiously sat a little straighter and sucked in his gut, trying to ignore the heat rising in his face. “...cities up and down the west coast. From Seattle to San Diego, the alien invaders and the traitors from among our own citizens have taken control, sowing chaos and destruction. Order has broken down, and anarchy rules in the streets. Yet we hear nothing but silence from the White House. The elites in Washington won't do anything about this -- they encouraged it. They caused it! “No, it is up to patriotic Americans to stop this existential threat. It is up to us, to you and me and the other patriots out there. If you value the American way of life, if you respect the principles that built the greatest nation ever imagined, if you care about your family and the future of your children, then the time has come to stand up. Your country needs you.  “I have been warning about this day on this very program for years. If you have been listening, you will be prepared for this betrayal. You know what to do. Find other true Americans who are ready to fight for our civilization and our culture. Defend our Western values against this attack by anarchists and aliens who wish to destroy us. They tried to take our guns from us, to disarm us, and failed -- now is the time to use them. Seek out the prepared, the militias, the heroes. Fight back. Show them that we will not allow it. “I will be moving to an undisclosed safe location so I can keep you informed. You know your job. I am doing my part, will you do yours?” Swanson sat erect and defiant, no less commanding for his disheveled appearance. His willpower flowed from the screen in waves, washing over the watchers. It was compelling. It was urgent. It was the only option.  The screen went black.  Swanson's gaze bored into Tanner long after the TV went dark, burning with righteous fire, lip curling with fury. The heat in Tanner's cheeks sharpened, focused, began to spread into his chest and throughout his body. There was only one thought in his mind. “We gotta go.” It took him a second to realize that Blake had spoken the words out loud.  “We do. But where? I don't know anyone like that.” “You know me, and I know people. Don't worry about that. We gotta go to Baker City. I talked to one of my buddies from the marines this morning, he's headed to join one of the militias out east. They might not be big, but they're hard. They're something.” Tanner looked at Blake blankly, unable to quite comprehend what he was being told. Days of no news, no action, now everything all at once.  “But what's in Baker City? Don't you know anyone here? This is where we live, where we have the Hole, where we have a safe base.”  Blake was clearly agitated, shifting from foot to foot.  “It's not safe. Weren't you listening? It's fallen. The military ain't doing jack, like I fuckin' told you they wouldn't.” Blake stopped bouncing and steadied himself. “But my buddy said the boys in Baker held out. It was bloody, but they held strong. If we can get there in a hurry, we can join a caravan heading for Boise.”  “Baker… Boise? What the… Boise?! Surely it's safer in Texas, or… or…”  “Texas? And how far away is that? Look, I don't know nothing about nothing, but I know I ain't looking for safer. All I know is I got buddies in Baker, and they say Boise, and they are the fuckin' resistance. We got our orders, soldier. “The west had been invaded. Destroyed. Gone. You heard Swanson, same as me. Grids are down, water's down, TV's down--mostly, anyway. Sky's half full of fire and smoke, gangs roaming the streets, traitors and aliens taking or breaking whatever they can get their thieving hands on.” Tears came to Blake's eyes.  “It's a fucking mess out there, buddy. Anarchy. They've burned the lot.” It was a lot to chew on. Tanner put a piece of salmon in his mouth.  “I'm not gonna let some filthy aliens take my home, fuck my wife, invade my country, and steal the god damn US of A! The fight is right there, and I'm gonna fight it. Are you?”  Tanner's brain was spinning, but his blood was still hot from Swanson's speech. Blake's fire, delivered standing there half-naked like a Steven Seagal action figure, was rousing something inside him. His country needed him, and he felt the call in his bones. He put down his fork. He swallowed. He rose.  “Of course I'll fight. I'll put a bullet in every alien who steps foot on American soil. I'll put every collaborator in the dirt.” He saw himself, next to Blake, riding shotgun as they made a fighting escape through the streets. He saw a heroic journey to Baker City, filled with danger and righteous violence. He saw a triumphant return, at the head of an army, cleansing his city with purifying flame. And he saw Katie, small and fragile and beautiful. Perfect, and terrified. The flame wavered.  “But I'm fighting for her,” Tanner gestured, “I got my little girl, and I'm not so red-hot on riding out guns blazing to meet these savages with her hanging off my arm. She's the future of this country, and that's a future we have to protect.”  To Tanner's surprise, Blake took a half step back.  “Shit. I know, man. Katie and Lauren, the innocent and the pure. I'm thinking of them, too.” He dropped his shoulders, but held Tanner's gaze. “But it's not safe for them here neither. We're on our own, and all hell has broken loose up top. We fight for them, and they are the reason we have to fight.” Tanner paused, then nodded. He reached out and placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, fingers gripping the sweaty skin.  “Let's go pack the truck.”  As the sun set and twilight brought a low fog creeping across the city, they piled into the Tacoma with as many frozen dinners as they could carry.  Tanner rode in back. Lauren was up front, AR at the ready, while Blake drove, M1A by his side and his Glock taped to the dash. Katie was at Tanner's side, curled up below the window and hidden from view, and Tanner watched over her with his own Glock and a borrowed Remington 870. They were all a little jumpy. He and Lauren had wanted to maintain a shoot-on-sight policy. Blake had been more cautious. According to Swanson, there would be plenty of people collaborating with the aliens. Lights out, engine low, and hopefully they could slip right on by.  No one knew what to expect—Tanner suspected they were all terrified. He certainly was. Even Blake had swapped out his flag bandana for a more understated camo print. He had stashed the red, white and blue fabric in the bed of the truck with the rest of their gear.     They pulled out into streets Tanner knew, but didn't. He had driven them every day, on the way to work, to Katie's school, to church, to the mall. The streets were as familiar as a cold Coke, yet now, in some important way, they were… different. As they left the Hole and drove through the suburb he couldn't quite put his finger on it, but once Blake reached the main street and turned past the bars and shops and take-out joints, it hit him.  The streets were dead. The cars were gone. The steady flow of traffic, of people living their lives, had stopped. The parking lot in front of the drug store was empty; so was the one behind the bar. The convenience store, normally ticking over with a steady stream of customers buying cigarettes and beer, was dark behind its windows. Unintelligible graffiti in some alien script covered the ads for energy drinks, an expression of mindless violence across someone's hard work.  A light rain had started, misting around them and adding to the dreariness. A billboard loomed overhead, the lights that illuminated the Colgate-bright smiles of the models now permanently dark. Tanner was glad—the gloom obscured the flame-scarred destruction streaking the toothpaste company's perfect white message. “Disgusting,” Blake spat. He looked like he wanted to say more but pulled up short, shocked at the sudden sound of his own voice. His eyes focused back on the road and he fell into uneasy silence. The truck continued its crawl down the deserted street, barely clocking 20 miles an hour. Even at that speed, the low growl of the engine seemed unbearably loud as it reverberated among the carcasses of commerce and ricocheted down abandoned side streets.  They kept driving, and nothing kept happening. It was torturous. Every minute of unbroken inactivity twisted the crank on the tension in the car, until the unceasing hum of the engine began to seep into Tanner's brain. Every muscle in his arms and legs, primed and waiting and ready to spring, began to tremble, and his eyes focused and unfocused on nothing at all.  His frantic heartbeat messed with his breathing, a powerful panicked thud that matched the rumble of the pistons.  Overall, he was relieved when the road curved and they entered a strip of restaurants to see signs of life among the debris littered across the street in the distance.  It wasn't immediately clear through the gloom what was happening. Blake slowed the truck, now rolling along at barely more than walking pace, and they crept closer. The scene was illuminated by the flickering light of small fires and backlit by a pair of enormous floodlights, creating a glowing aura in the surrounding mist. Images began to resolve, ghostly figures flitting in and out of view and the harsh geometric shapes—not of debris, but of hastily manufactured barricades—throwing long shadows that lanced through the air around them as they approached.  All eyes were fixed on the barricades as they pulled within shouting distance, and Tanner nearly pissed himself when someone knocked on his window. He yelped, Blake swore, and Lauren's weapon x-rayed Tanner's head and pointed at the intruder. Tanner followed her lead and jerked his gun up to aim in the general direction of the window and for ten, twenty heartbeats nothing moved. Then another knock, and Blake hissed at them: “Put those things away you idiots, we're the good guys here. Whatever side that guy is on, so are we.”  Tanner slowly lowered the gun, then the window.  “Hey folks, no cars through here.” The man was clad head to toe in black—black jeans, black hoodie, black gloves, black bandana covering his face, black curly hair running with rainwater. No wonder they hadn't seen him. The stranger spotted their guns.  “Oh, nothing like that,” he added, catching the nervous energy in the truck, “You're a bit late to the party. No trouble ‘round here, this area's been cleaned out for days.” He chuckled, sending a shiver through Tanner.  “Some folks messed up the cop shop a while back, it was a bit of a fight. Streets were all blocked up anyway, so we set up a little kitchen here. Been feeding some folks. Symbolic, like, new world in the ruin of the old and all that.” The smile fell from his face as he took in the scene in the truck.  “Everything alright? Is she okay?”  He gestured at Katie, curled up and quivering silently beside Tanner. Tanner opened his mouth to respond, but Blake was quicker. “Sure, probably just spooked by that fucking mask. Look, we don't mean to bother you people. Just heading east, trying to cross the river. We'll go around you and your little kitchen.”  If the man took issue with Blake's tone, it didn't show.  “Bridge is a no-go, I'm afraid. Pigs blew the cables as they pulled out, some of it collapsed. It's way too unstable to cross.” He scratched at his temple. “What d'you want out that way, anyway? There's dangerous people out there, not exactly safe for… families.”  “We're heading for, uh, Hood River,” Tanner spoke up, “Taking supplies out to the girl's grandparents.”  “Indians,” Blake chimed in, “they need the help.” He winked at Tanner.  The stranger turned to Blake and met his eyes, holding his gaze for an unnerving moment. Then he seemed to resolve some internal discussion, relaxing his shoulders. “Well, you might be able to get across up St. Johns, last I heard the bridge was still intact. There's some folks in the park up there, you can ask them.”  “St. Johns? That's the wrong fucking way!”  “A bridge is a bridge. It's that or swim, champ.” “Can you at least call the, uh, your boss? Tell him you checked us out, ask if we can get across?”  The man smiled, but something hardened behind his eyes.  “My boss? Sure, sure. Look, I think it's time you moved on. Head on up there and tell ‘em what you told me, they'll let you out. There's a bunch of poor Indians waiting for their dinner.”  There was something strange about the way the man said “Indians,” but he patted the hood of the truck and turned away, waving them down a side street away from the barricade. As Blake slowly drove off, Tanner collapsed back into his seat and quickly rolled up the window. His underarms were cold with sweat, and he relaxed muscles he hadn't known were clenched.  Blake took the turn the stranger indicated, muttering that if he heard anyone say “folks” again he would hit them. Tanner stared out the window at the “little kitchen” as they passed. There must have been a couple hundred people, milling around a dozen or so small fires. They were all loosely centered around a large tent directly in front of the scorched skeleton of the precinct. Laughter and music drifted through the open window, and Tanner closed it. He didn't think he could see any aliens, but it was difficult to tell in the dark.  “Collaborators. Must be a ration station or something,” he muttered, mostly to himself.  Lauren heard him. “No, this has been going on much longer than that, it just wasn't so out in the open. Swanson warned us about it. He said they lure hungry people in with food.”  “Yeah,” cut in Blake, “this is how they recruit ‘em. Set up a kitchen, give ‘em food, homeless and crackheads and queers, mostly. Drugs too, probably, and spewing their propaganda. That guy was probably one of the junkies. Sure as shit looked like it, you see the way he stared at me?”  Tanner shuddered. A junkie. He had an overwhelming urge to wash his hands. He remembered the way the man had talked about the police station, his manic laugh in the face of such violence, and glanced back at the quickly fading light. And saw a small figure, tottering at the edge of the firelight. A child.  “Disgusting,” he said out loud.  “Yeah, disgusting. It's like Earl said,” Blake continued, “they been feeding people right under our fucking noses.”  They drove on toward the bridge. The streets were more cluttered here, both with people and the remnants of the riots, and they could only manage a slow pace as they picked their way through the destruction. Blake had to swerve to the wrong side of the road to avoid a group of people carrying trash bags, picking through the rubble.  “Looking for something to eat,” he grunted, and locked the doors.  Signs of violence were everywhere. Tanner's chest tightened as they drove past the law firm where he had started his career—the job that had brought him to the city after he finished college, working for his father's best friend and learning his profession. Inside the shattered windows it was nothing but a shell, the desks overturned and the computers gone. No one would be working there any more.  The destruction was completely random. Violence for its own sake. Beside the firm was a pawn shop, covered in graffiti and looted. Next to that, a Vietnamese restaurant, completely unharmed except for ‘Delicious, 5 stars' sprayed on the pavement outside. Across the road was an untouched convenience store and a bookshop with its doors wide open, light flooding out and people crowding the entrance. A donut shop and an Apple store destroyed, a mechanic and a bar looking like they had simply closed for the night. There was absolutely no pattern or reason to it.  They saw a Fred Meyers with every window broken, the front door jammed open with a twisted shopping cart. A movement caught Tanner's eye and he saw someone leaving from a side door, carrying a huge bag of stolen food. He hoped Blake didn't see—he might do something stupid, and Tanner didn't want to stop. It wasn't safe.  They made it a few more blocks when Lauren gasped and grabbed Blake's arm, making him brake. She gestured across the intersection to a KFC. Half the building had collapsed in what must have been an enormous fire; the half that still stood had been savagely attacked. She pointed to the entrance with a shaking finger. Someone—or something—had toppled the giant bucket sign and sent it crashing through the ceiling of the kitchen. Above the door, someone had scrawled a message in red spray paint:  FUCK YOU SANDERS OUR SECRET SPICES NOW There were more barricades set up near the bridge. Where the others had been makeshift, marking a boundary, these were more serious. They were to stop people getting through. Blake slowed before they got too close to the blockade, which they could now see was lined by shapes that very much suggested people. On both sides of the road the land fell away into darkness, sloping down to become a park that ran beneath the bridge.  The park itself, a rare green space normally dotted with dog walkers and children, was transformed. The once-quiet lawns were a mass of tents and makeshift structures, stages and bars and sound systems, the proud trees now decked out with effigies and lights. Fires burned everywhere, and the distant space was carpeted with a swarming mass of humanity, undulating to a throbbing cacophony of noise.  “This doesn't look good,” said Blake. He pulled over, a hundred yards or so short of the bridge.  “That guy said they would let us through,” said Tanner, “if we stick to our story.”  “He was a junkie,” scoffed Lauren.  “But he thought we were working with them,” said Tanner, “he had no reason to lie to us.”  “I guess it's worth a try. Anyway, they ain't gonna try anything against this much firepower.” Blake grunted. “Too late to change our minds now. They've seen us.”  He nodded at the barricade, where two shapes had detached from the mass. They moved toward the Tacoma, and Blake responded by flicking the lights to high beam and heading to meet them. As Blake swung back out into the road the beams cut through the darkness to illuminate the figures, throwing wild shadows from the two shapes until the truck steadied course and they coalesced into recognisable forms. One was a large man, white, with a nose ring and a loosely-tied blond ponytail. He was wearing a plaid shirt and carrying a large rifle. The other—Tanner's throat caught—the other looked like one of the aliens.  “Shit,” said Blake, as the headlights picked out at least half a dozen more shapes along the barricade, several with big guns visible. “Fuck.” He stopped the truck and rolled down the window, then cursed again and threw open the door.  “I'll be fucked if I'm gonna sit here and be pulled over like some criminal. Tanner, you're with me—let's go meet them man to man.” Tanner scrabbled for the door handle and chased after Blake, half-skipping to catch up. They pulled up a few paces before colliding with the approaching party. The blond man stepped forward.  “How's it going, dude?” he said.  “We need to get to Hood River,” said Blake, “we're trying—” “Yeah, we heard.” The man cut him off. “Bridge is closed to traffic, unfortunately. You wanna cross, you'll have to walk.”  Blake bristled. “Are you joking? We need to bring all this stuff. It's… important,” he objected. “You can't just keep people here!”  “We could,” said the blond man, calmly. He sounded confident in his assertion. Looking at the line of men—and women, Tanner realized—standing along the barricade, he agreed.  “But we're not,” the man continued. “You can go wherever you want. Take your shit, cross the bridge. Some folks have organized buses up the river, they'll take you. But the truck stays.”  “But that's my fucking truck!” Blake squealed. The man's eyebrows shot up and Tanner laid a hand on Blake's shoulder, squeezing it and hoping he got the message. The stranger paused, then sighed.  “Look, I'm sorry dude. I love my truck, too. But there was an attack at another camp last night by these so-called freedom fighters,” he grimaced. “Militia wackjobs, really. Word is they are gathering across the river, and we can't risk weapons and vehicles falling into the wrong hands. Especially not an arsenal like you folks got here.”  The alien stepped forward and, much to Tanner's surprise, spoke in perfect American English.  “Don't worry, it'll be here when you get back. We'll take real good care of it for you. They will appreciate the help guarding the buses and I'm sure they'll be more than happy to help you move these… important supplies.”  They signaled to the group at the barricade and two more figures made their way into the light of the truck's high beams. The first was a slim Black man in fatigues, wearing a red beret at a jaunty angle and carrying a AR-style rifle in one hand. The other was a woman, tall and imposing. She wore a leather jacket over a long black dress, which was slit to the thigh to reveal hints of slim, bare legs that stretched from the pavement to the heavens. Tanner blinked rapidly and swallowed. He had always had a soft spot for long legs in thigh-slit dresses.  As they came closer the man nodded at Tanner and Blake, but he was not what held their attention. The woman with the legs from God was also rocking a luxurious mustache that would have put Teddy Roosevelt to shame. As Tanner's eyes bulged, she caught his gaze and winked.  “Hello, boys. I'm Sunshine, they/them. I'll be with you on the bus.”  Tanner didn't know how to react. A fuzzy memory bounced around in the back of his head. “An investigation on college campuses found that increasing numbers of American citizens are using pronouns.” Earl's bewildered face frowned, then puckered. “These ‘theys' and ‘thems' are making a mockery of the American tradition, seeking to spread their insidious ideology among good, hard-working citizens, brainwashing young Americans into adopting these ‘pronouns.' What's next, people identifying a different age? A different race? We need to speak out against this perverse trend and most importantly, keep them away from our children.” _ That was it. These were the pronouns Swanson had warned them about. He gripped his gun and glanced at Blake, trying to get his mental footing.  Blake looked shocked, too, but quickly pulled himself together. He threw Tanner a sly look, one that hinted at an idea. “Give us a minute,” he snapped, and pulled away from Tanner, back to the truck. When they were both inside he turned on the occupants with a spark in his eyes.  “They must be talking about my boys, alive and kicking,” the old grin was back, his excitement barely contained. “Must have set up in the woods. We'll head over and find ‘em. Maybe they got word from Earl. If they're here, and they're fighting, maybe we don't have to go all the way to Boise after all.” “What's going on?” Lauren looked confused.  “We're leaving the truck. Grab the shit, cross the bridge, hijack their fucking commie-wagon and strike out east. Either we find them in Baker, or our boys find us first.”  Tanner was still coming to grips with the situation. “What about… them?” he said.  “Who?” “They… them. In the dress, with the pronouns!”  “And what are they going to do, stop us? You ever tried to fight wearing something like that? No. The four of us, across the bridge, grab the bus, easy.” “Katie's not hijacking any bus. She's eight, for God's sake. Maybe she and Lauren should stay here…”  “You stay here with Katie,” Lauren snapped, cutting Tanner off. “If you think it's safer, if you're looking for safer, you take her for a nice walk in the park down there. I'll be with my husband, taking my country back from these freaks.”  “I know you want to keep Katie safe,” Blake added, almost apologetically, “but you saw what it's like out there. You heard Swanson's warnings. These aren't people, they're animals, aliens. She's your baby fuckin' girl, man. You do what you're at peace with, but my wife sure as shit ain't staying here to get felt up by some dick in a dress.”  Tanner looked at Lauren. “But she's just a kid! What if she gets hurt.”  “What if she gets hurt _here? So you look after her. Be a man,” Lauren spat back.    Blake clapped Tanner on the shoulder and held his gaze. “It's do or die time, soldier. Let's get the fuck outta here, hook up with the resistance, then bring back the fury of God and freedom and the USA to take back this city and liberate my God damn truck!” Tanner looked at Katie, curled up in the footwell, and wanted to object. He wanted to take her somewhere safe, back to the Hole, where it was warm and they could hide from the aliens and the bad people and they had all the food they could need and they could wait for this all to be over.  But the fire in his belly wouldn't let him. He knew Blake was right, he knew that he should be ashamed of his moments of weakness. He saw Lauren gripping her rifle and staring at Blake with faith and devotion in her eyes and he knew that was the kind of man he wanted to be. Tanner breathed a silent promise to keep Katie safe, no matter the cost.  “Let's do it.” Blake pulled the truck up to the group of guards and they all piled out, Tanner standing straight and feeling tall, Blake's words ringing in his ears. It's do or die time. _ Two of the barricade guards came over to help them unload while the others stood around and watched, their mustachioed escort who made Tanner's skin crawl and the large blond man. Traitor. They stripped off the tray covering and began shifting gear, Blake and blondie up above handing packages down to everyone else. Tanner heard the guards muttering to each other.  “Holy shit, that's a lot of firepower.” The blond man snorted. “And a lot of nasty-ass TV dinners. Important supplies, my ass.”  Sunshine shrugged. “Folks eat what they eat. Not everyone lives in a Whole Foods and learned to make Tom Yum on their gap year,” they rebuked him. The man grimaced and scratched his jaw. “Yeah, right. That was unfair of me. Well, Thai cooking workshop tomorrow and I'll make a big pot, so at least folks here don't have to eat that frozen stuff… unless they want to.” They busied themselves unloading, bundling food and weapons into bags or tying them together for ease of carrying. Tanner was tying the straps of his backpack and settling it on his back when he heard a curse from the back of the truck. He glanced up, and, frozen in time, watched the next few seconds helplessly.  The blond man had pulled out one of the last few satchels, the one containing all their spare clothes. He was standing upright, arms held out, nose ring quivering in silent outrage. In his left hand he had Blake's flag bandana; in his right, Blake's spare jacket, rebel flag patch sitting proudly on the shoulder.  Blake reacted fastest. He dropped the food he was holding, raised his Glock, and with a vengeful crack the blond ponytail exploded in a spray of red.  The man in the beret raised his rifle and fired two shots into Blake's chest, sending him flying from the tray. A scream burst from Lauren as she reached for her gun, but the alien matched the sound and met her with a powerful tackle, sending both of them crashing into a pile of frozen hamburgers. Sunshine reached out and grabbed Tanner's arm. Time snapped back into motion for Tanner. He instinctively pulled away and shook his arm free of the grasping fingers. Stepping back, he spun and swung his fist in a wild roundhouse. It connected with Sunshine's jaw as they overbalanced toward him. Tanner watched them collapse in a heap. His gaze danced over the chaos unfolding around him, frantically searching for Katie. _There. Tanner picked her up and ran.  They plunged off the road and into the darkness. There was only one thought in his mind: get Katie across that bridge. She was sobbing, shaking in his grasp, and Tanner made what he hoped were comforting shushing noises as he ran. He knew this park—there was a staircase inside one of the support towers that rose from the park to the bridge overhead. That was his way out. Holding Katie tightly, breath ragged, he ran toward the orgy of light and noise pulsating below.  The two escapees burst into the mass of people. Tanner looked around, eyes darting, taking in the madness and trying to get his bearings. The sensory assault was overwhelming, but he slowly made out patterns in the polyrhythmic press. What had looked from above like a continuous swell of humanity was actually a hundred, a thousand separate groups and camps and parties. People flowed freely between them, groups forming and merging and coming apart in a chaotic, everchanging anarchy. A makeshift stage to his left throbbed with bass, colliding with the bone-jarring screams and guitars of a group of punks. Tanner found himself surrounded by ecstatic dancers, while a group almost under his feet sat staring into a campfire, oblivious to the rest of the world. He crashed through their doped-out reverie and bounced off two men, locked in a hungry embrace.  Tanner recoiled and turned away, shielding Katie with his body, searching desperately for the tower that would lead him out of this nightmare. Lights flashed, blinding, creating a sort of slideshow of horror as Tanner scanned the crowd. There. He found it. His escape from this festival of the damned. He soldiered on, caught up in a whirl of half-naked dancers, men, women, and everyone else, mindless of the frigid air as they span and writhed in rapture.  Tanner spotted an exit, an island of calm, and dove for it. He exploded from the throng, gasping for air, and breathed in the relative silence. Collecting himself, he was faced with rows of bodies, still, staring at something unseen up ahead, the very air trembling with collective anticipation.  A voice shattered his uneasy reprieve, loud and bombastic and dripping with drama.  “And now, my darlings, it is time for these fuckers to do what I do best—go down!” Tanner dashed through the crowd as they roared and surged into motion, and caught a glimpse of the scene ahead: two lines of people, straining on thick ropes, as a woman in lingerie and feathers pranced like a princess of hell before them. The ropes led upwards, where they were tied around the necks of two enormous metal figures. Lewis and Clark.  Tanner broke into a full sprint, shouldering bodies aside. He was almost there. Up ahead, rising from the chaos, was his stairway to the heavens. His legs trembled and his breath came in ragged sobs, but he couldn't slow down. Not when he was so close. He tore out of the crowd and into the comforting darkness of the spaces in between. His hysterical panic began to subside. One foot in front of the other. Keep running. They were going to make it. As he neared the tower a figure came into view at the base, looming from the shadows of the doorway, staring into the blackness beyond. A stocky, muscled figure wearing fatigues and a plate carrier. It couldn't be… “Blake! Blake, thank God.” Tears welled in Tanner's eyes as he reached his friend. Lauren was nowhere to be seen, but right now Tanner couldn't think about her. He had survived, and he had brought Katie through. His heartbeat was still frantic, but from exertion rather than fear. They were here. He, Katie, and Blake. Emotionally exhausted, physically spent, battered and terrified, but alive. They were going to be okay. He reached out to his friend. Blake turned—No, not Blake. A thick black beard engulfed the shadowy face, momentarily lit by the glowing ember of a huge cigar. The eyes were deep-set and dark, the skin weathered, wrinkled, brown. The face of an illegal alien.  Tanner's throat betrayed him. He squeaked, and nothing more would come out. His knees wobbled and threatened to give way, his feet froze in place. He wavered. He whimpered.  Puffing on the cigar, the alien took in his terrified face and the little girl slung over his shoulder. He gestured toward the doorway and blew out an enormous plume of smoke.  “Go, gringo.”  It was well past midnight when Katie ran into the side of a tent, fell on her bottom, and started crying. They had crossed the bridge, left the highway, and headed for the safety of the forest. Since then they had been wandering among the trees for hours, directionless, driven by fear, then by hope, then exhausted aimlessness. Tanner wasn't going anywhere except away from that park. He had briefly entertained the image of finding a group of militia, sitting around a fire, eating and laughing and, maybe, swapping stories with their old friend Blake. That was hours ago. Visions were fleeting in the fever dream of the forest. Since then, they had walked because they didn't know what else to do. Tanner stumbled over to Katie and collapsed beside her, holding her close and hushing her. He felt like crying too.  A flashlight clicked on inside the tent and a dreadlocked head poked out of the flap.  “Hey, there's someone here!” Rustling erupted from all around and more faces appeared. “Wasn't someone keeping watch?” “I thought you were.” “Doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Someone's crying.” “You folks okay?” Tanner and Katie were soon surrounded by a small group of people. He looked up at them. “Are you the militia?” “No, don't worry. You're safe here. We're friends.” “Although I guess we are a militia if you think about it. Sort of.”  “Shh, don't confuse the poor people. They're terrified.”  “Sorry. No, no militia. Someone get them a blanket and something to drink.” Minutes later, Tanner and Katie were wrapped in sleeping bags, sipping on hot cocoa. It was scalding and familiar and Tanner felt the tension of the past day fading, leaving bone-deep exhaustion in its place.  “Are you okay? What happened?” “Thank you. We were… we just need to sleep.”  “And you? What's your name? Are you alright?” Katie looked at her dad, then stared up from her tin mug. “I'm Katie. I'm scared.” “You're safe now. We'll help you. Look, we'll get you somewhere to sleep.” The first face they had seen rummaged around in a tent and brought out a bag. “Lucky we have a spare tent. I'll just put it up, won't be a second.” The tent was almost up by the time Tanner and Katie finished their drinks, and they got up and walked over, sleeping bags over their shoulders, holding hands. “Hey, thanks,” Tanner said. “I would have helped but I don't really know how. Never had much call for camping. I am, uh, was a lawyer,” he glanced around, “not criminal, uh… intellectual property. Copyright.”  “No problem, of course. Here, it's not hard. I'm just clipping the…” “This isn't the time for camping lessons, Jacob. Anyway, you'll scare the man, sharing information for free like that. They've been through enough already.”  “Sorry, yeah. Look, slide in. Take these sleeping mats. It'll do for tonight, I'll teach you tomorrow.”  Tanner and Katie squeezed into the tent, sleeping bags huddled together on the cold, hard ground, and slept. THE END **Inmn ** 1:03:01 Hello, and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on today. Could you introduce yourself with your name, pronouns, and just a little bit about what you do in the world? **Matt ** 1:03:15 Yeah, hi, I'm Matt. He/him pronouns. And I'm a student again, after a really long time, actually, which is why I've just moved to where I'm living now. But I like to write, you know, mostly for me, and this is the first first thing I've published but I enjoy it. And yeah, I'm really grateful that you've taken an interest in it. **Inmn ** 1:03:37 Yeah, totally. I love the story. So we just listened to the second half of your story, Blood, Soil and Frozen TV Dinners and even though listeners just heard...just heard the whole story, I'm wondering if you could just kind of like walk us through the story in your--you know, from the mouth of the author--what is this story about? **Matt ** 1:04:01 So the story, for me, was about, to some extent, seeing yourself in some ways or, you know, people like you, through the eyes of...through the eyes of someone else, I guess, someone who's very different and might see things in a different way. So I always find it interesting to play with different perspectives or different characters instead of telling the story from a heroic perspective or something. And I wondered what a pathway to a better world might look like from someone who didn't necessarily want that to happen. So we have these, you know, preppers who--call them you want, right-wing conservatives, something like this--and what they might think, given the knowledge that they receive about the world, what they might think is happening when something happens that a lot of the rest of us might want. **Inmn ** 1:05:00 Yeah, totally. I really like how you put that. What was it, like, "a better world that they don't necessarily want?" [both laugh] Okay, well, how did this, how did this story kind of...like how did it come to be? What inspiration did you kind of draw from to craft this situation or these like personalities from Tanner and Blake or Earl Swanson? 1:05:35 Yeah, the story itself, there was a discussion last Halloween, I believe it was, on Coffee With Comrades, there was a interview with Pearson and Margaret Killjoy, talking about the discussion of the monster in literature, which is where I first took the idea that they were talking about seeing yourself as the monster in this idea and sometimes reveling in that or perhaps enjoying it. And that was where the first idea came from. And then the most specific layout of the story or main theme, I guess, was, I was doing something on the US Tax Office website. And there's this whole section for aliens, right, if you're an alien in the U.S., these are the tax rules you need to follow. And I just thought it was a funny word. You know, I'd seen it on Fox News or something before but it just struck me as really weird in such an official position. Yeah, and I just was playing with the ideas of this and, you know, I like thinking about utopias and things. And this is where the like the main shape of the story had come from, just the idea of seeing the monster, seeing the alien from there. And then specific characters, I mean, some of them are just kind of people that I've met, you know, Tanner and Blake, specifically, and I think Earl Swanson's character, I mean--I don't know it's possibly libelous--but we can probably figure out who that's meant to be, right? I think it's reasonably obvious. **Inmn ** 1:07:09 Totally, totally. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's super interesting. Yeah, it's funny, I was rereading the story today to prepare for this interview and I realized that the first time that I was reading it, because of this perspective of the.... I'm like, okay, I know, these are some, you know, at least center-right, far-right preppers and they're using the word "alien" and I don't actually know what they mean by this, which was, you know, maybe a purposeful being vague about it, but I was like, I don't know if they think that it's, you know, illegal aliens or undocumented  migrants or whatever or if they mean, like, literal from outer space aliens. And, yeah, I was like, I don't know what they mean by what they're talking about. And maybe they don't either.   1:08:20 This was part of the conceit, right, was setting it up like it's a pretend big reveal, I think, that it's a twist in the story that at some point gets revealed, but that's not really the point. It's not really meant to be a big trick or something like this, you know? I think in discussions in the editing, we talked about in the first page or so when they speaking Arabic, and it's reasonably obvious to anyone that knows Arabic who these people are, you know, it's not hidden, but this was the idea, that they may have meant illegal alien all along, was, you know, the way they we're using the term, but that they weren't necessarily drawing so much of a distinction between the two uses of the word alien, that in their minds a, sort of, invasion by one was the same as the invasion by the other to some extent. **Inmn ** 1:09:10 Yeah, which, you know, I actually really love that from the perspective of.... It's like maybe an interesting twist. I didn't listen to that interview with Pearson and Margaret, so I'm not sure what they talked about, but there's this kind of idea in a lot of spaces that I've been part of,you know, when people talk about things like assimilation or something, especially in queer spaces, of like, "We have to seem harmless to them. We have to seem innocent. We have to seem like we just want to be part of the group," you know, and then this other side that's like, "No, we want to be unknowable. We are claiming the monstrosity that they are putting on us," and I'm like, yeah, we're fucking.... I don't know, anarchists are kind of aliens, like, in an entirely other way of thinking, you know? 1:10:09 Yeah, and just considering some social norms is completely irrelevant or harmful or repressive and other things that other people would consider, perhaps, violent or something seem completely okay to other people. There is a complete sort of alienation of perspective from broader society, I think. And yeah, it is, there's a tension between sometimes wanting to go unnoticed, or, as you say, like assimilate, and even, for me, walking around, you know, sometimes you want to look like an anarchist and sometimes you don't. It's an interesting dynamic, I guess, that you can switch sometimes day-to-day. **Inmn ** 1:10:54 Yeah, yeah. Have you read much of--you know, love talking about this person on the show--have you read much of Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle? 1:11:08 I've read only "The Dispossessed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness".  **Inmn ** 1:11:16 Great examples. I think "The Left Hand of Darkness," kind of brings out this idea of where the reader is going to maybe most identify with the alien, or whatever, in "The Left Hand of Darkness" being not the not the Gethens--or I don't remember what they're called. But then it's like, the more that we're reading the book... or there's some times where I'm this alien or, you know, our perspective person just doesn't understand this culture. And that's really painful. And then there are other times when I'm like, I don't know, maybe the alien's perspectives on the world are far more dissimilar to what a normal person on like our planet Earth would think, because they're advocating for a better world that is very alien to people on this planet. Does that make sense? **Matt ** 1:12:24 Yeah, I mean, in "The Dispossessed," I think it's the same dynamic with Shevak coming back to Earth and presenting the perspective, both ways that it seems incredibly alien to him and then the other way around to everyone else that's there, to the general culture there. Yeah. I think it's an interesting literary device to present the outsider point of view, I think, which I mean, is quite the opposite of what I did in this story, I presented the more mainstream point of view, I guess, but from the circles that we're in, it's funny to see from the outside what that looks like. **Inmn ** 1:13:02 Yeah, yeah, I had this very silly idea once for...I don't know if it was gonna be a short story or what but kind of, using that "alien" trope or like "Stranger in a Strange Land" trope as a way to talk to my parents about anarchism or about radical queer spheres. **Matt ** 1:13:27 Yeah, I mean, that's about as alien as it can get for a lot of people's parents, right. **Inmn ** 1:13:31 Totally. But just as some funny little zine that's like an introduction to the punk house, you know? **Matt ** 1:13:44 Yeah, viewed as some sort of interesting zoo creatures. **Inmn ** 1:13:46 Yeah. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the kind of political renderings of Tanner and Blake or ,rather, their differences in how they perceive or interact with either preparedness or this new world that they're encountering? **Matt ** 1:14:14 Yeah, I think that Blake's character is a lot.... He knows what he's doing, right? It's a lot more intentional and more--I guess educated is maybe not quite the right word--but a lot more of an actually constructed ideology, whereas for Tanner it's very much received. He's not so keen, not so entirely sold on the idea or doesn't necessarily know the idea. It feels like it's like lost and failing a lot of the time and I think that's why I found him a much more interesting character because that's how I feel a lot of people that I know and talk to and family members and friends and things or friends of people I know get pulled into a lot of these, you know, reactionary ideologies is kind of by accident a lot of the time, right? Because it's what's presented and what they're drawn into by someone who has a lot more investment in it than they do. And they just kind of bumble into it almost by accident. Yeah. **Inmn ** 1:15:20 Because it's what they're seeing on TV. People who are deeper into that philosophy are like.... It's like the people that they're around who are their own little echo chambers of, "Oh, okay, there's this thing happening. Not sure how I feel about it. But I'm being like, fed this perspective on it." **Matt ** 1:15:46 Yeah, and a lot of the social or interpersonal issues that draw people in as well, I think. I tried to make it seem relatively obvious that Tanner is envious of Blake in a lot of ways, right? He is, you know, hotter than him and he is cooler than him and he knows more than him and he's always trying to, like, live up to this ideal that he has just completely interpersonally with no politics or anything in it. And he just wants to live up to what he thinks Blake wants him to be, which it turns out, is a bad thing. I mean, I'm not trying to excuse Tanner's character too much here. But yeah, I think this is what's really dangerous a lot of the time actually, for people who don't necessarily have a fully formed belief in all of these philosophical systems or something that then puts them on the wrong side not by...not necessarily out of evil intention. **Inmn ** 1:16:54 Yeah. No, that's very true. And it's interesting talking about not excusing Tanner's character too much, but as I was reading the story I found myself like, not necessarily rooting for Tanner and Bl