LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Tuesday, 12 APR 2022]  OBSERVATION   One of the workers in the work truck today provided us with an example of proletarians talking to lumpenproletarians with an audiostream of The Geto Boys podcast, which opened with a discussion on the topic of developing small businesses within the context of the American capitalist system, with an emphasis on “minority participation” in the economy.  You gotta appreciate Willie D’s efforts.

Meanwhile, as Chris Hedges recently pointed to the Amazon and Starbucks union drive victories as hopeful signs for the building of a vibrant labor movement towards a general strike, on today’s edition of Against the Grain, host Sasha Lilley dismissed those two victories as anomalous.  She pointed to dwindling union density as evidence that the American labor movement is shrinking, not growing.  Meanwhile, this week’s edition of Covid, Race & Democracy by the Pacifica COVID-19 Task Force, features South African workers building international working class solidarity with American workers and others.  This Covid, Race & Democracy labor coverage is more of a grassroots perspective of contemporary labor movements than the establishment narratives provided by Jon Schleuss of the NewsGuild-CWA on Against the Grain today.

OTHER SALIENT OBSERVATIONS:

  • On today’s edition of Flashpoints, a conversation on the history of Chicano cultural, political, and labor movements.
  • The false COVID-19 narrative and agenda is still coercing Americans into submitting to experimental COVID-19 injectable drug products, including pushing legislation to coerce minors into compliance without parental consent.
  • Geto Boys podcast > ‘Government Contracting with Gary Wade’
  • According to one of the workers, we gotta check out a recent episode of Atlanta, involving DNA tests, genetic ancestry, and slaveholders.
  • According to one of the workers, ‘they’re still trying to get Ice Cube, as he’s now being persecuted and accused of being antisemitic because of a show he executive produced back in the 2000s about a ‘family swap’ variation of Freaky Friday.
  • According to various news reports on free speech Pacifica Radio, a man wearing a gas mask opened fire in a New York City subway train today.
  • The Ukraine-Russia military conflict continues, as the US continues to provoke instead of de-escalate 1the situation.
  • According to one of the workers, self-described “good liberal” Bill Maher ‘made some real zingers’ and ‘spoke critically about the false COVID-19 narrative’.  Many working class people are fans of Joe Rogan and, perhaps, to a lesser extent, Bill Maher.  Some of us are not fans of liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists).  Surely, people of good faith and conscience appreciate when anybody with a ‘platform’ or a large audience speaks honestly, instead of saying what they think others want them to say, or instead of self-aggrandizing or saying what they can say to manipulate others.  But Mr. Bill Maher and Mr. Joe Rogan, of course, are liberals and, as Mr. Lewis Lapham articulated circa 1993, such celebrities are courtiers within the establishment.  They will never bite the hand that feeds.  Their currency is the occasional ‘truth-bomb’, which they dole out to their fans, or fanatics, who identify with celebrities.  But they are not actually challenging the patronage system, despite the culture war facade.  We can say the same for Pacifica Radio and the liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists), KPFA’s “UIR” faction and their counterparts across the network have worked so hard to colonize the network with their liberal gaslighting to politically alienate and demobilize the listeners across decades and generations.  As one observer noted, the 1999 KPFA Lockouts only strengthened this faction.  Indeed, then we saw new young, synthetic left figures enter KPFA to carry the liberal torch from the Larry Benskys and the Philip Maldaris of the KPFA world, from Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Mitch Jeserich to C.S. Soong and Sasha Lilley.  Kris Welch, Aileen Alfandary, Mark Mericle are part of the old guard, who seem to have ‘groomed’ the newer batch of courtiers within the Pacifica Radio patronage system, or hierarchical power structure behind the scenes.  If even Pacifica Radio, despite its listeners having won a democratic governance structure after the 1999 Lockouts, has been corrupted by capital and the patronage system, perhaps our human nature is permanently vulnerable to submission and domination.  Lewis Lapham has said circa 1993:  People are democratic to the extent they speak freely.  People are courtiers (i.e., codependents) to the extent they tell others what they think others want to hear.  That is the corruption of the human spirit.  That is what it means to sell out.  What institutions are democratic?  Perhaps, US Day of Rage was prophetic during the Occupy Wall Street protests and prolonged protest encampments:  “The culture wars are over.  Everyone lost.”

@LumpenProles, last modified/edited/updated on 13 APR 2022 at 08:08 PDT.

MEDIA NOTES, NEWS, VIEWS, WORKING CLASS BLUES, INFORMATION, INSPIRATION, PERSPIRATION, AND AGITATION FROM A WORKING CLASS PERSPECTIVE…

[Notes will be modified/edited/updated as time constraints allow.  Working class solidarity. ✊🏽✊🏼✊🏿✊]

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09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT, WBAI & PRN.live > The Gary Null Show

NOTES (re: Gary Null Show for Tuesday, 12 APR 2022):  [Also see program notes at PRN.live]  [TW]  Melissa Ciummei, ‘the Iconoclast interview‘ (revisited, still as relevant today and compelling as ever, well, with the exception of the monetary analysis claims about the financial insolvency of fiat currencies, specifically the US dollar.  Dedollarization is another issue, which Ms. Ciummei doesn’t mention.

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10:00 PDT, KPFA > Letters and Politics with Mitch Jeserich > A podcaster discussed the book she wrote about blockchain and cryptocyrrency “for posterity”.  This sounded like a rerun, but uncertain. 

11:00 PDT, KPFA > Talkies with Kris Welch > Ms. Aviva Chomsky(sp?) on her book, Is Science Enough?, on climate change, climate justice, and the rotten “system”, which “must be changed.”  Nice.  Ms. Chomsky sounds like an anti-capitalist, unlike host Kris Welch, a liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist are non-anti-capitalist).  You can tell by the lack of engagement Ms. Welch basically tuned out of the discussion towards the end.

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11:00 PDT / 14:00 EDT, WPFW > Covid, Race & Democracy with Akua Holt

NOTES (re: C,R&D for 11 APR 2022):  [Also see program notes at Pacifica COVID-19 Task Force]  history:  CIA sabotage of South African labor organizing  |  [TW] Ann Garrison reporting from the African Continent in a clip from Pacifica Radio’s Flashpoints. | (c. 30:30) music break:  “War (live)” by Bob Marley and The Wailers  |  (c. 32:08)  Audio clip from, Pacifica Radio’s On the Ground with Esther Iverem:  ‘marking the anniversary of MLK’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, we hear audio from the 4 APR 2022 Poor People’s Campaign Rally at the Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. presented a new report, ‘Pandemic for the Poor‘  |  (c. 41:50)  music break: “People Make the World Go ‘Round” by The Stylistics  |  (c. 42:35)  DEATH PENALTY > Houston, Texas > A woman named Melissa Lucio, is scheduled for execution on 27 APR 2022 ‘for a crime, which never happened.’  …  ‘But there are so many doubts around her case that many people are speaking out, including House Representatives(?).  …  (c. 46:40)  ‘And these young people will be going to the World Coalition meeting in Berlin in November.’  ‘Gloria Rubac reporting from Houston, Texas with The Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement (see Facebook page)’  …  ‘For information about this case go to InnocenceProject.org. …  ‘Melissa Lucio is the only latina on death row in modern history since a woman named Lupita in the 1860s was executed in Texas.’   |  (c. 48:40)  music break:  “There It Is” by Jane Correz and The Firespitters  |  (c. 49:15)  Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson profile, update. | (c. 52:50)  Former Texas Congressman. Attorney Craig Washington on Justice Jackson’s historic Supreme Court  seat.  |  (c. 55:00)  WBAI/WPFW News Headlines

RELATED READINGS/RESOURCES:

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12:00 PDT, KPFA > Against the Grain with Sasha Lilley

NOTES (re: ATG for 12 APR 2022):  “Organizing Media Workers” |  “Since well before Covid, U.S. media has been in dire straits. Hedge funds [cf. global power elite] demanding sky-high profits have gobbled up established newspapers, while local reporting has disappeared. Media conglomerates have laid off journalists in record numbers, gutting coverage of the misdeeds of the powerful. And yet over the last five years, as Jon Schleuss of the NewsGuild-CWA lays out, there’s been a remarkable surge in labor organizing among media workers. | Resources: The NewsGuild-CWA”  |  In this episode of Against the Grain, Sasha Lilley and guest discussed the dying gasps of American newsprint employment and the various threats to the media landscape. ‘across the US we see this movement’  … 

COMMENT:  Guest sounded like a liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist), as did host Sasha Lilley, today.  Sometimes, Ms. Lilley sounds like a leftist (i.e., anti-capitalist), not today.  And, oh, the irony, as Ms. Lilley, a union-buster, with a history of political alliance with the KPFA faction (and CWA union) opposing the Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO) at KPFA back in the day.  Ever since then, any time I hear the name, CWA, I always think of that treachery by the CWA, Communication Workers of America.  According to an article from 2021 by a friend of mine from KPFA (and senior producer of the Project Censored radio show), Mr. Anthony Fest, the KPFA faction of shills for the Democrat Party was calling itself “UIR”.  Anthony wrote:  “the “UIR” faction that presently [c. 2021] holds the majority on the LSB and has filled all four officer posts – chair, vice-chair, secretary, treasurer – from its ranks […]”  But as Emiliano Echeverria has also testified, these establishment types, like today’s Democrat Party shills, like Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Kris Welch, Aileen Alfandary, Mark Mericle, Mitch Jeserich, et al, they are part of a barrage of  establishment types, which have been trying to ‘massage’ the radical/grassroots activist culture into the mealy-mouthed liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist) rhetoric we hear nowadays from the “Weekdays” News Department (Aileen Alfandary, Mark Mericle, Kristina Aanestad, Max Pringle, et al), UpFront, Talkies, Letters and Politics, Behind the News, Visionary Activist, Rising Up with Sonali, et al.  Most of KPFA’s news (with the exception of the weekend news with Anthony Fest and Ann Garrison), public/current affairs is all establishment talking points.  One can listen to those “liberal” “UIR”-promoted programs, and if you read between the lines, you can filter out some useful information.  But just always be aware that all those programs promoted by “UIR” faction partisans are bullshitting you, ‘managing’ listeners, and pretending to be leftist (i.e., anti-capitalist), but implicitly steering listeners toward the Democrat Party.  It’s like reading The New York Times.  I still read it.  But when I read it, I just keep in mind they’re lying to me.  Often, we can prove The New York Times and these Democrat Party shills (“UIR”, formerly SaveKPFA, formerly Concerned Listeners, formerly KPFA Foward) are lying.  But because of their larger audience, by the time we do, it’s too little too late.  But we still keep speaking out the truth about the corruption of the KPFA and Pacifica mission spirit by these moneyed interests and Democrat Party shills.

RELATED READINGS/RESOURCES:

  • “KPFA’s working majority gets screwed by CWA job trust” by Isis Feral, SF Bayview, 9 DEC 2010.
  • “Why Did KPFA CWA Local 9415 Members Picket The Pacifica Foundation?” by Steve Zeltzer, 28 APR 2012.
  • “An Historical Perspective [on KPFA and Pacifica Radio] From Emiliano Echeverria” by Emiliano Echeverria, 12 JUL 2012.
  • “Bringing Peace to KPFA-Pacifica” by Akio Tanaka, 12 JUL 2012.
  • “KPFA-Pacifica Union History and Politics” by Bob English, IndyBay, 13 DEC 2015.
  • “March madness: McCarthyism at KPFA?” by Anthony Fest, 13 MAY 2021.

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13:00 PDT

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“All Things Co-op: The Canadian Worker Co-op Federation” by Democracy At Work, 12 APR 2022.

NOTES:  [“All Things Co-op, S6 E3”]  […]  (c. 13:00 PDT)  Tuned in to livestream, after KPFA’s Against the Grain ended.  …  (13:48 PDT)  Currently, 30 people are watching, your author included.  I tuned in shortly after 13:00 PDT.  The speakers sounded like liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists).  They discussed various details of contemporary “co-ops”, ostensibly worker-owned.  (c. 13:48 PDT)  End of livestream.  Playback not immediately available.

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“US, EU sacrificing Ukraine to ‘weaken Russia’: fmr. NATO adviser” by The Grayzone [Pushback with Aaron Maté], 12 APR 2022.  [L2]

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14:00 PDT / 17:00 EDT, WPFW > Sojourner Truth > [notes pending; haven’t listened yet]

16:00 PDT, KPFA > Hard Knock Radio with Anita Johnson > […] 1644 Anita Johnson…  cheesy Kenny G instrumental.  |  1651 Commentary by make phone caller. Human Rights …  ‘Prison Radio’ | Kendrick Lamar – ‘Alright’

16:00 PDT / 19:00 EDT, WPFW > We Only Want the World with Sunsara Taylor

NOTES (re: WOWTW, 12 APR 2022): [L9]  Sunsara Taylor. | 0555. ‘Laura, a college student in Chicago  |  ST. |  0635 ‘Mari(sp?), 18 in Los Angeles’  … | 0905 Ana 16 in high school

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17:00 PDT, KPFA > Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein > DB:  ‘For the hour, Gavilan and Pedro Reyes chat with Richard (Culture Clash) in an interview recorded on 11 MAR 2022.’  |  Gavilan:  COVID-19 ‘has toned down It’s not the crisis it was two years ago.  ‘On the significance of Dolores Huerta,  Cesar Chavez, and UFW on CC’s bday. …  ‘Jose Montoya’ … ‘the Royal Chicano Air Force. |  ‘City Terraceis the barrio we are in’  ‘Boyle Heights is over there’  On the history of the Chicano movements…  [TW]  ‘My father and Cesar developed a friendship.  …  1714. ‘Richard, RIP, is said to have come up with the design for the huelga eagle.  He wanted something anybody could draw, even a little kid.’  ‘They started out as the Rebel Chicano Art Front; but the acronym, RCAF, was misread as… So, it stuck… [L24]  1724 [CC]

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[12 APR 2022]

[Last modified/edited/updated on 12 APR 2022 at 21:57 PDT.]

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