LUMPENPROLETARIAT—On Tuesday, 19 MAY 2015, Kansas City reprazented for Claim Malcolm X Day Worldwide. Lumpenproletariat.org was reporting live from this important civic gathering, occurring simulatenously across the USA. At 18:00 CDT, local community members peacefully assembled at 63rd and Paseo in Kansas City, Missouri for a rally to Claim Malcolm X Day. Several speakers delivered impassioned and moving speeches and spoken word. Representatives of Black Lives Matter as well as Chicana/Hispanic groups, such as Una Lucha were on hand. Local poet and UMKC undergrad student, Corey, delivered a beautiful and moving tribute to the spirit of revolutionary struggle represented by brother Malcolm X. The rally was followed by a march westbound on 63rd. (Photos and transcript pending.) The marchers chanted:
No justice, no peace! No racist police!
Black Lives Matter!
Ryan Stokes means, we have to fight back!
Old Jim Crow, New Jim Crow, this racist system has to go!
You can’t stop the revolution!
We want freedom, freedom! Tell those racist cops we don’t need ’em, need ’em!
Police brutality! Shut it down! Mass incarceration! Shut it down! The New Jim Crow! Shut it down!
We are unstoppable! Another world is possible!
Hands up! Don’t shoot!
Same story every time! Being Black is not a crime!
—Messina
***
“Claim Malcolm X Day – Kansas City”
***
***
ONE STRUGGLE KC—There is a national call to CLAIM Malcolm X Day. Actions will take place across the country. This will be a day of reverence, resistance, and reflection. Come celebrate Malcolm X, and his dedication to the liberation of people of color, and all oppressed people. This will be a family-friendly event, with children re-enacting famous speeches made by Malcolm X, and fellowshipping with community. We look forward to sharing our love and admiration for Malcolm X with you all.
Malcolm X inspired and continues to inspire liberation movements here and around the world, including the #BlackLivesMatter movement. We seek to carry on his legacy in our fight against human rights violations at the hands of police, economi…c exploitation, and the prison and military industrial complexes. Malcolm X died in the struggle to empower, unite, and educate oppressed groups and communities in these United States. Fifty years later, One Struggle KC is honored to be part of this ongoing struggle in the Kansas City community, and beyond. Malcolm’s love for his people was transformative. In its actions, One Struggle seeks to harness that love for oppressed people everywhere and willl work tirelessly to move toward a world that Malcolm envisioned; a world where human rights are protected and human dignity honored.
CLAIM MALCOLM X DAYWORLDWIDE—It’s time to take a stand, make history and celebrate the life of a revolutionary warrior, a man who stood for something and believed in doing anything necessary to free black people. BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY! ATTENTION BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA AND BEYOND!
LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Sat. 23 JAN 2021, 06:06 PST] ‘Forget the 24-hour news cycle.’ Those were some of the best words of wisdom we heard yesterday on Pacifica Radio, courtesy of the brilliant Mickey Huff on the Project Censored show, which is like a lifeline of reason for many of us. “The sleep of reason engenders monsters,” warned Goya. Reason, however, is always wide awake at Project Censored. The team candidly addressed the events of January 6th, the state of the nation, and the role of media, in terms of the free flow of information, the public’s capacity for critical media literacy, the public’s susceptibility to misinformation and disinformation, the effects of social media and blogs (such as this one), and so much more.
Mickey Huff, director of the independent media initiative Project Censored, at the Action in Media Education Summit in April 2016 at Sacred Heart University.
Huff and company discussed ideas for extending the requirements against false advertising to the actual ‘news/opinion’ content used to sell the advertising (or, perhaps more precisely, to sell the audiences to the advertisers). The idea is, if advertisers can be fined for false advertising, why not also fine false reporting? I think it’s a brilliant idea because we have to have some system of fact-checking and pointing out repeat offenders on social media or podcasts, which influence so many millions of people, and even drive people to storm a capitol and riot and vandalize and engage in violence because they were manipulated or gaslighted by false reporting on social media. Critical media literacy must be taught in schools at an early age, before kids are going online and believing everything they read. If not, they become adults, who thing Google is a source. They don’t even know they need to open the full article and check the source or author. They don’t know they must, then, consider the credibility of the source. Is this a reliable source? What is a reliable source?
***
The Three Evils
YouTuber Shirley Ashcraft commented one year ago, as she watched a video of “Three Evils”, “When you set out to do good…people want to take you out!!” It struck me as an excessively pessimistic view. All people? Surely, not all people wanted to “take out” Dr. King. So, I replied.
I doubt black or brown people wanted to “take him out”. I doubt most white people wanted to “take him out”, either (just the racist ones). Most white people weren’t racist were they?
But American anti-racist leaders were not up to the task because they all abandoned Dr. King, especially white liberals. Dr. King was committed to truth; wherever the facts lead, unlike his peers, especially Jesse Jackson. (Just ask Philadelphia journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal what he thinks about Jesse Jackson.)
Dr. King died an intellectually lonely man because the rest of the prominent leaders began to distance themselves from him towards the end of his life, or had been assassinated. Imagine if Malcolm X hadn’t been assassinated in 1965, one year after his famous and, now, prophetic “Ballot or the Bullet” speech. Had MLK and X been allowed to peacefully lead black, brown, and sympathetic whites to create a powerful voting block, it’s plausible that such a grouping could have even created some sort of social democratic party, which could have swept the elections in the late 1960s. But acts of state, surveillance of King and X, seem to have conspired to stop their noble pursuits, rather than help them.
Dr. King started to see the deeper problems in America and beyond, which seeded and sowed the seeds of racism, which kept people of color subjugated in the USA and around the world, which was quickly becoming saturated by America’s imperialist sphere of influence.
Two years after the assassination of Malcolm X, Dr. King identified “the three evils” in 1967. By this point, Dr. King had clearly made the guns-and-butter connections about the military-industrial complex. Dr. King had become an anti-capitalist and an anti-imperialist. And, to this day, not many Americans are willing to confront these evils. Too many of us thought the problem of racism would go away, if we turn a blind eye. We were wrong. We, Americans, still have a lot to learn from the insights and the experiences of Dr. King and Malcolm X.
*
“Normalizing Censorship: CNN Panel’s OUTRAGE…” by The Jimmy Dore Show
This is unfortunate news. Let us find solution to this problem. Project Censored is an important organization, which is responding to this terrible crisis facing our American freedom of the press and the public’s freedom of speech.
The Other America
“The time is always right to do right.” […] (c. 29:00) [TP] We’ve heard this speech several times before. This feels so relevant today in America. […] (c. 38:00) Dr. King moved to discuss the American occupation and war of aggression against Vietnam, and to say at least a few things about some of the problems going on there.’ Some people applauded. A few voices are heard booing. The audience appeared to consist predominantly of white people. (No people of color were visible in the footage shown here.) […] (c. 40:00) ‘Our fates are tied together’ […] As we listen to the conclusion, we’re reminded of the very dignified man orating on the corner of a busy intersection, whom we saw last weekend running errands. We saw him again today. It occurred to us, that he is probably delivering an important speech, or sermon, which we all should hear. We will have to stop by and listen next week, si dios quiere.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the USA. Seth Meyers was telling jokes, eerily reminiscent of the comedians at the nightly cabarets in Berlin, making fun of the brown shirts.
“Biden Gets to Work Undoing Trump’s Damage: A Closer Look”, Late Night with Seth Meyers, 22 JAN 2021
*
Fred Hampton on the opportunistic anarchists, the Weatherman, SDS, and relations. “They are politically immature…”
Fred Hampton, interviewed by ABC News, 9 OCT 1969
It’s very tragic to hear Fred Hampton say he disagrees with the terrorist tactics of the Weathermen, a faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) out of Chicago in the late 1960s. Not because Fred Hampton should have agreed with the Weathermen, but because Hampton knew the Weathermen’s tactics of property destruction through planted explosives was playing into the hands of the state, who, in Hampton’s view, were looking for an excuse to lash out. The Weathermen, he astutely identified, would create an air of violence around the Chicago activist movements, in which Chicago police were able to mount a pre-dawn raid on Fred Hampton’s home, as he slept with his pregnant wife.
*
As we meditate on the social construct known as race, we recall the wisdom of James Baldwin.
“I Am Not Your Negro | James Baldwin on The Dick Cavett Show
Have you guys seen this yet? It’s been on Netflix for a while. I’ve had it on my list of things to watch for a long time. But I guess I thought I didn’t need to watch it because we’ve read his books and heard his talks since we were teenagers. But this historical moment seems to necessitate a deeper form of reflection than we have been practicing these last four years. Let’s watch this on a streaming service or any way we can. Then, share your thoughts.
Netflix has created a Black Lives Matter collection.
LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Friday, 22 JAN 2021] So, this is it. Here we go, again. We are officially back in the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing politics of the Democrat Party, who make us feel warm and fuzzy, as they devour us with neoliberalism.
Why is America – why does this loom to be such an explosive political year? Because this is the year of politics. This is the year when all of the white politicians are going to come into the Negro community. You never see them until election time. You can’t find them until election time. [applause] They’re going to come in with false promises. And as they make these false promises they’re going to feed our frustrations, and this will only serve to make matters worse. I’m no politician. I’m not even a student of politics. I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American – and got sense enough to know it. [applause]
I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats. One of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. [applause] And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat or a Republican, nor an American. I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy.You and I have never seen democracy – all we’ve seen is hypocrisy. [applause]
Malcolm X, quoted from “The Ballot or The Bullet” speech, 12 APR 1964, King Solomon Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan
“Mob Mentality: Capitol riot exploited to expand the security state that failed to stop it”, 21 JAN 2022, The Grayzone
Max Blumenthal and Aarom Maté provide us with very valuable analysis and insights in this important discussion. This narrative makes a lot of sense to us. But, of course, Blumenthal’s Grayzone analysis is looking at these events through a political lense. And it’s very revealing that the most vocal slogans among the Trump loyalist alliance were anti-China and anti-Communist slogans and ranting. Blumenthal seemed to downplay racial motivations. We can see how his perspective can be explained by the possibility that he may have seen the most militant subscribers to Trump’s anti-China rhetoric. But the masses in attendance may be less concerned about China and more driven by an assortment of complaints, from anti-establishment views to white supremacy and fascism. But I’m with Martin and Malcolm. We cannot ignore the fact that white supremacy was baked in from the start. Our failure to deal with this reality, the North’s abandonment of Reconstruction, the New Jim Crow (i.e., Second Reconstruction period), and the Black Lives Matter response has left the nation in need of a sincere and meaningful Third Reconstruction, as various observers have emphasized on Pacifica Radio these past few weeks. And, with Black Lives Matter being cited by many in law enforcement as their greatest threat to their unchecked power to kill with impunity and oppress people of color and low-income communities, BLM is poised to defeat and/or reform an institution, which was founded to support the institution of slavery, then to support the capitalist mode of production to jail discontents, dissenters, and debtors. The notion that police exist to keep us safe and to care for us and envelope us in their loving embrace seems an increasingly fleeting notion. U.S. policing has become increasingly militarized, yet without any appreciable benefits or improvements in U.S. ghettoes. Poverty continues unabated, which incentivizes petty crime, which provides a pretext for increased policing. We’ve known this since the 1960s and ’70s. When cops complain that they’re not social workers, that they can’t solve all the society’s problems, it becomes harder for them to argue for increased police budgets. And redirecting some of their bloated budgets to real social workers, who can provide real resources and services to those impacted communities starts to make a lot of sense. Again, we all ought to revisit MLK and Malcolm and other freedom fighters. Kat Brooks was talking about how they would play MLK speeches for the BLM protestors to help them build their resolve toward non-violent direct action, and also to learn about the real MLK, who has been censored out of the history books. MLK was more than a dreamer; he was also an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-consumerist, which we may be forgiven for reading as a communist.
03:00 – 06:00 PST, 05:46, RDWOLFF CLIO ON what Biden’s immediate economic program should be, from 21 jan 2021 no mmt? Wolff’s flaw.
05:00 PST, WPFW [DC] & WBAI [NYC] > Democracy Now! > […] 05:35 PST ‘book-burners’. Native American elders, keepers of the language, are dying from covid, native languages may be lost.
06:00 PST, 198pg plan, as covid soars to new heights. No herd immunity in NYC til 2022? […] “START Treaty” […] waiver for lloyd Austin (Raytheon), a 1st black person to that position
06:00 KPFK > The Stephanie Miller Show > 06:20 PST, liberal talk, of being so pleased that Biden “created such a divide” yesterday from Trump and his politics. Like Amy Goodman’s first guest today, so pleased with Biden. But this is exactly what will further alienate the 74 million, who correctly recognize Biden’s neoliberal corruption and the Democrat Party’s collusion to block third party alternatives. […] 06:26 PST, on the military involvement, “Michael Flynn”, et al “lied”, enabled the 6th? […] 06:28 PST. on Trump’s parting “grifts” and offenses… […] 06:30, more Biden boasting, delusions… […] 06:38 PST, more otherization of the 74 million. This is how out-of-touch liberals will further divide the nation, if they are not careful. They talk trash about the Trump voters, but never bother to engage them on a human level to see what they actually have to say for themselves. Liberals and their liberal audiences seem to have no interest in dialogue across ideologies. That is a recipe for extreme alienation, bitterness, and conflict. Listening to The Stephanie Miller Show is so disappointing because they don’t seem to appreciate how dangerous it is to continue to denigrate and alienate tens of millions of Americans, who were victims of narcissistic abuse, were gaslighted, and manipulated. That 74 million might even continue growing, as comedians keep making fun of them. Chris Hedges tried to warn us back in 2015, just before Trump announced his candidacy for president, that we ignore the rise of fascism at our own peril. Hedges reminded us of the Berlin cabarets where comedians made fun of the Nazis night after night, until the cabarets got closed down, one by one. And, then, people got killed. Like Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, et al., four years of liberal wit accomplished nothing. This show is a mixed bag, we appreciate the factoids and information, but lament the lack of seriousness of purpose. Jimmy Dore has a comedic approach, but retains his seriousness of purpose. Perhaps, that has to do with the fact that he almost died when he had to rely on our for-profit healthcare system when he had a life-threatening disease, but unable to afford the exorbitant medical bills. Stephanie Miller seems to represent a liberal approach to heuristic persuasion.
06:00 PST, WPFW > […] 06:31 PST, talk, interview, “hip hop was originally created for gentrification justice”
06:00 PST, WBAI > […] 06:33 PST, “with your wisdom and your energy”. Fund drive mode for listener-supported free speech radio. Donate and get gift: Julia Loggins, Reboot Your Immune System.
07:00 PST, KPFK > Sojourner Truth > On Biden’s first days, plus MLK speech. [TP] panelists include Dr. Gerald Horne, et al. > 07:02 PST, KPFA News Headlines [TP]
07:00 PST, WPFW > 07:04 PST, News, more honest about Biden’s falseness than KPFA news. [TP]
0800 wpfw 0815 uncritical covid talk
08:00 PST, WBAI > [TP] talk, reclaiming the real MLK. This is the type of sincere discussion, which has long been lacking at KPFA. KPFA’s dominant faction are Wellstone Democrats, who stifle voices critical of the Democrat Party. They would take us back to a time of liberals before MLK and Malcolm X and other important leaders, exposed and rejected the Democrat Party as a false opposition party to the evils of the Republican Party, which has long seeded and nurtured racist, white supremacist culture in the USA.
09:00 – 10:00 PST, WBAI > The Gary Null Show > talk, health.
1100 wpfw resistance radio (rerun) [TP]
1100 KPFA [TP] VOMENA
1200 KPFA bourgeois analysis of the 6th, etc. Where’s Against the Grain when u need them? […] “anarchist” guest smeared the left, said ‘leftwing govts are worse than right-wing’, as if all future iterations of left movements would repeat the errors of the past… […] 12:57 PST, That was a disappointing broadcast. KPFA seems determined to have their own isolated take or narrative on this historical moment. As noted previously, KPFA dropped out of key national Pacifica Radio broadcasts. And Mitch Jeserich, Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Kris Welch, et al refuse to engage with the listenership on a sincere basis. When it comes to a program about the state of the nation in the aftermath of the 6th and Biden’s first 100 days, ATG dodges the current events, and they air anarchist analysis, which ignores party politics. They talk a good game, but disempower…
1200 wbai TP Sojourner Truth Dr. Gerald Horne, debunking US colony settler myths
13:00 PST, KPFA > The Project Censored Show > A big sigh of relief falls over many of us when we get to commune with a good Project Censored broadcast, especially in times of crisis, such as our current American winter of discontent.
14:00 PST, WBAI > 14:03 PST, an honest conversation; we need more of this. These ladies are speaking with sincerity.
(c. 7:34) At this point in the speech, Malcolm X makes the case for economic self-determination for black people through mutual aid, and even boycotting white businesses to help get black businesses off the ground by concentrating black purchasing power onto black-owned businesses. Also, there’s an important element of boycotting white businesses as a political rejection of white supremacist socioeconomic structures in society.
However, in the process, Malcolm X, perhaps, is excessively harsh on his audience, as if boycott-divestment-sanctions would be the answer because the “slums” he lamented were solely created by patronizing white businesses. It was certainly an excellent starting point.
What few people knew was that the slums and ghettos were deliberately created through red-lining, racial residential covenants, school zoning rules, and other draconian and racist real estate and development laws and ordinances.
Dr. Kevin Fox Gotham’s book, Race, Real. Estate, and Uneven Development lays out all this history powerfully. This was eye-opening for us to learn in Dr. Erik Olsen’s Urban Economics course at the heterodox economics department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Most economics departments are conservative (i.e., neoclassical); so, they don’t teach you this kind of stuff. Most econ depts tend to want to erase history and the human element altogether. They want to turn economics into the most boring math classes. So, that passionate dreamers, who want to help end unemployment or homelessness or poverty, will never go into the field of economics.
Listening to this again, it’s amazing how prescient Malcolm X was, like many people of color. Malcolm X was spot on. No, that’s an understatement. Like MLK, he was prophetic.
We may not know the details or specifics, but we can see it in our daily lives how white supremacist institutions are stacked against people of color.
We agree with one caller on Pacifica Radio, during on-air radio call-in on WPFW in the aftermath of the racist, fascist, and narcissistic assaults on the Capitol, who said he’d been revisiting Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” speech. Indeed. The lessons about black people (and all people of color, nay, all people) must stop voting Democrat because it’s a false opposition party.
18:00 PST, (91.3) NPR > ‘A wartime effort’ is what Biden says will be required to fight the pandemic. Hosts air an uncritical interview with Dr. Fauci, who extolls the virtues of the drugs he’s pushing. No mention of Immunoboosters…
*
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the USA. Seth Meyers was telling jokes, eerily reminiscent of the comedians at the nightly cabarets in Berlin, making fun of the brown shirts.
*
[These are my raw notes. I will expand and edit, as time constraints allow. TP = transcript pending volunteer labor. We must transcribe breaking news and information to make it accessible, searchable, and usable. It’s urgent that we document the people’s narrative of the events of January 6th and President Biden’s response in his administration’s first 100 days, which have been situated historically in the aftermath of polarized American social relations in the wake of the 6th. We seek diversity of perspectives; so, we seek perspectives not often found on corporate media. But we must not get corralled into narrow silos of thought, theory, or action. Please, also monitor corporate media and right-wing media, too,.Solidarity.]
LUMPENPROLETARIAT—On Tuesday, 19 MAY 2015, Kansas City reprazented for Claim Malcolm X Day Worldwide. Lumpenproletariat.org was reporting live from this important civic gathering, occurring simulatenously across the USA. At 18:00 CDT, local community members peacefully assembled at 63rd and Paseo in Kansas City, Missouri for a rally to Claim Malcolm X Day. Several speakers delivered impassioned and moving speeches and spoken word. Representatives of Black Lives Matter as well as Chicana/Hispanic groups, such as Una Lucha were on hand. Local poet and UMKC undergrad student, Corey, delivered a beautiful and moving tribute to the spirit of revolutionary struggle represented by brother Malcolm X. The rally was followed by a march westbound on 63rd. (Photos and transcript pending.) The marchers chanted:
