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Educator, Activist, and Former USA VP Candidate Rosa Clemente on Radical Transformation

13 Sat Jun 2015

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Imperialism, Civic Engagement (Activism), Feminism, Immigration, Political Prisoners, Racism (phenotype)

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Assata Shakur, Black Lives Matter, COINTELPRO, Colorado College, Counter Intelligence Program, Cynthia McKinney, Dr. Paul M. Buckley, global labour movement, Green Party, Hard Knock Radio, Hillary Clinton, James Baldwin, migrant labour, neoliberalism, Operation Streamline, State University of New York-Albany, SUNY, transcript, white privilege

RosaClemente321px-NLNWikiUserLUMPENPROLETARIAT—Recently, free speech radio (KPFA, 94.1 FM, Berkeley, CA, Pacifica Radio) broadcast audio from an address delivered by Rosa Clemente.  Clemente is an educator, Ph.D. student, mother, activist, and former USA Vice Presidential Candidate alongside Cynthia McKinney.  In this address, Clemente discusses contemporary and historical topics, including radical transformation, student activism, as well as parenting in the context of struggle for socioeconomic justice and equanimity. [1]

—Messina

TRANSCRIPT

HARD KNOCK RADIO—(29 MAY 2015)  What’s up, fam.  You are tuned to Hard Knock, here on the Pacifica Network.  On today’s programme, organiser, independent journalist, and hip hop scholar, Rosa Clemente.  All this and more, ahead, after these news headlines.

[SNIP]  [KPFA News Headlines (read by Mark Mericle)]

[This is a rush transcript. Full transcription pending.]

[SNIP]

ANITA JOHNSON:  “And, again, you are tuned to Hard Knock Radio.  And, as promised, we will be listening to a speech from Rosa Clemente, the 2008 Vice Presidential running mate of Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney.  In this talk, she covers the Black Lives Matter Movement and white privilege.  Again it is out honour to be able to play this speech in all its entirety, here on Hard Knock Radio.  Again, Rosa Clemente.”  (c. 9:00)

ROSA CLEMENTE:  “First, thank you so much.  Thank you Colorado College, The Butler Center, all the students, faculty, staff, community members, and everybody who’s working, to all the working people who are serving, feeding us, making sure we’re okay.  Alright?  Let’s continue to fight for a liveable wage for people. [applause, cheers]

“And a big thanks and love to Dr. Paul Buckley.  I’ve known Paul longer than he’s known his wife [laughter] or anybody in this room.  I met Paul in 1990 when we had just entered the University of Albany.  And I can fill hours and hours with how much fun we had in those times, how smart we became, how intellectual we became, how our love for community grew.  But I’ll tell you something.  Even back then, Dr. Buckley—Paul, to me—was one of those men who was not afraid of women being in leadership.

“I’ll never forget a time on our campus in 1993.  I had become the president of the State University Black Alliance, SUBA, which was the umbrella black organisation.  And you have to understand.  Colleges in the ’90s and up until the 2000s, when administrators started figuring out how to quell student activism, were hot political times.  You know?  And everyday there was a protest, a rally, a gathering.  We were not just coming together socially.  We had fun.  This is a crazy thing.  We were so political.  Like, we’d shut down a building.  And, the next day, we’d be at a party at the campus center ballroom ’til four AM in the morning.  And, then, on Monday, we’d be in class.  And, then, on Thursday, we’d shut something down.  And, then, on Saturday we’d be at a party. [applause, cheers]  Right?  Because resistance should be joyful.

“And, one particular time, the Zionist organisation on campus was coming heavy after me.  And I had, actually, been suspended in my student government position.  And I had become director of multicultural affairs.  And what, basically, we did as black and latino students is we just took over student government.  We ran for every position.  And we took it over because we were sick of paying money into the college fund and not having anything for us.  We were tired of not having black and latino tenured professors.  We were tired of our contentious dean attacks.  Right?  And it was a hot rally.  And it was interesting who became violent.  It was not the black and latino students.  It was the white Zionists fighting for peace, that became violent against us.  (c. 12:12)  [SNIP]

[SNIP]

[This is a rush transcript. Full transcription pending.]

[SNIP]  (c. 15:14)

“And we need to have people, in higher education, that break that.  If not, the neoliberal agenda will destroy higher education.  It’s almost already there.  It’s saveable.  But you really need to look around some campuses and question how some campuses can operate in communities, that are predominantly people of colour and still be predominantly white campuses, when the majority of this country is not a white majority anymore.

“And that’s not only incumbent on students of colour to talk about.  White young people need to start having this discussion.  White young people need to start rejecting a lot of the generational stuff, that y’all been taught.  As well, young people of colour need to understand what white anti-imperialism and white people in this country have sacrificed, and who has laid their lives on the line for black and brown liberation.  These are really important things.

“And, unfortunately, many of these things do come from a higher education experience because most people, that are not in a college, regardless of race or ethnicity, do not have the luxury of having discourse.  Right?  People are trying to eat, save their farms, have water, stop fracking in their community.  There are middle class families, now, working three jobs to keep their house, pay their student loan debt.  These are really real things.  And that’s what college should be about.  That’s what higher education should be about.

“James Baldwin said:  To be a negro in this country, and to be relatively conscious, is to be enraged almost all the time.

“Today, at a conference, Bell Hooks said:  Make your home site a place of resistance.

“Dr. John Henrik Clarke.  If you don’t know who he is, go Google him tonight.  Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people they oppress because, once you are truly educated, you won’t ask for power.  You will take it.  [cheers]

“And Assata Shakur.  And, if you don’t know who Assata Shakur is, you need to know now.  As relations with Cuba normalise, there’s also a dismantling of the Cuban Revolution.

“And there are political exiles in Cuba from this country, that’d be spending life in jail for their political beliefs, like Assata Shakur and William Morales and Nehanda Abiodun. [2]

“And you have to understand these young people, at that time, that were in college and left that to be part of a black or a Puerto Rican liberation movement, and because of their political beliefs, were almost killed by the state, and fled to Cuba and received political asylum.

“Assata Shakur says:  People get used to anything.  The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.  After a while, people think oppression is a normal state of things.  But, to become free, you have to be aware that you’re a slave.

“I hope that the words I speak tonight, here, in Colorado empower everyone in this room to become agents of change, agitators, and freedom fighters.  May the words push you to transform, not reform, this system of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism, that seeks to destroy us mentally and physically.  These are very dark days in America.  Or, as my colleague says, more like days of blinding whiteness.  (c. 18:59)

“Even with this, some of us occupy spaces of privilege and have been afforded opportunities, that a majority of our people will never have.  If we waste it here, we’ve done a disservice to our collective history of struggle and resistance.  As well, we will have betrayed the legacy of every ancestor and our fallen sisters and brothers all around this country.

“I am sick and tired of black and brown bodies of women and men, LGBTI people, becoming hash tags to Tweet, as we await 28 hours for the next death at the hands of the state. [applause] (c. 19:40)

[SNIP]

[This is a rush transcript. Full transcription pending.]

[SNIP]  (c. 39:22)

“And, if you see the footage last night of 150 police in riot gear in the daytime, facing a group of young twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-year-olds, mostly African American and Latino youth on their bikes in the front of that.

“And what’s the juxtaposition to that?  Forty miles down the road, the White House Correspondence Dinner.  Baltimore’s rebelling and the 1% is eating cake with the president.  Right?  Look at that crazy contradiction:  a black president, a black attorney general, a potential soon-to-be-female president.  Women can also be the faces and behest of patriarchy.  Be very careful.  Be very careful, my women, especially women of colour, about Hillary Clinton.  Understand the policies.  Or we’re gonna get caught up in another eight years, like President Obama, who has deported the most Latinos than any other administration, including George Bush.  We cannot accept this anymore, especially those of us who have privilege.  Right?

“So, as I finish—right?  I’m also a person who believes in resistance as joy.  I love to have fun.  And we’ll have fun after.  And, hopefully, we’ll dance and all of that.  But I’m not a person to take lightly every day, that’s given to us, especially, as folks of colour.

“I have a ten-year-old daughter.  And I do not believe that every day she’s safe.  And I have taught her not to trust police.  And I have taught her how to encounter police.  And I have taught her not to trust the state.  And I have taught her—at ten years—how to question her education system.  Right?  Because I would not be a good parent to a young Afro-Latina woman, who could be Aiyana Jones at seven years old.  (c. 41:32)

“I grew up in New York City.  And my parents didn’t talk to me about race.  And I think part of it was they felt:  We went through all this, so you don’t have to.  But they did a disservice to me.  It took me ’til I was 22 to even talk and understand what it meant to be Puerto Rican and, then, what it meant to racialise as black, and what it meant to be about social justice and racial justice.  And I understand why they did what they did.  But I can’t afford to do that for my daughter.  I can’t afford not to racially socialise her in a society, that already hates her, not only because of her colour, but has sexualised her because of [being] a woman.

“I have to tell her, when she goes to college, I’m gonna have to teach her seven other levels of protection because, in colleges, we’re teaching women how not to get raped, as opposed to telling me how not to rape women. [applause, cheers]  Right?  If I don’t do that, I’ve done a disservice.  (c. 42:48)

“So, the Black Lives Matter movement, especially for Latino folks, who might not racialise themselves as black, be very aware that even if you don’t, you have already been.  [SNIP]

[SNIP]

[This is a rush transcript. Full transcription pending.]

[SNIP]  (c. 44:29)

“I can’t do something big every day.  None of us can.  But every day we can do something to expose this system and be agents of change.  As Du Bois taught us:  We can strike hammers to this system every day and envision a new world.  Black lives matter.  We should be unapologetic about it.

“We can enjoy so much of what we have right now because of the sacrifice of our ancestors, our elders, our freedom fighters, our war veterans, the veterans we call OGs, the ones that survived the assault known as Counter Intelligence Program.

“We have to be unapologetic, unafraid, unbossed, unbought.  We have to say:  We will not compromise.  We will not bend.  We will not be passive.

“Fredrick Douglass said:  Let me give you a word of the philosophy of [].  The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions, that may cover yet august claims, have been borne of earnest struggle.  The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all absorbing, and, for the time being, put in all other terms worth the silence.  It must do this.  Or it does nothing.  If there is no struggle, there is no progress.  Those who profess to favour freedom and, yet, depreciate agitation are men and women who want crops without plowing up the ground.  They want rain without thunder and lightning.  They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.  The struggle may be a moral one, a physical one, It may be both moral and physical.  But it must be a struggle.  Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did.  And it never will.  Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong, which will be imposed upon them.  And they will continue until they are resistant with words or blows or both.  The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

“Pa’lante siempre, pa’lante.  Thank you.  [cheers, applause]”

***

[1]  Audio files of Hard Knock Radio broadcasts are taken down after a couple of weeks.

[2]  Cf. “List of United States citizens granted political asylum in Cuba”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_citizens_granted_political_asylum_in_Cuba

***

[Image entitled “NLN Rosa Clemente” by Thomas Good – Next Left Notes (Photo Credit: Thomas Good / NLN). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons]

[Transcription by Messina]

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Hard Knock Radio Presents A 2016 Presidential Election Post Mortem

30 Fri Dec 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Fascism, Anti-Totalitarianism, Civic Engagement (Activism), Police State, Presidential Election 2016, Racism (phenotype)

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Tags

Alicia Garza (b. 1981), Aryan Nations, Black Lives Matter, Davey D, DeRay Mckesson (b. 1985), Hard Knock Radio, KPFA, Opal Tometi M.A., Pacifica Radio Network, Patrisse Cullors (b. 1983), President Barack Obama, Thomas Linton Metzger (b. 1938), transcript

hard-knock-radioLUMPENPROLETARIAT—At a Project Censored event, Hard Knock Radio‘s Davey D gave a set of remarks, reflecting upon the looming Trump Presidency, as the electoral college votes in favour of Trump.  We need more journalists, people in a special position to observe local and global events, to speak out and provide a synthesis of sociopolitical and socioeconomic developments.  We may not agree with everything uttered, but we value independent voices.

In this particular speech, Davey D gave, perhaps, the loudest condemnation, even if only a whisper, which we’ve ever heard from him, in terms of an outright rejection and condemnation of the Democratic Party.  But he also offers much-needed critique of the political apathy and complacency amongst liberals and progressives and many others on the left, when it comes to engaging in the sort of civic engagement in public with other likeminded people, which actually translates into political action and political power.  Listen here. [1]

Messina

***

HARD KNOCK RADIO—[30 DEC 2016]  [Station ID by Pedro Reyes]  [Hard Knock Radio introductory audio collage]  (c. 1:15)

ANITA JOHNSON:  “Wussup, fam.  You are tuned to Hard Knock, here on the Pacifica Network.  On today’s programme, Oscar Grant as well as the rise of Trump.  All this and more ahead.  So, keep it locked.”  (c. 1:28)

[KPFA News Headlines omitted by scribe]  (c. 6:50)

[Hard Knock Radio segue collage] 

“And, again, you are tuned to Hard Knock, here, on the Pacifica Network.  Up next, we speak to Hodari Davis, the National Program Director for Youth Speaks, the nation’s leading presenter of spoken word, arts, and education.  Hodari joins us to discuss the Eighth Annual Oscar Grant Vigil on January 1st at the Fruitvale Bart Station.  Hodari, once again, welcome to the programme.”

HODARI DAVIS:  “Thanks.  It’s great to be here.  [snip] ”

[Hodari Davis interview omitted by scribe]  [2]

(c. 22:35) [music break]  (c. 25:19)

DaveyDBfresh

Davey D, host of Hard Knock Radio (Pacifica Radio Network)

ANITA JOHNSON:  “And, again, you are tuned to Hard Knock, here, on the Pacifica Network.  Up next, we’ll hear a talk, featuring Davey D at the Project Censored 40th Anniversary event.  In this talk, he explores the rise of Trump, the collapse of Clinton as well as Barack Obama.  All this, and more, ahead, so, keep it locked.” (c. 25:38)

Davey D speech, at Project Censored 40th Anniversary, on looming Trump Presidency

DAVEY D:  “I think one of the things, that we wanted to talk about, obviously, is what has happened, uh, this past month, or this past week.

“I think many people woke up Monday morning, figured that they’re gonna have, uh, conflicted feelings.  You’re gonna make history, in the sense that a woman would be in the White House for the first time.  But, at the same time, this woman in the White House was very problematic, uh, with her corruption and a lot of things, that I think that social justice advocates, we would be in opposition to, you know, her, um, her record on war; some of the things she hasn’t talked about, her cozy relationship with Wall Street; all these different types of things, I think folks were mentally preparing themselves to deal with, at the same time, celebrating the fact that a woman made it to the White House.  (c. 26:40)

“So, I think, like most people, when things happened on Tuesday, we were watching.  And, at least where I was at, people were thinking, like,

They’re just stretching this out.

“Because they’re like,

It’s real close.  It’s real close; and it’s still like at 80%  Or:  80% of the precincts checked in and, if Detroit comes through with all their votes, then she’s gonna take Michigan.  And, if Philadephia comes through, she’s gonna take Pennsylvania.

“And people were sitting there thinking, like, Yeah, she’s gonna win, because, up ’til that moment, they kept saying, It was a walk in.  All these pundits were walkin’ around sayin’, She has a 98% chance, and a 100% chance, and all these different, um, predictions.  And, at the end of the night, homeboy Donald Trump won.  (c. 27:29)

“And people were sitting there, like, What the f—. [audience laughs; apparent edit cut]  And, then, people got scared.  And, then, reality hit.  And, at that moment, that reality hit, many of us had to humble ourselves.  And what I mean by that I mean by that, if we haven’t humbled ourselves, we’re gonna have to, if we’re gonna move forward.  [scant applause]

“What do I mean by that?  [applause continues to trickle]  Um, I went to Cleveland for the RNC.  I’ve been to most of the conventions, since 2000, or maybe ’96, I started going.  So, I covered a lot of ’em.  Went at my own expense.  The [radio] station didn’t pay for it.  Uh, but this is something, that’s important.  In fact, it was my church, that was like, This is important.  Somebody needs to be in Cleveland to find out what’s going on.  And, so, they raised the money.  And we went out there.  (c. 28:26)

“Now, out of all the conventions, that I covered, one that stands out, where folks were just excited—I mean it was magical; it was just—people were just, you know, amped up in ways, that I had never seen before—was 2008 in Denver with Barack Obama.  I mean it was excitement.  For all his flaws, that we can now look at and point at, it doesn’t erase how people felt in, uh, September or August of 2008.  I remember.  When he gave that speech at the stadium, all kind of people were crying.  I saw tears coming out of their eyes.  And I remember the tears, that people shed at his inauguration, which I went to.  I saw people, that were 90 years old, who were saying, I waited all my life to see this, and tears in their eyes, and just were so happy because they felt that a corner had been turned in these United States.  (c. 29:26)

“Barack Obama captured the imagination of people because he had a slogan: Hope and Change.  And many people bought into this.  And coming off of the eight years of George Bush, many of us were susceptible to it.  And we did things, like we looked at some of his policies, as he was talking and some of us got pricked and said:  That don’t sound right.  And, if you recall, people said:

He’s playing chess, not checkers. Give him a chance. He’s gotta do this to win. And, once he gets in, he’s gonna flip the script.  (c. 30:03)

“So, all those emotions were there.  But the excitement, that led to people dancin’ in the streets of Oakland, dancin’ in the streets of New York, dancin’ in the streets of Chicago was something, that we can never erase.

“Fast forward eight years later; in Clevaland, the only other time I seen people this excited was with Donald Trump.  And that’s something, that we’re gonna have to deal with.  Except, the difference was I didn’t see black and brown people.  I didn’t see—well, I saw a lot of women.  But I didn’t see the women, that I know is social justice advocates.  I didn’t see a lot of LGBT folks.  I saw folks, who were angry; poor folks, who were pis— off, who felt like things had changed too fast and they were left behind; folks, who were in the Rust Belt, that had been ignored; folks who were f—— pis— off and were looking for somebody to blame for their economic misery. (c. 31:02)

“And, so, the excitement came when this political creature, who is actually a cultural, um, a cultural star, a cultural phenomenon, a reality TV star came in their midst and said:

Check this out. I got a ‘Hope and Change’ thing for you all. But it’s ‘Fear and Blame’. And the reason why your life is messed up is because of the Mexicans, because of the blacks, and because of the Muslims.

“And people got excited.  I stood in that arena, where the Cleveland Cavaliers play, and saw ten thousand people chanting—build a wall!—and just getting excited; and that excitement rivaled what I saw in Denver, but with a whole different energy.

“And, when I came back, I said to myself—and I said it publicly; I said it at report-backs; I said it to my church folks—I said:

This dude is gonna win. Make no mistake about it. And, if you—

“And I said there’s gonna be three things, that’s gonna lead to him winning:

One, the folks, that got behind Bernie Sanders weren’t gonna get behind Hillary. And, if they did, they wasn’t gonna bring the enthusiasm.

“And, having covered the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton campaign in ’08, one of the things, that I kept hearing from the Bernie people was that Hillary was cheating. (c. 32:31)

“Now, at that time, people said—they got offended.  Donna Brazile, from CNN, was, you know, like:  How dare you say that.  People just dismissed that.  But, if you had gone on that campaign trail in ’08, the complaints, you heard from the Bernie people [in 2016] were very similar to the complaints, that the Obama people had about Hillary in ’08.  So, I’m hearing these stories, and I’m like: That’s sounds pretty similar to what took place in ’08.

“So, I believed what they were saying, not because I, politically, could get down with where they’re at, I just had heard those stories before.  And I knew that that was her get down, that there was some shadiness going on.

“And the bottom line was that people may have, strategically, said: Yeah, we’ll do it.  But they weren’t gonna bring that energy, that you saw with Bernie Sanders, with 37,000 people showing up at a march here, and 50,000 there.  You weren’t gonna have that.  More importantly, the question, that needed to be answered: Would people, especially, a lot of these Millennials—young, white Millennials—were they gonna stand on line for six hours for Hillary Clinton, the way that black folks and people of colour stood on lines for six hours to vote for Barack Obama, which they did in Cleveland two years, you know, two election cycles?  I just didn’t see that happening.  So, that was conclusion one.  (c. 33:55)

“The other thing was around the Black Lives Matter people.  Now, there had been a lot of shenanigans, in terms of how Black Lives Matter was going to be presented to the public.  And part of the disinformation was to overlook, um, the founding of that movement with Alicia Garza, Opal, and, um, Patrisse.  And kind of distill it in this guy named DeRay, who comes out of Baltimore, because he was more friendly-like.  He was from Teach For America.  He kind of had these corporate connections and was like: Let’s go along with Hillary.  So, they were kind of, like, this is BLM.  And, in fact, anybody, who was black, who was protesting was automatically associated with that.  (c. 34:42)

“And, so, what they could do was, they could kind of mainstream the Black Lives Matter movement and, then, kind of defang what they were asking for and make it seem like this is an organisation to go along to get along.  And, so, there were a lot of people, that were comin’ up with critiques.  And they were like: Oh, yeah, that organisation is trying to lead the masses to the Democratic Party. They’re gonna be a front for Hillary—all this sort of stuff. (c. 35:06)

“So, what was ignored was BLM had spent a year, or the movement for black lives—’cos there was a collection of people, who had spent a year putting together a robust, incredible, um, agenda, you know, for the masses.  If you got a movement for black lives, it’s well-researched, well-principled.  It was something you could jump into, if you was an individual.  You could do it as a group.  It connected it to its history.  And it showed you organisations, that were already doin’ it.  It ranged from political prisoners to their stance on the Middle East, all sorts of things.  Incredible.

“That was removed from the news.  And had you read those, that movement piece, that agenda, you would’ve known that they weren’t about to wind themselves up around Hillary.

“So, my understanding was, you know, it’s a leaderless movement.  You can’t have one person say: This is gonna happen.  But my sense was most people ain’t really gonna be ridin’ for her from that movement as well.  And the more that the campaign was goin’ and the less you heard about some of these very egregious police shootings, in a physical, tangible way, you knew that those were two main groups, that Obama might’ve counted on, in terms of demographic, that Hillary wasn’t gonna have at her disposal. (c. 36:27)

“So, the suggestion was:

If you want her to win, you’re gonna have to phonebank and volunteer and door-knock; and you’re gonna have to understand how these elections work, that California is gonna be a given.  It’s gonna go blue, unless there’s something catastrophic, that happens.  But you’re gonna have to put in some work.

“And many people nodded.  And they was like:

Well, these people need to know better.  

“And everybody had this whole thing about trying to be right, trying to be logical, like:

They need to know. The Millennials need to understand that social security is gonna be—

“And I was like: 

People are gonna do what they’re gonna do based upon their understanding. Those Bernie Sanders people, maybe some of them have nice houses, that they live in with their parents and can withstand the economic storm under a Trump.  So, they wasn’t gonna have the same sense of urgency.  (c. 37:22)

‘Black Lives Matter didn’t want a two-party system anymore’

“The BLM folks were very clear in that they didn’t want a two-party system anymore.  And they were like:

We need to have clarity that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and others have represented—what I would call, and I think people have coined before—a form of ‘friendly fascism’, that they will do some evil sh–.  But they’ll do it with a smile. And they’re able to hide it behind cultural signifiers.

“So, Obama will have rappers at the White House.  And he will brush his shoulders off, like Jay Z.  And Michelle [Obama] say she likes Beyoncé.  So, we forget that he deported three, four, you know, 2.5 million people.  Right?

“And I want you to bookmark that because this is what I’m talkin’ about: We gonna have to humble ourselves.  We’re gonna forget that he did that.  We’re gonna forget that he got rid of Gaddafi and did regime change, and what was really behind that.  And we could go on and on.  We’re gonna forget that, you know, the police got more money.  We’re gonna forget that he didn’t really advocate to have punishment—all these different things, that we could look at, his relationship with Wall Street—all this stuff.  We just gave it a pass.  (c. 38:35)

“But the thing was: if you didn’t work for her, my sense was, she is going to lose.  And many did not work for her.  I came back and said: You all volunteering for her? 

Nah, because the guy from the New York Times, whatever his name is, Nate Silver said she’s gonna win. And someone else said she’s gonna win. And this one said she’s gonna win.

“And my sense is this, just as a journalist: numbers are good; numbers have their place.  But they don’t tell the whole story, unless you actually go there.  Going to Cleveland and seeing bikers, big ol’ Hells Angels-looking bikers, that, you know, were sitting there:

I like Donald Trump. That’s my guy. We are going to put him in the White House.

Man, for real?

You damn, right!

“Like, you know, you saw enthusiasm from people like that.  That’s—I was like, that don’t show up in the numbers.  That doesn’t show up when you had, like the day before the election, when I had people on from Ohio and they was like, well, these bikers are on the freeway getting people to vote.  It didn’t explain that there was a dissatisfaction in the Midwest, who were like,

There’s no discernible difference between Bush and Trump and Obama, in terms of what I’m dealing with.

“Now, in California, many of us are—you know, we’re living here; we’re doin’ okay, especially, if we’re livin’ in San Francisco or Oakland.  We’re doin’ better than they are in the Midwest.  And, so, for us, there may be a discernible difference.  But, for many people, for many people, it was no difference.  It was no difference, in terms of what their experience had been from one president to the next.  And a lot of that dissatisfaction showed up in 2012.  And the people, that delivered Ohio to Obama, had told him to his face.  Like,

People do not like you right now. But, because of the racism, that is showing up, they’re probably gonna vote for you just so they can, at the end of the day, point a finger at racists and say ‘you lost’. But they’re not really ridin’ for you like that. (c. 40:49)

“And that was important to understand because, maybe, had people really been on the ground, they would’ve said, you know:

There’s dissatisfaction; and the vote will probably not be as robust and won’t have the numbers, that they did before.

“Is this making sense, what I’m saying?  So, all these things were kind of in play.  And, then, you add to the fact that, since you can’t really tell dissatisfaction, that people are, kind of like: Yeah, I’ll vote for you—but you can tell by body language, that they’re not really gonna get up.  If there’s a Warriors game on, or a Cavaliers game on, you know, the World Series or anything, they be like,

You know I got other things to do. If Empire is on, I’m ‘a watch that before I go out and stand on line for six hours.

“In Michigan, they had been telling Hillary: You need to show up.  She never showed up because her numbers said she won.  And people were dissatisfied. (c. 41:43)

“So, at the end of the day, we saw what happened.  And here we are.  Right?  We’re asking: How did she lose the Rust Belt?

“And, just as a side note, there’s a documentary, that came out, maybe ten years ago, of the Aryan Nations—were they neo-Nazi; I think they might have been neo-Nazis or Aryan Nations.  Tom Metzger was on there.  And he’s saying: You know where it’s going to jump off?  I mean he was pretty confident when he said it.  He said:

The Midwest is where it’s gonna jump off. It’s where we have our people at. It’s where they’re waiting to really set things in motion. It’s where they are judges. They are bankers. They are lawyers.  He said: The Midwest is where this is gonna happen.

“That’s the Rust Belt.  And, so, when you combine all these facts, here we are. (c. 42:30)

“Now, when I said that we had to, kind of, humble ourselves—and I’ll close with this—I think for the past—before even Obama—we, as social justice folks, have made the same excuses, that we see being made now.  When people—you talk to Trump supporters, and they go, you know, he groped a lot of women.  [The response is:]

He’s not perfect. You know, I mean he’s—c’mon.  What candidate is perfect? You gotta go for the greater good. You gotta put that behind us.  Or: They’re lying.  They’re exaggerating. He didn’t really do all that. The media always is trying to get after our guy.

“Have you not heard those excuses?  But have we not made them, or seen people around us for darlings on the left?”

AUDIENCE MEMBERS:  “Yes.”

DAVEY D:  “Have we not made them ourselves?

You know, this woman did A, B, C, and D.  She cheated!

“We tell people to have integrity.  And we found out through these [leaked Podesta] emails that there was no integrity.

She’s not perfect. She’s not a prefect candidate. You gotta look for the greater good. You don’t want Trump. You want her.

“Right?  So, we kind of play that game.  As I pointed out before, when I said bookmark those deportations, we have been playing that game when people’s lives were upended.

“I’ve been on a panel one time—and I recall it was in New York—during the 2012 election, and I had brought up the fact that, you know, I’m conflicted with Obama ‘cos he’s deported twelve million people—I mean he’s deported all these people.  And there was a Ph.D. professor sitting next to me: Well, they shouldn’t have come here illegally.  And I kind of looked at her—it was a sister from one of these colleges.  And I was like a pundit:

How can you say that? I mean it’s not like these are people that are not connected to families. I mean you’re talkin’ about parents, sons, daughters, uncles, families were disrupted.

“And her response was:

If it’s that important, how come Eva Longoria isn’t talkin’ about it?

“And what that said to me was—and this is the other thing, that we have to be humble about—is that we have a blindspot for people, who are talking to students, people who are getting on TV, who were doing 30-second soundbites of people’s culture and history.

“And, if we have not made an intentional act for us to be very, very familiar with the comings and goings and the histories and the political understanding that folks in our community have, then we’re missing a big boat.  And we will wind up being, I guess, on the left, but making some pretty stupid ass statements about other people.  Is this making sense, what I’m saying? (c. 45:28)

“I’m looking at them saying: How in the hell do you not know what deportations do?  But you’ll be surprised how many people ride that train to the polls.

“And, so, when people were scared in 2010 and 2012 and 2014, we didn’t have millions of people in the streets.  Nobody held their hands around the lake, even as they were ignoring their brown brothers and sisters being deported.

“We have the situation in Standing Rock.  Right?  People are inspired.  But our candidates didn’t say anything about it.

Well, she’s not perfect. She can’t do it. She’s in an election.

“But those are the very people, that we are depending upon to vote for her.  So, you can’t even give a shout out, like, you know:  A shout out to all those water protectors, that are holding it down. When I become president, I’m gonna make sure I got your back.  You didn’t say that.

“I was talking to somebody earlier.  That’s because we made excuses for people in our lives, who serve two masters.  And, in this case, her master was Wall Street.  In this case, her master was Big Business.  In this case, her master was corporations.  And we gave it a pass. (c. 46:38)

“We didn’t hold them seriously accountable.  But, now, here we are.  And the question is: Where do we go from here? What’s the next steps?  We can do the protesting now and try to get the Electoral College to change.  And we can have a Million Mom March in D.C. during the inauguration.  All that stuff will be good.  It will be an indication of our dissatisfaction.

“But what are we gonna do to really stop the team, that he has in place?  Rudy Giuliani and that crazy, um, that crazy police officer, the sheriff—”

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  “Arpaio.”

DAVEY D:  “No.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  ” [inaudible] “

DAVEY D: “Yes.  Those people are gonna be in his ear.  So, they’re gonna have national Stop and Frisk.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  “John Bolton.”

DAVEY D: “You know, John Bolton.  See?  So, they got a team, that’s in place.  And my question is, for us, what’s our team lookin’ like?  Not our team, necessarily, on the federal level, but locally?  Do we control []?  Do we control Oakland up and down?  Do we control San Francisco?  Do we have people, that will sit there and fight the same fight that we’re fighting on the street side?  And as journalists?  And as academics?  And as activists?  Do we have people, that are representing us legislatively?  To make sure when they say, we’re gonna do a Stop and Frisk [programme] nationally, we have people goin’, nah, not in this city. This is gonna be a new type of sanctuary city of no Stop and Frisk in any of these nine counties.  Have we locked it down like that?

“Are we involved in any sort of movement to move us in those directions?  What we’re gonna have to do is be ungovernable, to quote my friend Rosa Clemente, in every way possible.  The fight is here.  Many people have romanticised about this moment.  There’s been people that said: You know, if we only had somebody who was tyrannical, it’s gonna unite people.  Here we are. (c. 48:41)

“And you know what I see people doing?  I see some people uniting.  Bu t I see a lot of other people applying for overseer-ship.  I’ll be an overseer. I’ll be a gate-keeper. Let me in Mr. Trump; I’ll keep the masses down in my respective community.  That’s something, we need to be concerned about.  We’ already seen people line up—those blacks and those Mexicans and those Muslims, that have been rollin’ for Trump.  And he has them.  They’re gonna be the overseers.  They’re gonna be the ones that, I will put the masses down for you, mastuh.

“So, how are we going to really fortify our team?  Is what we need to be looking at, since we’re at that moment.  How are we preparing ourselves?

“People said: We need a revolution.  What does that look like?  Is it peaceful?  How many of us go to the gun range?  How many of us know how to shoot a gun?  Are we shooting it, like in the movies?  Or do we really know how to hold it, so we don’t get the kick-back?  Do we have the ammunition?  Are we training?  Do we do martial arts?  Do we stay in shape?

“When the health care is gone, are we now talking about cooperative economics?  So, if he says, no more Obamacare, are we gonna be like, it’s alright; we got our own doctors and lawyers here?  We’re good.  Have we set that up?  Because we’re at that moment now.  And there’s going to be a lot of desperate people.  How do we quell the fears?  Living in Oakland, you know what desperate people do?  Desperate people look at you and go:

Yo, son! Run those sneakers. Run the jewels. Run your house. Run your—

“Right?  They will rob you.  People will do what they need to do to survive.  Are we prepared for that sort of chaos, because it’s within this chaos that I think they’re gonna ferment, because they’re building an economy around law and order.  Their ecosystem will be based upon:

We need a lot of criminals to go to jail, so that we can give jobs to these poor folks, that were in the Rust Belt.

“And they’ll say:

You know what your new job is? You’re gonna be a little gatekeeper for the [petty] criminals, that we caused the chaos in your communities, that led to them doing those sorts of things.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  [inaudible comment, perhaps:  ‘They did that in ’93 in Ohio.’]

DAVEY D:  “There you have it. [applause]  (c. 50:54)

“So, the slogan Crime Pays will have new meaning.  It will pay them.  And they pay some of us, who are like, you know what, I might as well be a jail-keeper, get my fifty thousand dollars and call it a day. I think I can forget about it.

“I’ll close by saying this:  Somebody hit me up on email and said, you know, all this violence, all this rape and pillaging, that’s going on in the community now—we’re not talking about Trump coming in—all the stuff that’s happening, I’m just gonna go leave the cities and live in the country. And I’m gonna get away from it.  Kanye West, go to another country.

“You can’t hide from a place you’re invested in.  We’re invested in this empire in many ways.  It’s built upon slavery, genocide, rape, and pillaging.  You can’t escape it.  You think when we go to other countries, they’re gonna be like [endearing tone],

Oh, you’re an American? [agitated tone] You’re the one, that caused the problems, that we have now. [audience laughter]  You don’t get a pass.

“And even if you’re black, you don’t get a pass.  It used to be, if you was black, they gave you a pass.  But, no:

You had Obama up there. You put him into office, so you don’t get a pass, either.

“It used to be, if you was a woman, you’d get a pass.  But, no: 

You was rollin’ with Hillary. [incredulously] You don’t get no pass. Condoleeza Rice preceded her; you don’t get a pass. You’re an American. You’re part of the empire. And the only reason why you’re concerned about the world now is because it’s hitting you in the a–.  But, guess what, we’ve been poor for the past two, three, or four decades. We’ve been without, while you had.

“And, so, we’re gonna have to humble ourselves and figure out how we’re gonna reconcile that.  I would say we’re gonna have to be honest.  We’re gonna have to hold people accountable like we’ve never held them before.  We’re gonna have to fight in ways, that we’ve never dreamt of.  We’re gonna have to spiritually align ourselves, so that our willingness to fight is fearless—” (c. 52:57)

AUDIENCE MEMBERS:  “That’s right.”

DAVEY D:  “—like you are not afraid to make that sacrifice.  You’re not afraid to die.  We’re reminded [inaudible] about the [Black] Panthers.  They just had their 50th Anniversary.  Many of ’em are doing 30 and 40 years in jail.  You ready to make that sacrifice?  Many people are, like

You know it’s good you all did that. But I need to go to Starbucks and read about it, go to a movie night, maybe have a conversation. But I ain’t willing to make that sort of sacrifice. [3] 

“You’re willing to give your life.  Many people aren’t.  Many people are trying to situate themselves in a economy, or an ecosystem, that now will no longer have Obama, but will have Trump.  So, we can make money speaking about Trump.  We can make money writing books about Trump.  We can be a pundit, that talks in opposition of Trump.  But that’s about as far as it’s gonna go. (c. 53:52)

“And the big battleground will be media.  And the reason why you have a Trump is because of the corporate media.  So, the first thing, we should start doing is dis-attaching ourselves from it and not giving them anymore credence. [audience applause]

“One of the things, that was interesting is how they framed the voting patterns.  And this is what the [corporate] media does.  It’s called divide and conquer.  So, the headline is:

54% of white women voted for Donald Trump.

“And, you know, you’re sitting there, like,

God d—, what the —-? I mean he did all this groping and raping. It’s white women, that caused him to get elected.

“But, as media people, your supposed to

Let me check these statistics, if we’re gonna go by their statistics.

“So,

Oh, 54% voted for Romney. 53 for McCain. 56 for Bush.

“So, there’s always been a majority of women, white women, who voted for the GOP.  Now, that tells us that if, you know, you have a family and aunties and nieces and grandmoms—there’s work to be done.  You know?  Your family members, they’re gonna have to be spoken to.  But we have to be very clear that the person, who put them in office is probably not some of the folks in this room—at least, I hope not.  Right?  I’m assuming these are folks, that are fighting for liberation and a better tomorrow. (c. 55:22)

“But the way that the media framed it, would have people comin’ out, like

We can’t trust you all at all. You all voted 54%.

“But they’ve done that for the past 20 years.  The other thing:

30% of Latinos voted for Trump.

“So, now, you have folks lookin’—

Man, these brown folks, man, they sold us out.

“You gotta look at the record.

Oh, there’s always been 30%, that have been in the GOP side.

“So,

It ain’t my man, Jose, who lives in the store in Fruitvale that did that. That’s some other cat. Maybe it’s a class thing. Maybe it’s a religion thing. I don’t know. But it ain’t the folks, that we rollin’ with.

“So, if you go back to the headlines—and, if I had a slide, I’d show you—it’s like Obama got 74% of the Latino vote—what the headline said.  Trump got 30% of the Latino vote.  See how we start to—

What? 30%?! Let’s roll.

“But nobody did that when Obama said he had 70%.

“So, these are the things, that media is doing to us right now.  And we’re gonna have to be aware of those types of shenanigans and more to come because it’s gonna be a divide and conquer.  It’s gonna be the emergence of a buffer class, that’s going to speak on our behalf, that’s gonna culturally sound like us, culturally look like us, but support policies, that are far, far away from our values.  (c. 56:46)

“So, you’ll have somebody sitting there, saying:

I love Jay Z. I have my pants saggin’. And we need Stop-and-Frisk.

“So, you’re gonna have that.  You’re gonna have a woman sit up there, like,

I know second– and third-wave feminism. Women need equal rights and equal pay. But we don’t need no choice. We need the Supreme Court to gut Roe v. Wade. A real woman doesn’t get an abortion.

“You’ll have that sort of rhetoric coming from a mass media regulator and people will buy it up, if we’re not careful.” [applause]

AUDIENCE MEMBERS:  ” [inaudible] ”

DAVEY D:  “There you go.

“So, I’m just gonna leave you with those few things.  Um, we’re gonna be talkin’ about Trump for a long time.  But, hopefully, we’re doing some things to change things around.  This could be the death knell.  Or this could be an opportunity to really turn this around.  I’ve always said that Goliath always loses.  And I really mean that.  Goliath never wins the fight.  He’s big.  He’s cumbersome.  He’s terrifying.  All it takes—if you have five smooth stones, all it takes is one in between the eyes, and he loses.  What’s your aim like?  Are you practicin’ with that slingshot?  And a slingshot comes in many forms.  But we are gonna win.  And, in the words of Kendrick, we gon’ be alright.  Thank you.” [applause] (c. 58:10)

[music break:  Hard Knock Radio theme by Brown Buffalo]

[snip] (c. 59:59)

Learn more at HARD KNOCK RADIO.

***

[1]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Hard Knock Radio, this one-hour broadcast hosted by Anita Johnson, Friday, 30 DEC 2016, 16:00 PST.

[2]  During Anita Johnson’s interview with Hodari Davis, she cited Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s recent KPFA speech and Dr. Taylor’s critique of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.  But Mr. Davis seemed to dodge any questions, which may be critical of the Democratic Party.  Of course, the focus of his interview was the Oscar Grant Vigil.  But, of course, it’s important for Ms. Johnson to raise broader political questions about political power, which, for pacifists, mainly falls into the category of electoral politics.

During the interview, Mr. Davis cited the “whitelash” argument, which “Van Jones aptly described”.  But that’s a flawed analysis of Trump’s rise to power—not only because Hillary Clinton won the people’s vote, but lost the electoral college vote—because it doesn’t fully explain the socioeconomic dynamics at play in the United States.

And, of course, Dr. Taylor had recently obliterated that whitelash argument during her recent speech in Berkeley, which Ms. Johnson hosted.  So, it was surprising, or disappointing, that Ms. Johnson didn’t reiterate that argument to Mr. Davis.  She could have shown him (and the audience) how that line of argumentation about a whitelash against the Obama Presidency, which ostensibly translated into a backlash election of Trump.  That argument is symbolised by prominent liberal (Democrat apologist) Van Jones, whom Dr. Taylor cited in her speech.  That liberal argument, preoccupied with identity politics, misses deeper questions about class, which transcend racism or white supremacy.

[3]  This phenomenon of political apathy, in Marxian philosophy and political economy, is related to the problems associated with a bourgeois or petit bourgeois mentality, which lacks class consciousness.  Antonio Gramsci has described the concept of false consciousness, which also helps explain how defeatist or acquiescent attitudes toward the antidemocratic and anti-working class status quo are held by otherwise intelligent groups of people, who are capable of apprehending.

People of conscience, such as Davey D (or, perhaps, yourself, dear reader), must call out the contradictions, the injustices, and the corruption of the spirit, which permeates society, and with which we must all contend, individually or in groupings, if we are to advance the cause of socioeconomic justice.

***

[31 DEC 2016]

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Hard Knock Radio: Presidential Election 2016, A Failed Democracy

07 Tue Jun 2016

Posted by ztnh in Democracy Deferred, Political Science, Presidential Election 2016, Racism (phenotype)

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

"Dump Trump" (2016), Anita Johnson, Black Lives Matter, Davey D, Hard Knock Radio, hip hop, identity politics, Jasmine "Abdullah" Richards, KPFA, Olmeca (rapper/activist), Pacifica Radio Network, Rosa Clemente

hard-knock-radioLUMPENPROLETARIAT—Free speech radio’s Hard Knock Radio has provided broadcast coverage of today’s Super Tuesday IV, which they observed as symptomatic of a failed democracy.  Unfortunately, this particular broadcast doesn’t delve terribly deeply into the details evidencing this failure.  But they are out there.  Our election process does appear to be antidemocratic, at best, and completely rigged, at worse.  People, such as Greg Palast and William Simpich have been staying on the election protection beat.  Here, the strongest arguments against any illusions we have a healthy democracy are delivered by Rosa Clemente, yet even they merely scratch the surface.  There are transformative and emancipatory ideas out there for participatory democracy, such as ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and publicly-funded elections, which progressives agree on, but neglect to include in their analyses.  Besides discussing Black Lives Matter, Rosa Clemente gave Davey D the latest iteration of her third-party politics and general critique of electoral politics.  Oddly, Rosa Clemente, who was the 2008 Green Party candidate for Vice President of the USA alongside Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney, sends mixed signals about the electoral process.  While she seems to advocate for the Green Party, she also says she believes “in organised efforts for folks to withhold the vote for future elections”.  (Closing out this broadcast, Olmeca gave street perspectives to some black and brown identity politics within the hip hop subculture.)  Listen here. [1]

Messina

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Hard Knock Radio]

rigged 2016HARD KNOCK RADIO—[7 JUN 2016]  “Wussup, fam.  You are tuned to Hard Knock, here on the Pacifica Network.  Up next on the programme, we speak with long-time organiser Rosa Clemente about the persecution of Black Lives Matter organiser Jasmine “Abdullah” Richards.  And, also, we talk about the upcoming presidential election, a stolen democracy.  And, later on in the programme, last but not least, we speak with hip hop artist and activist Olmeca.  All this and more straight ahead.  So, keep it locked.”

[News Headlines (read by Mark Mericle) omitted by scribe]  (c. 7:30)

[intro audio collage]  (c. 8:40)

[interview with Rosa Clemente]

[SNIP]  (c. 21:06)

DAVEY D:  “Let me ask you thi—”

ROSA CLEMENTE:  “Or that she is not get electable, that that does not happen.”

DAVEY D:  “Yeah.  Since we’re talkin’ politics, let me just ask you this, since we have you on the line, Rosa.  I know she’s not your favourite person, you know, Hillary Clinton, especially, you, being a Green Party member.  But, with that being said, this whole announcement of her clinching the nomination on the eve, not even on the eve—happening overnight, people woke up, many people feeling that they can go to the polls and make a difference for the first time in a few decades here in California—all of a sudden, it’s kind of got short-changed with this announcement that super delegates, you know, over night have decided to put her over the top.  What’s your thoughts on that mechanism?  There’s a lot of fallout, a lot of conversation about that.  From the outside looking in, how do you see this and your thoughts on that?”  (c. 21:57)

ROSA CLEMENTE:  “Well I mean, first, for those that, um, are Democrats and were going to vote for Bernie, I think it is foul. [scoffs]  I think it is—you know.  I, I think that the Democratic Party has shown itself to, even, folks, that were still, essentially, gonna vote Democrat, if you’re going for Bernie, that they are an establishment party—they are an elite party—that there’s no democracy in that party.  (c. 22:24)

“And the idea, too, I mean that the media could say that the night before, before—how many?—folks in six states are left to vote. [3]  I mean I think it really shows.  It’s gotta show people the incestuous relationship between the media elite and the two-party system, that elite system as well.

“And I think it’s gonna, hopefully, push people to break, finally, from the Democratic Party and join an independent party.  I would hope it would be the Green Party.  But there are other parties out there.  And there are other presidential candidates, including the Socialism and Liberation Party.

“And, you know, I also believe in organised efforts for folks to withhold the vote for future elections.  As it bodes for today, I think the entire state of California and all those voters were disenfranchised.  I mean it’s a huge slap, especially, to young folks, that had a little bit of hope, you know, like, especially, those in California, that were like:  Wait, wait.  Everything, that they said was gonna happen with Hillary, we actually have a voice ‘cos we’re pushing for Bernie.  I realise that that’s where most young folks are at.  And I think it was the biggest slap in the face for all those young people, that somehow have been put or brought into the electoral/political process.  And I hope that they know that there’s another place for them to go.  And it doesn’t have to be within this two-party system.” (c. 23:58)

DAVEY D:  “That leads me to my last question here.  I know in the past you’ve been very critical, in particular, of Sanders because he had promised that he would support the Democratic nominee, in this case, Hillary.  Where we’re at in this crossroads is, you know, how do you unify people, who are Sanders supporters with Hillary folks and her values and her politics?  And can that happen?  And, if not, you know, maybe Bernie, personally, will go out and say:  I’m with you.  But, for those who are really angered or feel that the politics are too much to swallow—”

ROSA CLEMENTE:  “Yeah.”

DAVEY D:  “—you know, if Bernie‘s not gonna run third-party, do those people run third-party?  And do they risk a Trump or somebody getting in, if that happens?”  (c. 24:44)

ROSA CLEMENTE:  “Well, I mean I think that that’s what people don’t have a full understanding of a popular vote and the electoral college.  But, with that said, if Bernie Sanders supporters are listening to me right now, he’s already committed to Hillary Clinton.  He’s saying he’s committed to who the eventual Democratic Party nominee.  What he should be saying is:  I’m committed to looking into joining a third-party ticket, i.e., the Green Party, the Libertarians—obviously, he’s not going to join them—, or the Socialism and Liberation Party.  If he’s not saying that, Bernie Sanders supporters do have another option.  You don’t have to vote for Hillary Clinton.  You could be a registered Green within a day in California and vote for Jill Stein and get a third-party on the ballot permanently, so that there’s never again a two-party option. [4]  (c. 25:41)

“For folks, that are saying, well, that means Trump might win, they can’t fall into that trap of, first, a mythology that a third-party candidate is what loses the other candidate an election.  You win an election, or you lose it, by the way you run a campaign. [5]

[SNIP]

Learn more at HARD KNOCK RADIO.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

“The Browning of America” (2014) by Olmeca

***

[1]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Hard Knock Radio, hosted by Anita Johnson and Davey D, Tuesday, 7 JUN 2016, 16:00 PDT, one hour broadcast.

[2]  Notably, at the same time that many people feel “short-changed” by the Super Delegates seeming to be arrayed already on the side of Hillary Clinton, the Super Delegates will not cast their votes until the Democratic Convention.  But, conversely, a segment of Bernie Sanders supporters are hoping for the long shot hope that Bernie Sanders will be able to gather enough support from some of those Super Delegates to defeat Hillary Clinton during what Sanders has predicted will be a “contested” convention process.  Meanwhile, others have reported signs that Bernie Sanders may concede to Hillary Clinton before the convention.  Indeed, Sanders has already announced that he won’t run against Hillary Clinton as an alternative or third-party candidate, should he fail to win the Democratic presidential nomination.  (And it’s important to remember that, even after the polls close, there will still be a certain number of mailed-in ballots to be counted.)

But, since we know that the Democratic Party is principally in the hands of corporate, antidemocratic, anti-working class hands, it is unlikely that any Super Delegates would want to support Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton.  It seems like Bernie Sanders’ campaign’s only hope is to receive enough support from voters to override the arbitrary resistance of Super Delegates and Democratic Party bosses.

[3]  In a recent speech Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now!, noted that in other countries it is forbidden or illegal for media outlets to be ‘predicting’ election outcomes because of the unfair and undue influence it can bear upon elections.  Instead, Goodman noted, articulating what many of us have long thought, the press must devote its efforts to researching and presenting the political track records of political candidates and comparing that to their campaign promises and rhetoric.  But, sadly, that’s not what we get in the USA.  Most people cast their votes predicated on amorphous ‘feelings’ about candidates, rather than evidence-based reasoning and historical facts.  If the working classes knew the political history of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, they would never vote for them.  Then, the working classes would never vote against their interests.  They wouldn’t be fooled again.

[4]  The problem with this argument, for those of us aware of (or old enough to remember) the fact that the Green Party, being the third largest political party in the USA has already been here before with Ralph Nader.  And when Ralph Nader was gaining a critical mass of support, a factional dispute within the Green Party resulted in the Green Party succumbing to the bogus spoiler vote argument and pressuring Nader to agree to pull out at the end in order to help the Democratic Party.  At that point, the Green Party became an appendage, a tool, of the Democratic Party.  And this turned many of us off from the Green Party.  This has caused the Green Party to appear untrustworthy and insincere in the eyes of many progressives.  How can we trust that the Green Party won’t sell out again?

[5]  Or one wins or loses an election by the structural and legal forces stacked in a particular direction to benefit a particular candidate or political party.  Or, in other words, one wins or loses according to a rigged political process.

***

[7 JUN 2016]

[Last modified  08:24 PDT  9 JUN 2016]

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