Category Archives: Anti-Racism

Day Three | Biden’s First 100 Days

22 Fri Jan 2021

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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

@LumpenProles, 07:53 PST, Friday, 22 JAN 2021

***

After our primary duties are taken care of, let us find out what’s going on out there.  Remember, don’t let no one get you down, ‘cos if they do, we’ll be around.  Solidarity.

“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.

00:00 – 03:00 PST, KPFK [LA] > Something’s Happening A > […]

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.

05:40 – c. 1230 PST, KPFA no app feed. See website feed, instead: https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=live

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.

“The Ballot or The Bullet” speech, 12 APR 1964, King Solomon Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan


(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.

Cf. https://lumpenproletariat.org/2015/04/12/race-real-estate-and-uneven-development-2002-by-kevin-fox-gotham/

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.]

***

[22 JAN 2021]

[Last modified on 22 JAN 2021 at 18:44 PST]

Day Two | Biden’s First 100 Days

21 Thu Jan 2021

Posted by in Anti-Fascism, Anti-Narcissism, Anti-Racism, Anti-Totalitarianism

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This is what democracy looks like?  Technically, we don’t have a “democracy”, we have a republic.  U.S. institutions, such as the electoral college, evidence that fact.

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—Some of us sensed that President Biden needed to take the threat of U.S. fascism more seriously.  As divided as the nation has been, the president will have to tour the reddest states and make the 74 million, who rejected him feel heard.  He needs to say:  I am your president, too.  I am here to listen.  Then, he needs to mindfully listen.  And, most importantly, he needs to respond to their concerns with sincerity.  And Biden needs to work to provide his political opponents what they need, such as jobs, economic assistance, anything, as long as it’s just.  That’s how he can win them over as constituents.  And, if what they need or want is unjust, Biden must show them why, making sure to convey humility, not superiority. 

Unfortunately, Biden’s language and tone have been judgmental.  Biden doesn’t seem interested in truth and reconciliation with the 74 million.  He seems only interested in satisfying the agenda of his political party, rather than the agenda of the American Family.  Some of us tend to side with the defenders in any contest of wills.  Right now, we need to side with all peaceful protestors, even if we disagree with their politics, even if we find them harmful to us because the value of free speech far outweighs the fears of gullible Americans being fooled by the unscrupulous pushers of misinformation and disinformation. We don’t need the state filtering news and information for us.  We don’t need a paternalistic state.  Moreover, promoting independent media is a powerful solution for the very serious problem of media consolidation, monopolization, and cartelization.  The capitalist modes of production tend toward the concentration of wealth and power in few hands.  So, we need the free flow of information to collectively establish truth for socioeconomic justice.  We need truth and reconciliation.  We can’t have one without the other and expect for meaningful change or stability.

Given Biden’s Inaugural Address, he seems bent on alienating the 74 million Americans, who feel cheated by his presidency, who feel Biden doesn’t care about their perspectives.  Obviously, our national culture during the last four years of the Trump administration, #45, became much more divisive and polarized.  White supremacy is baked into the cake, it’s a key ingredient, which was included at the beginning.  It has become a deeply ingrained mythology for at least 74 million Americans, who have drank from the cup of American exceptionalism and found themselves intoxicated with the  power of American supremacy.  “America first!” is the refrain of this selfish mentality. This evil disease of racism, this mental illness, which so much resembles narcissistic abuse, which so much resembles an abusive relationship, has transformed itself into a form of nationalism, which has adapted to America’s post-Reconstruction, new-Jim Crow reality.  The forces of white supremacy have figured out that they must begin to recruit people of color into their ranks in order to make their racist and fascist movements appear less racist, or even appear non-racist. Comedian Dave Chappelle’s comedy skit about a blind black guy, who joined the KKK, as he didn’t realize he himself was black, seems passé now.  It’s no longer far-fetched to imagine a right-wing person of color, even though it is contrary to the interests of people of color.  We would like to hear from you, if you’re a right-wing person of color.  Please leave a comment below.

Biden inaugural guest is Venezuelan coup leader charged with inciting violent assault on gov’t building, reported Anya Parampil (Grayzone)

Even without white supremacy being baked into the cake, as it were, our nation would still be growing increasingly polarized simply as a result of having a two-party system.

As people of color, we have meditated upon the meaning of the events of January 6th these last couple of weeks.  Some of us were very angry.  Some of us were very fearful.  Some of us were excessively giddy over the transfer of power from #45 to #46.  Some of us have faith in the Democrat Party, as a sincere opposition party.  Some of us don’t.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not.  Malcolm X did not.  They saw through the good cop/bad cop routine of the Democrat and Republican parties.  Do you? 

Notably, we didn’t notice a single person of color siding with the Republican Party or Trump loyalists during call-ins or otherwise on Pacifica Radio these last couple of weeks.  Pacifica’s mission is mutual understanding and peace between nations, races, and creeds.  We know right-wing, pro-Republican Party people of color are out there.  But they do not subscribe to Pacifica’s mission of peace and understanding.  So, they are unlikely to be paying attention to Pacifica Radio to call in.  And, regrettably, virtually no Pacifica Radio programming has sought to interview Trump loyalists to hear from them directly.  Instead, we have heard pundits and experts speculate as to what their motivations and aspirations may be without ever bothering to simply ask them, without ever bothering to invite them on the air to discuss or debate the issues. I remember ’80s shows, like Donahue, even Geraldo, didn’t shy about having so-called fringe groups to discuss or debate the issues. Liberal Puerto Rican talk show host Geraldo Rivera even got his nose busted on air by some white supremacists during one broadcast, in which emotions escalated and chairs and fists were thrown. Instead, corporate media and much of Pacifica Radio are othering the Trump loyalists, as if they were blame Pacifica programmers for not working to demystify the Trump loalists by letting them on air to speal for themselves.  If you are an exception, or if you are a right-wing person of color, please leave a comment, we would care to know how you came to position yourself on the right of the political spectrum, which is, to us on the left of the political spectrum, diametrically opposed to the interests of working Americans, their economic wellbeing, labor rights, and democracy, generally.

@LumpenProles, 07:43 PST

***

07:55 PST, Good morning, friends and enemies.  Let’s see what’s going on out there today.  We acknowledge our enemies as well as our friends because we aim to always be mindful of our reality.  We know very well there is a surveillance state, which Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and others have paid great sacrifices for the benefit of us all; so, that we may know the crimes of state, which are daily committed in our name.  So, we emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, as Dr. Noam Chomsky said to a fearful student at one of his many talks, a student who was afraid to speak out for fear of risking his career or future.  Dr. Chomsky said to the student, if you do that, you will be censoring yourself. You will be doing the work of the oppressor for them, without them even having to lift a finger.  Now, that is intimidation.  We understand that on the streets, lamentably.  That’s how former heavyweight champ “Iron” Mike Tyson used to win boxing matches before the sound of the first bell.  Intimidation. Fear.  So, we reject fear-based decision-making and fear mongering.  We choose courage.  We choose humanity.

Today is Day Two of President Biden’s first 100 days in office.  Let us resist alienation.  Let us build bridges of understanding across ideologies and creeds.

00:00 PST, KPFK > Something’s A > Byrds 1941, Dave Emory [TP] 2. Prof. […]  (c. 10:00) on the history of biological warfare programs [TP]

Bai wpfw Simulcast C. 0545 AG: ‘new W house has mlk Chavez Eleanor Roosevelt 0549 youngest poet laureate, the “skinny black girl”, “d3mocracy cannot be defeated” sh3 said. I dunno. 74M voted for against democracy in 2020.

0500 – 0600 KPFK > tom h […] 0555, “Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds

KPFA 0556, news, cal covid infection rate #s go down .  Biden sworn in on Jewish tora(?).  Is Biden a Zionist? […] “masked mandate for interstate travel’ […] dems get “narrow” lead in senate […] “firsts”, identity politics […] cabinet evil […] 1st pres to enter before key advisors […]  Trump’s narc abuse farewell, ‘have a nice life; we’ll be back in some form’ […] “oxygen shortages” […] US imperialism vs Venezuela continues […] immigration: Mediterranean Sea’s dangerous migration routes […] Biden exec order bans golden parachutes and lobbying, if Cabinet members bail before end of term […] whistle-blower Reality Winner has been imprisoned, abused, sexually assaulted by her jailers […]

06:00 KPFK Stephanie Miller Show [TP] Tom H pitches kpfk cross-promotion […] 06:30 PST, on the legal logic of Trump pardons.  Trump loyalists asking for a pardon. But 45 was advised that doing so would imply knowledge of crimes, knowledge of which would render him complicit and, thus, legally exposed.  […]  As we seek to avoid divisiveness, we strive to afford everyone, including our ideological opponents, the benefit of the doubt.  With our radar on high alert, Stephanie and side-kick’s name-calling against the “Red Hats” and “Trumpies” and whatnot smacks of divisiveness.  Even as I write this, I think of my own past where I have engaged in name-calling.  If mutual respect is the end, mutual respect must be the starting point.  Stable mutual respect across ideologies is much more difficult, if we begin with disrespect, or lack of respect for one another.  Violence does not require concern for the other; in that regard, violence is an easier path than peace.  But we are all Americans.  And we all do have concern for one another.  And that concern must inform how we interact with one another, as we seek to coexist.  Only then, will Americans be able to understand each other.  Now, when it comes to Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and white nationalists, what more is there to understand?  Any ideology, which regards one “race”, or ethnicity, above any other, will only lead to dispossession and the abuse of power.  America must denounce racist and narcissistic ideologies because they are an impediment to a free and open society.  If Americans aren’t clear on this, we are headed for recurring and increasingly virulent crises. History teaches us how societies rise and fall.  […]  06:52 PST, speakers expressed their great pleasure with Biden’s political performance. “He really feels it,” said the co-host guy.  He doesn’t see what we see, that Biden is alienating the 74 million, who rejected him.  Biden is pushing his agenda before he is making any attempts to win over the 74 million, who correctly recognize he is nothing more than another establishment politician.  […]  One male black-sounding speaker just name-dropped being on the Bill Maher show.  Is he more interested in social name-climbing than social justice?  […]  06:58, local announcements

06:00 PST, WPFW > […] 06:58 PST, public service announcement [TP]

07:00 PST, WBAI > fund drive mode: please support free speech radio. Take Back the People’s Airwaves!  07:03 PST, Gary Null helped fundraise for WBAI.  Pacifica Radio is not, nor should it ever be, corporate-sponsored.

07:00 PST, KPFK > Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod > intro > KPFA News Headlines with Aileen Alfandary > [TP] […]  “pandemic assistance program” Biden fired extremely “anti-union” cabinet member?  This sounds like a patsy is being thrown under the bus, Trump loyalists will feel wronged without a concerted effort to dialogue so as to justify decisions and to take the opportunity to address the public beyond a soundbite with the necessary information to explain to all American people why unions and organized labor are important things. […]  07:12 PST, archive audio of Biden’s Inaugural Address.  Biden’s tone sounds, like he’s scolding his children.  It seems he’s trying to convey strength in his tone, maybe to avoid sounding like a “snowflake“.  But, instead, he only sounds entitled, or self-righteous.  And we’re not even invoking his many sins, which could surely fill many pages of writing, if we really started to put his political track record under the microscope. But we want to stay present in the moment.  So, we are giving the new president the benefit of the doubt, for now.  But Biden’s first 100 days are already raising red flags for many of us, who tuned in to Democracy Now! this morning and heard about Biden’s cabinet appointments and slew of executive orders. […]  07:19, Jill Cartwright (Southerners On New Ground), “We still have to address the insurrection” […]  Is there a “rural-urban divide”?  Are rural people more aligned with right-wing politics than urban people? [TP] […]  MP seemed to ask: ‘Can activists walk and chew gum at the same time?  Can they tell the difference between the political class and the activist class?  This is a long-standing MP talking point, which seems to serve to absolve the Democrat Party from their unholy alliance with corporations and the American ruling class.  […]  07:28 PST, guest Bill on Biden and the environment. […]  Biden:  “I’ll fire you on the spot.”  Like Obama, Biden is pushing the power of the state and the culture of government up, further away from libertariam principles and closer towards authoritarianism.  […]  “It’s a way to go.  And it’s a start,” said guest. “It’s hopeful.”  Evidently, our Stockholm Syndrome has severely lowered our standards.  Without a mass movement on the streets, how can the people “pressure” the Biden administration?  What choice do Democrat voters have? Many, who voted for Obama saw through the neoliberalism, then fell for the fake populism of Mr. Trump, thinking he was an outsider, who would oppose the neoliberal deep state agenda. Many uninformed followers still think so.  Well, as best we can tell, we’re not giving them many opportunities for free speech.

07:00 – 09:00 PST, KPFA > UpFront > […] [TP] A prisoner speaks out on the inhumane conditions in ICE detainment. They even sleep masked for fear of covid infection. [TP]  […]  advocating for reparations for Oakland’s black students.  Where’s the advocacy for brown students? Where’s the advocacy for poor white students?  Where’s the advocacy for poor students?  Do we really need reparations for wealthy black students?  Is the core issue race, or poverty, or capitalist exploitation, which creates hierarchies, and divides us, and pits us against each other?  […]  “school closures” “pushout” > 08:40 PST, On Biden’s first 100 days, ‘they will smash on white supremacists’ […]

09:00 – 10:00 PST, WBAI > Gary Null TP … 0938 tp.  Excellent, Gary.  Thank you for saying what many of us have been thinking.  It’s interesting that a health show has provided the most honest assessment of the state of the nation, putting liberals to shame.

10:00 PST, WBAI > Leonard Lopate At Large

09:00 PST, KPFK > The Tom Hartman Show [TP]

1030 bai labor

11:00 PST, KPFA > The Talkies > (see voice notes) [TP].  This broadcast was very disappointing. I will transcribe my voice notes, if time constraints allow.  Our family duties always come first.  After our families are cared for and safe, and we have spare time, then, we can turn our attentions to the ills of society as well as the sources of hope and possibility.  Until then, we implore those people of conscience, people of means, to not squander your free time.  Be sincere, and sincerely work for socioeconomic justice.  Please do not lie by omission.

1200 kpfa tp debunking the myths of the south

1300 Bookwaves/Cover to Cover with Richard Wokinsky, kpfa TP chris hedges (5 May 2015, circa Wages of Rebellion) and ralph steadman, artist for hunter thompson.  Nice, topics, Richard! Yes, I remember this talk!  This is apros pros.  We remember critiquing C Hedges back during Obama’s first presidential campaign.  So glad Hedges eventually saw the light and had the courage to speak honestly. […] “proto-fascist”, more accurate than RCP’s language. Hedges proved himself quite prophetic with this talk.  13:30 PST, Interesting.  Ralph Steadman sounds like a Brit.  It makes sense that he says he wasn’t cut out for factory work.  Who is? […]

13:00 PST, WPFW > jazz: female vocal version of Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called (To Say I Love You)” with piano, drums, and double bass accompaniment.

13:00 PST, WBAI > Democracy Now! > […] 13:43 PST, music break

14:00 PST, WBAI > Driving Forces > talk (liberal, bourgeois; see voice notes), topic, liberal/bourgeois summary of yesterday’s inauguration.

14:00 PST, WPFW > […] Reclaiming the real MLK.  One black-sounding man on the panel, maybe Jasiri X, said, he never knew before today’s broadcast that Dr. King, like Malcolm X, saw through the falseness of the Democrat Party. TP] 1432, ‘cops are attacked by other cops and the status quo for trying to do good’ all we need is to discuss the book, An Act of State[…] 1435, kat Brooks [TP]  14:55, kB, ‘a journalist recently got snatched up by cops and detained until they looked at all of the pictures he took.  This reminds me of the recent DN! news reports about a whistle-blower, who faced a police state night-raid for contradicting covid statistics. No, inflation rates weren’t being inflated, but deflated!  That’s the opposite of what I had suspected.  I had suspected, if this whole COVID-1984 scenario we’re all living through was a deep state inside job, then those forces would want to inflate the covid numbers to justify a ratcheting up of the American police state.  I was wrong. […]  15:00, “Oscar Grant”, KB:  ‘we gotta unite across this country, if we’re gonna succeed’  again, that’s what one caller said the other morning, Tuesday, I think, to Brian Edward-Tiekert.  He refused to engage with the question.  Oftentimes, his behavior on-air, and that of his liberal political faction within KPFA is very concerning because it often functions counter to the interests of grassroots social justice activists. One speaker talked of unity….I said the same to BET circa 2007

15:00 PST, WPFW > [TP] “pedagogy of the oppressed”.   What an excellent discussion.  Please listen to this, audio archives are available online. (I’ll add links, as time constraints allow.)

15:18 bai [TP] ‘nuclear issues study group, action coming up on Friday

15:00 – 16:00 [TP] RISING Up disappointing, Sonali advocated Biden working with “corporations”, like Republicans, as if Clinton didn’t alteady start that […] like kris welch, no mention of “stand down” on 6th. Even this chat on psychology of Trump obfuscates more accurate analysis previously aired on wpfw citing a study of 70K physicians who warned Trump was a “reactive narcissist”.  See Inner Integration, Dr. George Simon, Ross Rosenberg, et al.  This RU chat lies by omission […]  15:50, disappointing, psych lady just condoned cancel culture (ie, banning Trump from social media) on free speech radio.  Shame on Sonali for not calling out that bullshit (cf. Philosopher harry Frankfurt)

19:00 PST, WPFW [DC] > real jazz, what Nina Simone called “black classical”, as “jazz” was originally a derogatory term with racist connotations.  This music takes me back to my time studying harmony and musicianship at the College of San Mateo with the late, great Charles “Chas” Gustavson.  His wife worked with the Tilson Orchestra in San Francisco. And “Gus”, as we called him could play just about anything. He played the thickest chords on the piano in our classroom, stacking 7ths, 9ths, 11ths!  And chord inversions, relative keys.  He was truly a master of his craft.  Musicianship seems to have gone out of fashion. But it’s amazing to experience. I’ll never forget when Gus played Monk for us, after he learned my brother and I were fans.

19:22 WBAI > music, Americana

19:24 kpfk > talk, politics “eviction moratorium”, ‘American Indians/Native Americans’, “equity”, “the crisis”

1927 KPFA > Apex Express > Woman discussed her family’s history of Japanese internment camps, US history

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[These are my raw notes. I will expand and edit, as time constraints allow. TP = transcript pending volunteer labor. Please help transcribe breaking news and information. 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 American social relations left 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, lest we get caught off guard again. Solidarity.]

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[21 JAN 2021]

[Last modified on 21 JAN 2021 at 18:58 PST]

Opinion | World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day

17 Sun Jan 2021

Posted by in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Fascism, Anti-Imperialism, Anti-Narcissism, Anti-Racism, Anti-Totalitarianism, Anti-War, Memoirs

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LUMPENPROLETARIAT—Great historical moments of crisis can serve as serious wake-up calls for us all. The First Amendment activity, which turned into fascist assaults on our Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, is one such historical moment. Many of us have been glued to our TVs, radios, or digital devices for breaking news and coverage of the events of January 6th.

The events were so disturbing that many people described feeling traumatized by the events. Many of us remember 9/11. Without a doubt, the events of January 6th are up there, in terms of national impact, with the events of 9/11. Probably what was most shocking was the way the Capitol Hill police seemed to “stand-down”, rather than hold back the trespassers, vandals, and rioters, who were chanting, “Hang Pence!!! Hang Pence!!!” And there was, literally, a noose and a make-shift, but seemingly functional, gallows erected outside the Capitol Building. “Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Ca., told AP on Sunday it was as if Capitol Police ‘were naked’ against the attackers. ‘It turns out it was the worst kind of non-security anybody could ever imagine.'” Observers have noted that Senators Holly and Cruz helped communicate with the Trump loyalists to help them organize their day’s actions. Buses were organized to bus in droves of Trump loyalists, who were determined to undermine the election, which they perceived as fraudulent, having been gaslit by U.S. President #45.  Who paid for those buses?  And why were the Capitol Hill police misinformed that it was only a women’s group who was planning to rally on the 6th, not armed men?

The Trump loyalists were operating under the pretext established by Mr. Trump, who had been gaslighting the nation, and the world, about his 2020 electoral defeat. Now, this term gaslighting may be a new vocabulary word for a lot of people. It was a new word for me in my not-so-distant past, when I was facing challenges in my marriage, which almost resulted in divorce.  It seems impossible for men to suffer domestic violence; but it happens.  And, of course, boys don’t cry.  At least that’s what we’re conditioned to accept as the standard within the male patriarchal system.  Many of us men, in the past decade or two, have tried to correct for the bullshit men have done in the past.  But maybe we went too far and allowed women to run roughshod over our domestic affairs.  Men may have been emasculated within their own misguided attempts to evolve past the knuckle-dragging past of our cave-man days.  Then, we lost all of our masculinity.  What does it mean to be a post-patriarchal man.  I don’t know.  But my wife and I are working together to find out.  I guess, like Johnny Depp, I’m coming out of the closet, as a narc survivor.  For me, the narc abuse began when I was a child, as for most people.  Like Ross Rosenberg’s parents, my parents have suffered from what Rosenberg calls The Human Magnet Syndrome.  I could say more about this, but I am not ready to do that here and now, nor do I have the time.  (Interested readers can deduce the rest.  The point is to raise awareness about social ills, not to dwell on my personal foibles or those of others around me.)

I credit online resources, such as Meredith Miller’s Inner Integration, and YouTubers, such as Dr. George Simon, Ross Rosenberg, “Surviving Narcissism”, Angie Atkinson, et al., even Narc Survivor.  (N.B.:  Unlike the other resources, Narc Survivor is strictly for individuals, who have reached their limit with narc abuse and have decided to go no contact.  Ghosting is a horrible way to end a relationship.  But when you have been gaslit, when your emotions have been disregarded, when even therapy and counselling, any kind of third-party professional help is rejected, when all that exists in the home is emotional abuse without mutual respect, the codependent must go no contact from their narcissistic abuser.  All of this is new science in the current literature.  Ross Rosenberg and George Simon, literally, go around training psychologists and therapists in recent years to train practicing therapists.

I mean I had encountered the word since the days of my youth. But I never really knew it was a technical medical term. I always thought narcissism was somebody, who was foolish, like the Greek fable of Narcissus, who was so enamoured with his own beauty, that he was always gazing at himself in a pond. And Narcissus was so vain, gazing at himself all the time in the reflection of the water, that he fell in and drowned. Oh, no! Pretty silly, right? But that was the children’s fable I was taught.

The point was to be humble, to avoid hubris. I always thought that was reasonable. So, I tried to do that, since the days of my youth with mixed results. Teenagers are moody, half kid, half adult. If we bullshit our kids, we may end up with jaded and alienated kids, who don’t trust their caregivers or other adults. Then, they retreat to their bedrooms and isolate themselves, or back in my day, run wild in the streets, looking for acceptance, validation, self-esteem, and approval. That’s when kids can really get into trouble. When I was a kid, older gang-bangers would initiate the youngsters through a violent rite of passage of some sort. This is very insidious because disaffected youth are often emotionally wounded or traumatized. And they are looking for acceptance. This can be exploited by toxic individuals, who only care about preserving their own status quo, whether it’s capitalist exploitation on the streets or in the suites. The effect is the same, except working class kids rarely get the chance to be exploited in the suites by, say, an unpaid internship, which exploits you. Working class kids are exploited in more dangerous ways on the streets.

The point is school sucks. And kids hate it. Why? Because the teachers are full of shit, for the most part. And students know that they’re being lied to. They can perceive lying by omission. And it creates distrust in our teachers, in our schools, in our institutions. Yes, teenagers are battling wild mood swings and hormones; and they’re struggling to individuate, to become their own autonomous individuals, apart from their parents.  So teenage rebellion is par for the course.  But teenage life under neoliberalism is its own special kind of hell, to which adults seem oblivious.  We see police kill people of color and poor people with impunity. And it’s traumatizing for kids. Young people reject that. That’s why Black Lives Matter has been a primarily youth-led movement. They haven’t been gaslit for so many years, that they have become desensitized to the suffering of others. Honestly, I feel a bit sickened when I see Americans carrying on as usual, seemingly oblivious to the fact that our nation is falling apart. Our empire has been declining for years. That’s why Global Research reported on former President Obama’s so-called Asia-Pacifica Pivot. American imperialism was focused on controlling or otherwise manipulating the flow of petroleum in South Asia/Middle East.

That political reality was reflected in Hollywood by the preponderance of Arab-looking villains in Hollywood movies, starting around the time of the film True Lies (1994). I mean, we could go back to Die Hard for the earlybirds to the new political propaganda theme. But the early 1990s was when I noticed that the Hollywood villains were starting to be terrorists. I was also starting to pay more attention to the news of the day by the time I was in high school and started to get into KPFA free speech radio. Before that, the 1980s villains of my youth were always Russians or commies of some sort. It seems the dominant culture in my nation always wanted me to fear socialists and communists. And, then, after the late 1980s, they wanted me to fear terrorists. Hmmm? I wonder why? As a temperamental teenager, I didn’t have the bandwidth to absorb the full breadth of the news of the day. So, I couldn’t see the connections we can see now. As adults, now we observe the fact that the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989.

Now, we can see that, as the Soviet Union was floundering, it had become untenable or impossible to manufacture consent, to manufacture a Russian bogeyman to scare Americans into uncritical, capitalistic, and consumeristic docility and obedience. In reality, the Soviet Union had been floundering for decades. And American intelligence knew this, despite continuing the fear-based propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. What many of us teenagers did not know at the time was that America had engaged in a mass campaign of narcissistic abuse during the Red Scares, the First and the Second, plus the McCarthyism witch hunts. All of that was narcissistic abuse because it was all based on lies. For some reason our history teachers had bullshitted all of us. Our history books had lied to us, as Dr. James Loewen has said. People of color could see that much more clearly than white kids.

Fuck the white education; so, I skipped a lot of classes.

MC Eiht, quoted in “The Hood Took Me Under” (1991) by Compton’s Most Wanted

Experts of narcissistic abuse will explain to you that gaslighting is crazy-making. Then, when young people of color, complain about the bullshit that they see, adults act like there’s nothing wrong. I mean adults are not out in the streets trying to fight climate change deniers. Adults haven’t been out in the streets mobilizing for socioeconomic justice. Why not? It makes no sense. Any kid with a conscience will have trouble adapting to an American culture without a conscience.

Logistics

I’m running out of time. I would like to say more about Dr. Henry Giroux’s book, America At War With Itself, from 2016, which articulates much of the sentiments many of us are feeling right now about the powerful forces within American policing and right-wing ruling class elites, including the leadership of the Republican and Democrat “parties”. I also want to talk about the new book, Worldly Shame: Ethos In Action because I think there are great lessons there for immigrants trying to assimilate into a culture, which never quite accepts them. This is applicable even to non-immigrant offspring of immigrants, such as your author. There is a certain sense of shame, which is inculcated (wittingly or unwittingly) by the dominant culture in immigrants. I mean President #45 even ripped families apart. And we have evidence revealed from closed-door meetings where we hear the actual thought process of politicians in our two-party dictatorship. For example, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, literally, strategized against humanity, “We have to take away the kids.”

But our American culture is beyond outrage. As Professor John Vervaeke explains, “We seem to be drowning in a sea of bullshit.” Since the 1990s and the rise of the internet, there has been an explosion of information. Now, people are finally getting all of the history, which we hadn’t gotten in our history books. We’re finding maybe Karl Marx was right. We’re finding the young Karl Marx was angry. But the older Karl Marx just wanted us to fully understand and appreciate the revolutionary nature of capitalism. Many Americans still do not understand this. Students are not even taught economics until 12th grade! And, even then, the curriculums are such bullshit; it’s as if the subject is intentionally made unbearable just to keep young people away from the one subject, which teaches them about “the economic dimensions of our lives,” as Professor Richard Wolff likes to say, ‘our jobs, our incomes, our plans for retirement, and those of our kids and grandkids.’ Economics is the one subject, which deals with arguably the most important adult responsibility, income as a prerequisite for self-sufficiency. But capital is mystified by antidemocratic forces in society. We take money, wages, wage labor, all of it, for granted, as if that’s the only way humans are capable, or deserving, of organizing themselves. That’s bullshit. Cruz and Holly, for example, are patrician elites, who spout anti-elite rhetoric. Only a gaslit group of codependents could fall for such deception. But that is the type of deception we see on a regular basis by both of our dominant, corporatist political “parties”. I put the term parties in scare-quotes because we have to admit that they are more like identity cults than political parties. People identify with the political parties, but there is no there there. Neither party’s have any meaningful platform anymore. Both parties ran without a platform in 2020. President #45 won without a platform at all, except the racist, reactive narcissist, dog-whistle slogan of “Make American Great Again.” That is not politics. As Alexa O’ Brien explained to your author in an interview during the Occupy Wall Street protests. “The culture wars are over. Everyone lost.” Now, we have fascism because the will of the people is never reflected in public policy.

Those forces, which you can listen to on right-wing media all day, are seeking to transform our hopes for the development of sincere and participatory democracy to the gaslit acceptance of fascism. Now, I know that the word fascism is a powerful word. And it’s not well understood. We also have little understanding, as a society, of American racism. So, we often hear Americans conflating white supremacy and white nationalism. White supremacy was the system America had since the beginning; it involves dispossession, expropriation, narcissistic abuse, and exploitation. White nationalism is the system, which is trending and desired among a growing number of predominantly white middle class Americans. White nationalism involves racial purity and genocide.

My wife and I just bought a house. I helped a neighbor by building him a beautiful, redwood fence. He wears Trump loyalist propaganda. He’s a middle-aged white man. I felt that same pang of dread, which Meredith Miller (Inner Integration) describes, which one feels when you’re in the presence of a narcissistic abuser. I was triggered by the symbolism. So, I returned to my in-breath and out-breath.

I have to get back to attend to my family and to fight for our survival through this American Great Depression. I did not write this for your entertainment. If I could find like-minded individuals this blog could be become a well-rounded website. Excuses, right? I just don’t want to bullshit anyone. This is what one working class blog looks like, for better or for worse.

The Bottom Line

My main point is that the events of January 6th were a huge wake-up call to us all. We’re all seeing things we didn’t see before, or admitting things we hadn’t admitted before. Narcissistic abuse is one of them. World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day is June 1st. Let’s mark our calendars. And let’s learn how narcissistic abuse is similar, or identical, to racist abuse.

One thing many of us are seeing, which I have never noticed being discussed is the psychological deconstruction of the mental illness known as racism. There are several elements to racism, which have been articulated since January 6th. The most important one, from my perspective, is the psychological mapping of the mental illness known as racism. The fact that we can virtually map racist abuser traits right onto narcissistic abuser traits is a breakthrough, in my humble opinion, for critical race theory. If I could get a grant, I would write a research paper on this, if it doesn’t exist already. Maybe I should do just that.

The cool thing about blogging or journaling is that you get to develop your thoughts in the absence of being able to discuss these topics with others face to face. We cannot expect our immediate family and circle of friends to be passionate about civic engagement, critical media literacy, or democracy, if they are not already. People need to come around on their own. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Our job is to make Americans thirsty for socioeconomic justice. Anything less is the status quo, which brought us to this new low in American history.

@LumpenProles

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[17 JAN 2021]

[Last modified on 17 JAN 2021 at 05:59 PST]

[Your author hopes to expand and clarify this post, as time constraints allow. Living in poverty, it’s a challenge just staying healthy, avoiding toxins, avoiding toxic people, avoiding toxic environments. We don’t live in the Green Zone or gated communities. We live where we hear police sirens and helicopters all the time, shit like that. It’s stressful. You rarely hear form the lumpenproletariat, unless its a news report telling you to fear them. “The secret to life is have no fear,” Fela Kuti.  If you’re the fearless rock-climber or bungee-jumper type or other adrenaline junkie type looking for a thrill, why risk your life on frivolity?  Why not challenge American imperialism, white supremacy, white nationalism, male patriarchy, defend Julian Assange, and the freedom of the press, defend the Constitution.  Why not engage in copwatching then next time you see a cop engaging in fascist policing or doing anything at all.  Always film cops.  That’ll get your adrenaline going.  Please, think of others.  Don’t let neoliberal assimilation strip you of your collective consciousness in favor of a hyper-individualistic, neoclassical economics outlook.  Humans are social animals.  Our accomplishments are collective, not individual.]