LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Friday, 12 FEB 2021, 05:21 PST]  Today, is the 24th day of Biden’s first 100 days in office. Biden was supposed to do big things, like FDR with his New Deal, which helped lift America out of the Great Depression.  But, if we understand American politics, we know that white liberals and their non-white cognates, say, we have to push the (Democrat) president to give the people what they want (i.e., justice).  But, if that’s true, then white liberals expect people to get back in the streets and create another mass movement, “like Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter.”  We have literally heard various liberals on Pacifica Radio in recent weeks use those exact words.  It is a common sentiment.  But, if it means Occupy-style encampments, we can expect from Mr. Biden the same police brutality we got from Mr. Obama when his administration coordinated a nationwide crackdown with mayors of major cities and metro areas across the country to crush the Occupy Wall Street movement, and silence dissent.  So, despite the well-meaning advice from liberals to call your representatives and to “push Biden” to do good, it never takes us off course from neoliberal concentration of wealth and power, widening inequality, dwindling democracy, and cancerous racism.  It’s only a robust left, which has ever stood up to the abuse of power displayed by the American right-wing.

Back in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, America had a robust and vibrant left, which contributed greatly to a wave of mass strikes across the country. Workers walked off their jobs and shut down the gears of capitalism, of capitalist modes of production and capitalist social relations.  There was solidarity among workers across the nation.  And that terrified the American ruling class, the capitalist owners of the majority of the wealth in America and control of the reigns of power.  So, the leftists said to FDR, if you don’t help the people, those socialist and communist ideas will only grow more popular out there.  So, we, the people, won the New Deal.  We won great gains for the working classes, including a job guarantee program.  But, most importantly, we won the ideological struggle of values.  Our values, on the left, say, for example, we choose to end involuntary unemployment with an MMT-based job guarantee program or other available and comparable options. Their values, on the right, say there’s nothing anyone can do about unemployment; there will always be unemployment.  We rejected that.  So, the state rejected us.  The American deep state stepped up its covert and proxy wars against the left.  They couldn’t win the debate of ideas.  So, they had to resort to a cruel and insidious war of intimidation, violence, oppression, and suppression.  The Red Scares and McCarthyism, basically, smashed the American left.  Some of those leftist scurried into the Democrat Party, became centrists, they went in, but they never came out.  Some of those Democrats, like the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club types at KPFA and Pacifica Radio keep thinking that they’re going to reform the Democrat Party from within.  But it never works.  It has never worked.  And, now, look where we are.  Facing a wannabe dictator, from who we appear powerless to disabuse ourselves.

The specter of Mr. Trump continues to haunt D.C.  And it’s not only because today is also Day Four of Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial; and D.C. still looks like a war zone, or post-WWII East Berlin, as thousands of troops occupy the Capitol.  Mr. Biden won the battle to preserve his style of neoliberalism.   But Mr. Trump may, yet, win the war, as he continues to follow the Mein Kampf playbook.  When you let a bully off the hook, he becomes more emboldened.  That’s what happened when Democrats didn’t take impeachment seriously the first time and allowed Mr. Trump to walk.  That was another trial balloon.  And it flew.  Mr. Trump, and his shady backers, saw that.  The American people, for the most part, missed it, and underestimated Mr. Trump. Because he shrugged off impeachment once, and his dialectical dance with white supremacy was building up the American Mythology of the chosen race, the good Americans.  74 million people threw their eggs in his basket.

Mr. Trump must have read Naomi Wolf’s End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.  Those, who read the book, know that she outlined about ten steps dictators of yore have taken in their rise to totalitarianism. Shockingly, she informed Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! back in 2007, and anyone, who would listen, that previous U.S. administrations, Republican and Democrat, had already checked off all of the prerequisites for American fascism.  Rapt Pacifica Radio audiences and others listened with horror.  We looked around and saw the writing on the wall.  It made sense.  Naomi Wolf was correct in her assessments. The air was electric, as we hung on every word from author Naomi Wolf, as she described how our nation had almost taken every single step, which past dictatorships had taken on their path to despotism.  We knew our nation was seriously infirm. 

But, we the people, were infirm, too.  We were too poor, too tired, too overworked, too underpaid, too stressed out, too scared to do anything about it.  And the people with mobility, with means and leisure time, couldn’t be bothered with the ills of society.  The entertainment options are too good.  Or there is a lack of human empathy.  Something must explain the shocking American apathy.  The rest of the world has always suspected this about Americans, especially the global south.  Were we, Americans of conscience, deceived by liberals and by a Democrat Party, which always promises to be an antidote to the evils of the Republican Party, but only turns out to be a poison, which puts us to sleep, politically.  Nothing changes.  The will of the people is increasingly ignored.  Things only get worse.  By 2007, we were on the doorstep of fascism.  The brutishness of the Republican Party, the Bush II administration pushed the envelope, socially. Then, the wolf-in-sheep’s clothing, Mr. Obama, the Constitutional scholar, was brought in to begin dismantling the U.S. Constitution, including the normalization of torture, black sites  extraordinary rendition, suspension of habeas corpus, indefinite detention, and extrajudicial assassinations of U.S. citizens.  Why shouldn’t we expect the same pattern now with Biden after Trump, like Obama after Bush II, or like Clinton after Bush I, who dismantled the financial regulatory systems, which laid the foundations for the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/2008?  We can detect patterns, which can inform popular resistance to despotism and corporate fascism.

The final step on author Naomi Klein‘s book, The End of America, which lists the steps to fascism, which the Bushes and Obamas and others had not yet addressed was the most damning: subvert the rule of law.  However, people of color, who had long been protesting against the police state will tell you otherwise.  Your author has been reading the Police State beat at IndyBay.org, since the aftermath of 9/11.  Your author will tell you, from personal experience, what it’s like to be a teenager, pulled over in you 1963 Chevy Impala every single day, often multiple times per day, half the time at gun point.  And that was back in the 1990s.  They say abuse in abusive relationships always escalates.  What can we say about our two-tiered justice system, which changed laws to subvert the Black Panther Party for Self Defense?  The state killed the ability of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense to provide copwatching services, free breakfast programs in poor neighborhoods, and other services.  On the other hand, the forces of white supremacy and white nationalism have facilitated and enabled and are still currently conspiring within the Republican Party leadership to continue building the fascistic Cult of Trump.  We must admit the sieges of January 6th and the defeatist response by the Democrat Party tells us the final step to fascism, which Naomi Wolff warned us about is underway.

Did we delude ourselves with Obama and his winning smile?  (Some of us campaigned for Ralph Nader from 2000 until he retired from running.)  Did people vote for him, simply because he looked more presidential than the other bloke?  Isn’t that the mindset Ray Bradbury warned about in Fahrenheit 451, his classic dystopian sci-fi novel about book-burners, where the Stepfordish wives fawned over which presidential candidate looked nicer.  This was clearly a reference to the election of JFK, which many say was the first election won on TV.  That was the 1960s.  Of course, JFK may have been nicer than other presidents, but he still acquiesced with the evil MIC; and that may have gotten him assassinated.  We’re not sure.  The good white liberals have seen to it that discussions around this topic be discouraged, marginalized, and even persecuted.  One of the nation’s more popular shows on such topics is called Guns and Butter.  This show has been removed from KPFA, evidently by the white liberal cancel culture at KPFA.  We’ll have to email Bonnie and ask her, if we can’t find any information online.  But we digress.  The point is we have internalized self-censorship and have pathologized curiosity and inquiry.  More often than not, white liberal broadcasters hang up on you, if they think the caller sounds outlandish. We’ve noticed black broadcasters on Pacifica Radio, especially on the east coast, seem more willing to entertain a diversity of perspectives and judge them on their own merits.  We observe a pattern, which discourages left-of-center viewpoints and undermines critical inquiry.  Critical discussion of the Democrat Party is deflected or disccouraged by one particular faction, or grouping of people working together to impose a minority ideology, namely, a white liberal ideology, not unlike that, which Dr. King decried as obstacles to his maturing vision of peace before he was assassinated.  We intend to expose in real time how these same patterns of censorship and obfuscation still operate among certain liberal gatekeepers at Pacifica Radio.  None of this is meant to be an ad hominem attack.  There is only one free speech radio network in the country. It belongs to the people, especially to the left.  The centrist and right-wing voters already have everything else.  So, we must critique what we love, so that it may heal from its toxins.

Subversion of the rule of law is what this farce of an impeachment represents. From the outset, we called our representatives to demand impeachment and submission of all available articles of impeachment.  But such bourgeois tactics, as telephoning Congressional representatives, yield little results, as we’ve seen for decades. Just ask political prisoners, such as David Gilbert, Mumia Abu Jamal, and Leonard Peltier. David Gilbert has gone on record describing the futility of bourgeois politics in the struggle for freedom.

But the Democrats, under Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, as Ralph Nader reminded us on Democracy Now! this morning, chose a “defeatist” strategy by only relying on a single article of impeachment for incitement. And, as we reported yesterday, Senator Raskin’s narrow focus on Mr. Trump being “singularly” responsible has weakened the prosecution’s case for conviction, which, in turn, will make it impossible to disqualify Mr. Trump from holding office in the future.  The whole point to this Senatorial impeachment ceremony is to legally disqualify Mr. Trump from ever running for U.S. president ever again.  The problem is the fact that this is not a legal trial.  We’re not sure why Mr. Trump is not facing criminal charges, instead. As soon as we learn more, we will report back. (See raw notes below.)

Thankfully, the great Ralph Nader has corroborated many of our previous working class contentions, and articulated them clearly for all the world to see.  Now, it’s time to wake the folk up!

Some of our white liberal friends, unlike Dr. Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader, continue to underestimate Mr. Trump, who is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign funds.  Nader has warned us about Mr. Trump’s cutthroat sense of timing and ability to read people, especially identifying exploitable weaknesses. Such are the behaviors of narcissistic abusers.  And Dr. Noam Chomsky  has called him a “sociopath” (pre-January 6th) and a “political genius” (post-January 6th), for his effectiveness at carrying out most of his toxic and destructive agenda. 

Despite having been impeached twice, Mr. Trump’s political stock only keeps rising.  This is because of Mr. Trump’s political viability, which is due to various factors, including a lack of meaningful opposition.  The Republican Party has made a Faustian bargain with Mr. Trump.  This is undeniable.  For people of color, Mr. Trump and the Republican Party have no legitimacy.  We are aware some of the Trump loyalists and Republicans are also people of color. But we contend their minds have been colonised. And we challenge them to healthy public debates to expose that assertion. The problem is people of color have been cut off at every turn, only allowed to be used, like Delegate Plaskett, of the U.S. colony we call the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Even now, as America desperately and dangerously attempts to partially fight off fascism, it calls upon its subjects, its people of color to help save the day.  And, yet, they are denied the full rights of citizenship. As John Nichols pointed out on Pacifica Radio yesterday, Plaskett is sure to be a rising star in the centrist Democrat Party. He also pointed out, she switched over from the right-wing Republican Party some years ago. Nevertheless, Delegate Plaskett, a woman of color, used for her talents, like so many others, but denied full citizenship is emblematic of the narcissistic abuse that is the American Experience for people of color to this day.

This is a fact, which seemed lost on many of our white liberal friends on Pacifica Radio, who have consistently framed this impeachment trial as meaningless, asking if it’s even worth our time to continue with this fight to impeach, as if Mr. Trump is somehow losing political viability.  We heard this frkm various white liberals during today’s live impeachment coverage, including Pacifica Radio‘s Mitch Jeserich (Letters and Politics) and PBS’s Judy Woodruff (PBS News Hour). White liberals and their non-white cognates, seem keen to move on, to want to underestimate Mr. Trump again.  It seems the corporate media line on the Democrat side is ambivalent as to the value of going through with the impeachment.  But that’s short-sighted.  Many Democrat voters and white liberals seem to follow suit, though, uncritically, no longer seeing Mr. Trump as a threat, unlike people of color and people on the left, the real left, not the fake Democrat Party “left”, which is actually centrist.  Tom Hartmann was just speculating yesterday that Mr. Trump may be sitting on a half a billion dollars of campaign funds, given all of the pro-fascist and pro-racist crowd-funding and corporate funding.

“Britten: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Opus 10 – 11. Fugue and Finale” by Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields

As Tampa Bay Times reported, “Donald Trump, in a meeting with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday, agreed to help the GOP retake control of the House in 2022.  Previously, McCarthy, the House “minority leader had said the former president ‘bears responsibility’ for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters.”  Evidently, the siege of January 6th was a trial balloon, which has proven capable of flying. As before January 6th, the urgency to refuse fascism has faded again. Dr. Peter Phillips reminds us that some 85% of news we see on TV is state-filtered.  For all we know, intelligence agencies engineered or fed Mr. Trump his narcissistic abuser tweets, always taking care to word every narcissistic tweet in such a way as to provide legal loopholes of plausible deniability.  Despite warnings about Mr. Trump’s Tweets from people like Dr. George Lakoff, prior to January 6th, only the most militant activist groups out in the streets reflected a clear repudiation of the proto-fascist Trump/Pence regime. RefuseFascism.org, backed by the Revolutionary Communist Party is one of the few groups, who predicted this rise of Mr. Trump’s proto-fascism.  White liberals have been wrong every time because every time they back the Democrat to oppose the Republican Party.  And, every time, the opposition is superficial.  The victory is cosmetic because, at the end of the day, Mr. Biden represents neoliberalism, just as much, if not more, than Mr. Trump does. 

As we reported previously, listening to all Pacifica Radio stations on-air during the immediate aftermath of the sieges of January 6th, it was clear to hear the glaring difference between white liberals and black/brown/red/yellow people as far as their reactions to the siege of the U.S. capitols across the nation, especially at the DC Capitol.  Our sense is that we heard much more frank talk from the east coast Pacifica stations.  The west coast stations seemed politically stunted by Democrat Party apologia.  For white liberals, the sieges of January 6th were upsetting, but something we just needed to get through.  For people of color, this felt more like life and death.  This was “existential and wrong”, as we heard one senator admit yesterday.  For people of color, this felt like a declaration of war by white America, as declared by its most militant vanguard.  We understand the rest of white America is complicit through white privilege.  Their ability to empathize with people of color currently being targeted by the weaponization of Mr. Trump’s loyal lynch mob alliance of violent right-wing groups has been compromised or inhibited or extinguished. Mr. Trump’s, and the Republican Party’s, agenda to undermine American democratic progress, undo Reconstruction gains, and whatnot, all of this has seriously compromised the ability of some of our white liberal friends to empathize fully with, and to hear fully, people of color. And this occurs, not just to the detriment of people of color, but to the detriment of white people, too, to mixed ethnicity people, to the whole of America.

Republican rejection of Mr. Trump’s escalating trial balloons, of course, could have deflated all of this, starting, perhaps, with Mr. Trump’s anti-Obama birther lies. But why would they do that? Why would they give up their power to people they do not respect. It’s clear that such is the Republican Party’s worldview henceforth. The Republican Party is being swallowed alive by its own internal parasite of racist narcissistic abusiveness and predation. Evidence, however circumstantial, has shown the world that Trump loyalists espouse evil rhetoric, such as ‘The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.’ Can you imagine? These people, the Trump loyalists, are on record as having said they invaded the Capitol with Mr. Trump’s blessing and command. All of this is unacceptable. It is an obscene display, and abuse, of power. And it must be exposed for what it is for all to see.

Raskin, et al. = benevolent supplication

Van Der Veen, et al. = narcissistic demand

We repeat, this is not a legal trial. This is Senatorial tragedy. This is Senatorial political theater. The performances by the prosecution and the defense were not designed to persuade each other, as various experts corroborate. The performances of the defense were purely heuristic propaganda, red meat for the base. Similarly, the performances by the prosecution were not designed to persuade Republicans to cross over to the other side because there is no jury, no real evidence to consider. Indeed; we heard Mr. Van Der Veen reject whole cloth the entirety of the evidence presented by the prosecution as “hearsay”, using unscrupulous legalese and technicalities to abuse the rule of law, through semantical games and gaslighting, in order to subvert the rule of law. We reject the entire premise.

@LumpenProles, 23:59 PST

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Concrete Jungle (live performance) by Bob Marley & The Wailers

“Wassenaer: 6 Concerti Armonici – No. 6 in E-Flat Major” by Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields

Raw notes for future reference, future scholarship…

Notes from a working class left perspective, tuning into the most critical analyses of the issues of the day…

Download the Pacifica Radio Network app to easily tune in to the live broadcasts of the terrestrial radio signals across the free speech radio network.

06:00 WPFW > Climate Friday >

05:00 PST, WPFW > Democracy Now! > […] 0555 , BillionsRising.org’ […]  Eve Ensler Apr 22, Earth Day

06:00 PST, WBAI > The Aware Show > astrology?

0600 PST, KPFT [HD2] > Democracy Now! > “Ralph Nader” interview, but first, the news. [TW] Trump’s covid recovery worse than reported | China vs the BBC? […] more evil policing > 0612, impeachment update […] Imp mgrs were run by Pelosi, she’s rushing due to her view that the GOP will never be persuaded,  a defeatist approach to not call witnesses.  This is what we said last night.  And this is what we intimated yesterday when your author called in to Pacifica Radio yesterday.  (We thank Mitch Jeserich for opening up the free speech phone lines.)  For us, who campaigned for Nader and remember how Pacifica failed Nader, it’s sad for us to hear Pacifica Radio and Democracy Now! turn to Ralph Nader to help make sense with what’s going on here, what will happen today.  But Ralph Nader came through and gave us all a good talking to.  Those of us on the left, have always taken Nader’s wisdom and ran with it.  Meanwhile, white liberals ran away from it; and toward the neoliberalism of Obama.  It was like the Twilight Zone for us on the left, to listen to the 2008 Obama cheerleading on KPFA.  We remember hearing Brian Edwards-Tiekert and company on KPFA’s Morning Show, dripping with glee for presidential candidate Barack Obama.  Given how much money and media hype the Obama campaign had relative to the Ralph Nader campaign, it felt like a betrayal by KPFA that free speech radio airtime would champion Obama and marginalize Ralph Nader.  Back then, white liberals pushed the spoiler vote argument, instead of advocating for ranked-choice voting.  Sure, we heard about ranked-choice voting on KPFA and Pacifica Radio here and there.  But there seems to be an inability for Pacifica as an institution, or as a listenership, to learn from its own wealth of knowledge.  Certain outcomes, such as ideologically corralling or shepherding KPFA listeners away from political alternatives, namely alternative political parties, and perpetually confined within a polarizing two-party system.  We don’t have time to lay out our case here today.  But we intend to do so, throughout Biden’s first hundred days.  We intend to expose the corrupt mentality of supporting a failed two-party system, such as that mentality insisted upon by white liberals and their people of color cognates. Just as the QAnon narrative is capable of gaslighting people of color into a trauma bond uniting them to reactionary political groupings, which are unsympathetic or even hostile to people of color at a structural level.

The truth is Amy Goodman and company, like Mitch Jeserich and his faction at KPFA, is a white liberal.  The starting point for all discussion, from a white liberal perspective, accepts the Democrat Party as a viable vehicle for progressive or leftist change.  That is delusional, we regret to say.  Malcolm X and Dr. King and Ralph Nader all tried to tell us this.  But we didn’t listen to Ralph Nader.  He could have been our president.  But, instead, white liberals, who have dominated liberal institutions, have led liberal people of color into the false hope of the false opposition party known as the “Democratic Party”.

Cicilline accused Trump of trying to be king. Yet, the primary suspect is the GOP and MIC. CF Empire files. Mic decided to stand down, for the time being. But why did they have to issue that letter, unless their was factional leadership confusion > 0622, Nader’s legal take. [TW]

White liberals chose a polarizing two-party system, or “two-party dictatorship”, as Ralph Nader calls it.  Nader has been railing against corporate power and corporate personhood for decades.  “We will continue to follow the Bowen(sp?) case.  Up next, Eve Ensler and poet Azha Monet(sp?)

07:00 PST, KPFT [HD2] > Flashpoints (rebroadcast) > ‘Greene censored, which is good. But Biden is brutally mass-deporting Haitians.’

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“The Meaning of Christmas | Chris Hedges” by ReflectionofPassion, 12 FEB 2021.

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08:00 PST, KPFA > news

08:00 PST WPFW > [TW] real talk.

0800 PST, KPFT [HD2] > Background Briefing [] 6tg tw book the United States of paranoia a conspiracy theory > 08:34 PST, Dr. Henry Giroux. New book, Race, Politics […] 0835, right-wing agenda is a form of “depolitizatjon” ‘trump did not act alone. Indeed.

0800 kpfa tw

0900 kpfa tw Schoen bs […] 0915, ‘One of the first arrested was AnTifa’ […] ‘If it was pre-planned as dems accused, then one can’t incite was already pre-planned.’ Please. […] Like Ian Masters and Henry Giroux said, poor education of Americans makes this type of gaslighting possible. (…] Schoen(?) just said DC police blocked cop back up. Lies. Reversal of truth. […]  0919, Schoen just struck at the Dem Party. See? Like we said, yesterday: Raskin was foolish for framing the guilt only on Trump, and absolving the GOP. The GOP never returns the favor. […] 0924, “It is Constitutional cancel culture.”  Next, divisive argument. [...]  09:27 PST, NEXT SPEAKER:  “Mr. Schoen”.  He said they’re gonna show the siege goes against Trump’s law and order message.  Even if, we grant that. There was more than one message. One was to stop the steal, i.e., subvert the rule of law by undermining the electoral college vote count. […] 09:29 PST, lack of ‘due process’ argument. This smacks of gaslighting. It seems the problem is Mr. Trump should be facing criminal charges, not this political theater, this Senatorial farce, nay, recalling Dr. Henry Giroux in conversation with Ian Masters on Background Briefing yesterday:  This is not a farce, it’s a tragedy. […] Schoen played a bombardment of video clips, like Meredith Miller explains is done by narcissistic abusers, who want to do shock therapy to disorient observers, victims.   […] 09:34 PST, ‘We have reason to believe they selectively chose footage and edited it.’ […]  We can check; but these seems like a canard.  False representation of tweets.’  These claims sound frivolous, a reproduced tweet doesn’t matter, if an original exists, which he didn’t deny. […] 09:37  […] 0942, Truml argued Lincon et al were slave owners, are we going to remove those statues too? […] 0950, misuse, false equivalence with Elizabeth Warren 1009 end of Schoen he closed with evil false equivalency: ‘You may have the votes,you may have the muscle.’ Next narc: accuses dems of hate for Trump […] 1022, now Trump defender is lulling the right to sleep with a trip down memory lane, with heuristics. His audience, evidently, lacks the critical analytical skills to parse through this gaslighting […] 1038, “Question 2.” Another free speech argument, attempting to deflect from incitement. […] He made so many assertions, which seem unreliable, but we have no way to cross-examine.  This whole process was a mistake.  Dems should have went straight for criminal charges, if possible. If not, then Dems should have went for all arricles of impeachment. […] 10:51 PST, now the man is bombarding us with more “fight” clips.  End of bruce castor, the one criticised for rambling. […] 1054 15 min recess. Mitch seems to be rambling.  PBS News hour has way better anaylsis right now, 1103 […] 1127, callins

Pbs coverage friday, Day Four, 12 FEB 2021.

11:00 PST, PBS > […] Senator ‘Coons’, perhaps, it’s Senator Chris Coons, a Republican until 1988, when he switched to the Democrat Party, where he has stayed since.

1213 pbs video feed: trump lawyer attempted to refute bribe call by saying the ‘media and dems’ distorted the call.  But then he gave no explanation of how. And the right eats that kind of tripe up. […) 1223, man claims Trump’s stock is falling, citing an Echelon poll. ‘John(?)’, pundit. We disagree, not with hundreds of millions in his pocket, and GOP bosses meeting with him. Judy Woodruff gently pushed back and he had to concede, ‘That’s a true statement’  he reiterated the theme of the day that if it were a secret vote GoP would vote against Trump like they did for ms cheney. […] 1226 […] 1246, on senate ethics committee, ‘there was a complaint made,’ Judy Woodruff. 1246 RECESS […] TW 1256, chuck Schumer resumes. “Questions”, but usually framed as comments.

1300 PST, PBS > PBS News Hour […]  1319 […] 1320, Q: ‘since trump is no longer in office, isn’t this just a political show trial to shame Trump?’ […] 1321, BS response from Bruce Castor: ‘In our view, there’s no way to remove him from office’ he said. What?  Rewind the tape.  That made no sense. |  13:23 PST, Same question posed earlier, but defense had dismissed it, Judy Woodruff reminded us. […] 1327, ‘question from Senator from Utah. Romney’ to be read by clerk. When President trump sent his tweet, did know VP was safe?’ ‘Question for both sides”  Rep. Joaquin Castro | 1331, Team Trump: ‘Mr. Van Der Veen’ ‘Mr. Trump did not say fight to the death. That is false.’ | 13:33, next question: ‘You relied on Belknapp’s impeachment; if we do not impeach Trump, what message will we be sending Congress? | Del. Stacey Plaskett, Virgin Islands ‘They will know what we did this day in 100 years.’ […] ‘DT told them this was just the beginning.’  […] ‘Defense put out a lot of videos, of clip after clip after clip of women of color, and people of color, of people like me, who are tired of being sick and tired.’ […] ‘But maybe we’re not.’ […] ‘You all have made monumental decisions.’ […] ‘At this time, some of them are even controversial.’ ‘We await the decision.’ | 13:39 PST, NEXT QUESTION. Constitutional question about “former officials”. > First: Michael Van Der Veen. Brief heuristic response. > No takers for the pro-impeachment side. | NEXT QUESTION:  ‘Trump’s plot was based on lies and conspiracy theory”, how did he harm […]? > 13:44 PST, Rep. Jauquin Castro responded first. > next, gangster lawyer heuristics, “You must acquit.”  […] 1353, Castro: ‘if in office: convict, removed, then disqualified. If out of office, the two can be separated. I.e., convict and disqualify or convict and not disqualify. 13:54 PST, lull | 13:55 PST, ‘Defense raised objections to vote counts, were any after a storming to undermine a certification?’ > First responder: […] ‘if you wanna reform the electoral college, you don’t do it with violence. | 1358 ‘given x, has there been a more pro-Israel pres than Trump.

“Neera Tanden GRILLED On Corruption” by Secular Talk, 12 FEB 2021.

1400 PBS Michael Van Der Veen: “They got caught doctoring the evidence. And this case should be over.” […] 14:02 PST, Plaskett: regarding complaints about due process, ’61 cases, he lost.  Patriotism: ‘Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This was not that. His DOJ, et al, were ready, but Trump was not ready,  she said. But what about the MIC?  […] 14:05 PST, Leahy cut her off, ‘Time is expired.’ |14:05 PST, Michael Van Der Veen started getting belligerent.  | 1406, Leahy: ‘the Senate cannot challenge..’ […] 1408, fireworks, the big swings, BS, ‘Now, on the issue of contesting the election and the results, the Dems have a long history of doing that.’ | 1409, Judy Woodruff: ‘That was Bernie Sanders’ question.’ […] 14:10 PST, Judy Woodruff signed out to go do other news programming, it seems.  But she left the live video feed going online.  Earlier this afternoon, Woodruff said that the impeachment trial was competing for attention from many other things. But she gave no examples. It sounded like rubbish. | 1411, ‘Question about the ‘optics’?  Again, he deflects by saying ‘there was no investigation, no timeline of events established.’  Yet, that’s exactly what the defense presented. But, presumably, they expected time to review it. PbS correspondent said Trump’s team did have the materials.  Another PBS correspondent (Melody(?)) said Dems were smiling or snickering as they were shown using the word or phrase fight. This lent credence to perceptions that the Dems are not taking this process seriously. […] | 14:17 PST, Joaquin Castro | 1421 PST, question calling out Kamala Harris’s remarks as incitement. > Pro-impeachment side: ‘I don’t know what statement. But, if I did, it’s irrelevant. Trump said he’d do it again. We have an opportunity to stop this now. He synchronized it at the time that we would be in session. […] Castro got forceful. But it’s sad because this is the whole Dem approach all week:  Supplication, pleading with the Republicans and imploring. Yet, we know the Republicans have no empathy or regard for such supplication or appeals to human empathy. > 14:25 PST, pro-Trump lawyer.  We can show the deceptions here. But it’ll be too little too late. Too many of us slept on the last impeachment trial, or didn’t have the bandwidth for it.  Trump’s win there emboldened him, as one PBS correspondent (Melody(?), perhaps) pointed out earlier today. […] 14:30 PST, Castro. | 1436, Van Der Veen is gaslighting again, crying “hearsay”, like earlier.  But, if the evidence presented is hearsay, than this whole process is fundamentally flawed.  And, indeed, the prosecution’s narrative is fundamentally flawed, as is that of the defense.  The fact is there is some truth on all sides. The truth on the side of the Trump loyalists is that Pelosi, Biden, Harris, et al are neoliberal, corrupt, and decadent. It was nauseating to hear the audio from the anti-Democrat “fight” montage they played because we can see how the Democrat political class uses red meat issues for its base, just like the Republicans.  But, in the case of the Democrats, at least they are condoning sincere social justice movements, even if they, themselves are not sincere with regard to those social justice movements. | […] 14:42, Plaskett. | 1445, Van Der Veen reveling in a catch 22, “that we’re all very, very afraid of.”  He sounds like he’s flaunting the notion that we are all teetering on a precipice of fascism.  1449, “And nobody will be safe,” he said. […] 1449, ‘the due process clause has been violated. This unconstitutional. This body must not do anything but acquit Donald Trump.’  And, yet, we are not persuaded.  Where was the evidence? Did it fly over the heads of the laity?  Was it articulated in legalese? > Prosecution:  ‘They have retreated to Brandenburg, trying to reduce the president to a guy at a rally. But, even then, the argument fails. You can’t cry fire in a crowded theater.’ […] 1455, Dem fireworks, but still mealy-mouthed: ‘Then we’re headed for a very different kind of nation.’  Please call things by their name.  It’s fascism, which they want.  Please admit it. […] | 1458, ‘elected officials have a higher protection to their free speech because of the importance of their speech’ What?  Where is that codified?  This man sounds evil, insincere.

15:00 PBS News Hour:  1509, Van Der Veen is coaching Repubs to vote against impeachment for any belief, without basis, just “belief”, be it “constitutional,” “due process”.  This just seems wrong.  The Senate is purely partisan.  This is pure power.  Who has the votes wins.  And, given a two-party system, this political gridlock and election cycle swings is fatally polarizing for U.S. politics, which have devolved to culture wars and now pseudo-civil cold war.  Van Der Veen: “And come to your own understanding.” ‘But the reality is a slippery slope that I don’t think anybody wants to go down.’ | 1512, Castro […] | 1519, question on “the January exception” […] 15:25 PST, Schumer moves to give a congressional medal of honor to ‘Officer Goodman’. | 15:27 PST, Senator Mitch McConnell speaks in favor of Officer Goodman.  WHILE WE APPLAUD OFFICER GOODMAN FOR DOING HIS JOB, PERHAPS THIS IS AN INSULT TO THE COPS WHO DIED. MOREOVER, THIS DEFLECTS FROM THE COPS WHO TOOK SELFIES AND THOSE WHO OPENED DOORS.  cf. Empire Files. | 15:30 PST, The Senate has adjourned.

15:30 PST, PBS > PBS News Hour > live Senate feed, cut straight to a Judy Woodruff newscast. | Belarus, major activism.

15:00 PST, KPFA > […] 15:40 PST, It sounds like John Nichols, on the phone with Mitch Jeserich, who “found it useful”, “maybe for people, who don’t watch FOX News” to see what FOX viewers see. John Nichols played along with […] 15:46 PST, “covering for Republicans” […] ‘Since  we watch right-wing TV, we know what they do. They take a little non-thing and blow it up into a big thing.  JN: It was absurd.”  Yes, John, it’s called gaslighting. […] 1548, [TW] ‘Most people are busy. And it works.’ I.e., gaslighting works, especially when people want to believe that their partisan is innocent. People tend to see what they want to see.  […]  John Nichols is getting at what we were thinking today.  The American people must realize that they need a functional, publicly-funded press.  Like, give more money to Pacifica Radio to The Grayzone to Empire Files, to honest news people. […] JN:  “I think, to some extent, it is effective.” […] 15:55, JN described Raskin, a Tom Paine scholar

1600 PST, KPFA > ongoing impeachment coverage, post-mortem with John Nichols. JN described Plaskett, the delegate from the US colony Virgin Islands. […] 1610, John Nichols left the broadcast. […] 1615, guest analyst: Amares(sp?)  […] 1620, speculating on how ‘this could have been worse’ […] Senators tried to convey a danger of fascism without saying it. Any acknowledgement of a possible coup, acknowledges the MIC, which nobody has mentioned in gov since Eisenhower, it seems. […] tw 1625 […] 1629, a critique of the Electoral College. […] 1634, on the subversion of the rule of law. […] 1636, ‘Dems will have to play hardball since Republicans show no sign of soul-searching’ Damn. That’s what we we’ve been thinking, too, especially in the absence of  […] caller, 1647, what sort of intelligence reports was Trump getting?  Mitch feigned ignorance.  We told you, Mitch!  cf The Grayzone […] 1650, tw caller, described narc abuse without naming it. […] 1654, Mitch Jeserich is fear-mongering about the impeachment trial being drawn out, as if it’s a bad thing. In so doing, he contradicted what he said earlier, about, ‘If you’re going to impeach, then do it right.’ […] 16:58, MJ just announced KPFA/Pacifica will not be providing coverage of the impeachment trial.  That’s not a good sign, dear readers.

“Fauré: Pelléas et Melisande, Op. 80 – 3. Sicilienne” by Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields

1600 PST,  KPFT [HD2] > […] 16:11, anti-nuke show [TW]

16:00 PST,  KPFT > 16:14 PST, talk: US COVID-19 vaccine distribution rule and guideline updates, etc

17:00 PST, KPFA > Flashpoints with Kevin Pina | [TW] “massive demonstrations”, “corruption”, etc., ‘like a burning house. Yet, Biden is sending babies over there in his mass deportations to Haiti.’  And, that, when Biden supposedly issued a moratorium. So, his constituency thinks he’s pro-immigrant, when he’s anti-immigrant.

17:00 PST, KPFK > Background Briefing with Ian Masters > […] 17:08 PST, Guest: Dr. Henry Giroux [TW] (rerun from this morning)

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“Prof. Richard Wolff, Censored on Facebook: Here’s the Story” by The Zero Hour with R.J. Eskow, 12 FEB 2021.

(English translation below) Profesor Richard Wolff: “Mis asistentes notaron que al menos un artículo estaba bloqueado para que no se compartiera”. Esto es serio porque Facebook, YouTube e Instagram son fundamentales para el discurso público moderno. ¿Realmente ayuda mudarse a otras plataformas, si el estado y la gran tecnología simplemente seguirán expandiendo la red de censura?

Facebook fue creado por personas que lo usaban. No sería nada sin sus usuarios. Entonces, los usuarios deben hacer demandas. Debería ser nacionalizado, para rendir cuentas porque las redes sociales se han vuelto tan centrales en la vida de las personas y en su capacidad para comunicarse. Además, el estado parece haberse apoderado de ellos de todos modos, dada toda la censura que estamos viendo. Entonces, el estado ya tiene sus dedos sucios en las redes sociales. Si es así, también podemos ir hasta el final y nacionalizar, luego democratizar.

Prof. Richard Wolff:  ‘My staffers noticed that at least one article was being blocked from being shared.’  This is serious because Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are central to modern public discourse. Does it really help to move to other platforms, if the state and big tech will simply keep expanding the censorship dragnet?

Facebook was made by people using it. It would be nothing without its users.  So, users must make demands.  It should be nationalized, to be held accountable because social media has become so central to people’s lives and to their ability to communicate. Besides the state seems to have commandeered them anyway, given all the censorship we’re seeing. So, the state already has their grubby fingers on social media.  If so, we may as well go all the way and nationalize, then democratize.

(c. 24:50) RJ Eskow:  “And sometimes…”  With YouTube, ‘If we do an episode on the dangers of fascism, it censors it.’  Yet, YouTube allows white supremacist channels (e.g., Lasse Burholt), which promote racism and anti-BLM propaganda. We, the people, can do better than this.

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“Who Cares About Politics?” by Jacobin, 12 FEB 2021.

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Useful Idiots, 12 FEB 2021.

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“Fred Hampton Documentary (1990) | COINTELPRO Black Panthers” by reelblack, 12 FEB 2021.

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“Rep. Bobby Rush on Fred Hampton and Judas and the Black Messiah” by theGrio, 12 FEB 2021.

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“LaKeith Stanfield ‘Needed Therapy’ After Judas and the Black Messiah” by Eman’s Movie Reviews, 12 FEB 2021.

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“Ep. 164: Judas and the Black Messiah (w/Shaka King, Fred Hampton, Jr., and Gloria Clark Jackson” by Michael Moore, 12 FEB 2021.

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“Judas and the Black Messiah’ Town Hall on Sway in the Morning” by SWAY’S UNIVERSE, 12 FEB 2021.

Chaka King cited Bruce Dixon as a consultant on the film. RIP Bruce Dixon. We miss being able to connect with him on social media. He was always super accessible, a real mensch.

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Sunny days, everybody loves them

Tell me, baby, can you stand the rain?

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[12 FEB 2021]

[Last modified on 18 FEB 2021 at 05:29 PST]

[TW = Transcript Worthy, transcription pending volunteer labor. These are segments of radio, which would make excellent short-length, easily-searchable videos to share and, hopefully, make viral news and information from a left, working class perspective.]