LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Friday, 26 FEB 2021, 04:36 PST] These are truly amazing times we are living through, people. The Pacifica Radio family learned yesterday on Flashpoints about a young woman, Lillian House, who is facing 48 years in prison for exposing crimes of state and for working in her local community for police accountability. 48 years!
Meanwhile, the white supremacists, who marauded through the Capitol Building in D.C. are roaming free. We recall young Kyle Rittenhouse was photographed, underage drinking at a bar, wearing a T-shirt that read: Free As Fuck, after he was given kudos by cops for being a good white vigilante and shooting a Black Lives Matter protestor.
Some of us are taken all the way back to the Clinton ’90s, when some of us naively supported the Clinton administration, thinking it was a healthy alternative to the clearly racist Republican Party. We saw Bill Clinton play the sax on the Arsenio Hall show and figured, he’s alright. If Arsenio Hall says he’s okay…
Well, at least that was clear to us, people of color, if not to our white friends or liberal or bourgeois friends, that the Republican Party is racist, toxic, illegitimate. We have always understood the Republican Party to be an institution, which is inimical to the interests of, not only people of color, but all working class people. Surely, this fact must be obvious to all. The only subscribers, at this point, to the Republican Party must be those individuals, who feel they have a stake in white nationalism. And, of course, all subscribers to the status quo have a stake, whether unconscious or not, in US imperialism and proto-fascism. None of us in America would enjoy our current standard of living without the socioeconomic oppression of the global south.
For some Americans, their subscriptions to white supremacy and/or white nationalism are unconscious subscriptions. The beauty—or horror, depending on one’s perspective—of white privilege is the fact that, in order to derive its benefits, the only thing a white person must do is nothing. Since Dr. Michelle Alexander, Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Dr. Joy Degruy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many other doctors and learned people have all told us about the structural nature of racism and white supremacy. We have long known about the structural violence of institutions, such as racism, militarism, militarized policing, and materialism.
So, since people of color have always known about the toxicity of the Republican Party, and since now only toxic people will support it, since it’s been exposed so thoroughly. The only question now is whether good people of conscience will also recognize the toxicity of the Democrat Party. Are you a Democrat voter? Is it a form of cognitive dissonance to sincerely position oneself on the left of the political spectrum, but support voting Democrat?
As young people in the 1990s, all we had to do was watch the Clinton administration for a while. Soon, we observed police state repression, domestically, and imperialist aggression, abroad. This is exactly what we are seeing under Mr. Biden. It would have been better if our elders had warned us about the falsity of the Democrat Party. Well, Dr. King and Malcolm X tried to warn us. But that history was obfuscated. So, here we are again, America, still in a similar place we were when Malcolm X and Dr. King tried to heal our nation.
A courageous young woman, Lillian House, is facing 48 years, people, 48 years. This is America. We clearly have a two-tiered justice system. One tier of justice is for people, who conform to the demands of the state, as steered by whatever political grouping happens to be in charge at the moment. When you conform, the state won’t persecute you. When you resist, even if it is resisting evil, the state persecutes you. This is the pattern, which people of color have observed. This is why Fred Hampton warned us that nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.
@LumpenProles, 09:17 PST, 28 FEB 2021
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Friday, February 26, 2021
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Before by Pet Shop Boys
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Beautiful People (unofficial video) by Pet Shop Boys
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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.
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Notes from a working class left perspective…
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Friday, February 26, 2021
Notes below are our semi-edited notes of broadcast highlights for future reference. For now, it’s just me, taking notes in between stolen moments, stealing away from the daily grind of begging for work in the struggle for survival…
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06:00 PST, WPFW > Climate Fridays > […] 0622 Mahalia pipeline, oklahoma to gulf [TW] direct legal action ‘they’re starting to threaten people with imminent domain ‘targeted low-income residents to push out […] 06:26 PST, “Memphis” ‘they said clean water is not our problem ‘
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06:00 PST, WBAI > 0628 ‘Youth Blast product’? Sounds like snake oil. Anti-aging? There’s a doctor, who wrote a book, Growing Young, it’s called, if memory serves. But the only way is a lifestyle of fitness and nutrition and mastering your physiology, metabolism, microbiomes, and so forth. Wonder products will disappoint every time. To look like an athlete, one must move like an athlete. One must keep moving, or exercise before or after desk jockeying. Solidarity.
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Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman. To talk more about the assassination of Malcolm X, we are joined by his daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz. She joined Reggie Wood on Saturday when he released the deathbed confession of his cousin, the late undercover police officer Raymond Wood, who described being part of a police and FBI conspiracy that targeted Malcolm X, was there at his assassination.
Ilyasah Shabazz is professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, a community organizer, motivational speaker, activist and award-winning author. Ilyasah Shabazz and Tiffany Jackson have just cowritten a new book for young adults titled The Awakening of Malcolm X. Before we go back in time to the book and Malcolm X’s history, Ilyasah, can you respond to this bombshell deathbed revelation that Reggie just shared with us?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Wow. I think it’s deplorable. I think it’s good that he came forward with this letter, because many people just did not understand how intricately involved our—people in powerful positions were to infiltrate organizations that set out to improve society.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, true that Raymond Wood not only infiltrated Malcolm X’s organization, but CORE, the Panther 21, all these different groupings. Now, you have dealt with this slow drip of revelations over the decades. You are Malcolm X’s daughter. Can you talk about the effect on your family and what you’re calling for now? Do you join Ben Crump in calling for a reopening of the investigation of your father’s assassination?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Absolutely. We want the truth uncovered. And if it’s the Manhattan District Attorney, the United States Congress, we would like them to do a thorough investigation on the assassination of our father, Malcolm X. It was quite challenging, you can imagine, for my mother, who was a young woman, pregnant with my youngest sisters, the twins, had four babies, to walk into the Audubon excited to see her husband because their home had been firebombed just a week prior on the evening of Valentine’s Day. And for her to be able to go and see her husband with her family, she must have walked into that Audubon Sunday afternoon really excited, and left, shattered.
And when I discovered this letter, when I discovered Reggie Wood with this information, you know, I thought of my mother. I thought of my father, just a young man. All he wanted was for America to live up to her promise of liberty and justice for all. And he worked quite diligently for 12 years looking for solutions to this ongoing problem. And he provided the biggest critique of America. And I am happy that the truth can finally be uncovered. And so whatever it takes, I and my five sisters are supportive of that effort.
AMY GOODMAN: You were there 56 years ago, horrifyingly. How old were you, two years old?
In the Audubon ballroom where you returned this past weekend. Of course, you have been there many times. It’s now the Shabazz Center. Fifty-six years ago, when he was gunned down, you were there with your sisters and mom.
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: That’s right. That’s right. And again, I always go back to my mother. It had to have been just so difficult for her and how she safeguarded her husband’s legacy. Because, look, what most people are discovering now is that all of what they learned about Malcolm X, it was absolutely inaccurate. This past summer while young people were politicized because of this global pandemic, because of being forced to watch this horrific death of George Floyd, going out into the streets, protesting, 50 states in this country, 18 countries abroad, and we discovered that my father was quoted 53.7 thousand times per hour in social media. And this is the clearest indication that people wanted to know the truth about Malcolm X. They knew that Malcolm spoke truth and that he provided strategies and tactics that they could employ to meet these socioeconomic challenges head on. And so I take my hat off to these young people for being diligent as well.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to an excerpt of a speech your dad gave at the Audubon Ballroom in ’64, about half a year before he was assassinated there. It’s called “By Any Means Necessary.”
MALCOLM X: One of the first things that the independent African nations did was to form an organization called the Organization of African Unity. The purpose of our organization of Afro-American Unity, which has the same aim and objective, to fight whoever gets in our way. [APPLAUSE] To bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere and first, here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary.[APPLAUSE]
AMY GOODMAN: That was Malcolm X in the months before he was assassinated. Ilyasah Shabazz, you have now written a book for young adults called The Awakening of Malcolm X and it really focuses on his time in jail. Talk about why you chose this period and what do you think is so critical for young people to take from it?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Well, I wanted to first make sure that I showed that Malcolm didn’t go to jail and miraculously become Malcolm X. That his parents instilled specific values. And it speaks to all the smart forward-thinking adults that, you know, we have to provide guidance for our children. They need an education curriculum that teaches the truth. We can’t sit back and expect someone else to do these things for us.
If our young people understood that, say, in world history classes, as I teach my students, that Africa is the cradle of the most advanced thriving civilization ever to exist in mankind and if they also learned about the impressive kingdoms of Benin, Fuuta Jaloo, Mali, Egypt, to the same degree that we teach them of ancient Greece and Rome, then we might better appreciate the beauty and magnificence of nonwhite civilizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And we would have the opportunity to teach our children love, respect instead of instilling these values of hate and discrimination. Rather, love and respect for ourselves and then for humanity. I think all of these things are extremely important.
AMY GOODMAN: You write the book in the first person. What was it like to inhabit your father’s perspective in this way?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Well, talking about the values that were instilled in him by his parents, and Malcolm running from himself, running from his identity, running from the fact that his father was lynched. His father was the chapter president of an organization that was commanded by millions of followers in the 1920s, that he purchased land that was then reserved for whites only and, you know, the KKK lynched him. They targeted his family. His mother, who was the recording secretary, instilling values of compassion, human compassion, literary. All of these things that we see in Malcolm later in his life was put into an institution. The family was separated. The land was taken.
And so when Malcolm finds himself in jail, we find that Malcolm is still smart. He ends up being a star debater on the debate team. The prison debated against Ivy League schools, Harvard, MIT, Boston University. And Malcolm debated about capital punishment. And so we see his compassion. We see his wit. We see his ability to inform and engage others. And so what we find is that Malcolm studied the dictionary not so that he could learn how to read and write, but he studied the dictionary so he could learn the etymology, the root words, so he could be his best.
And when we look at today the criminal justice system, we know that there are over three million people behind bars. That the U.S. spent in 2012 $80 billion taxpayer dollars on correction facilities, not education, not after-school programs. And so the incarcerated population has increased by 700% and we wanted to focus on the humanity of these people behind bars.
AMY GOODMAN: And of course you dedicate the book to the incarcerated. Ilyasah Shabazz, we want to thank you so much for being with us. The book is called The Awakening of Malcolm X. I’m Amy Goodman. Wear a mask. Stay safe.The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
Up Next
The Assassination of Malcolm X: Ex-Undercover Officer Admits Role in FBI & Police Conspiracy
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06:00 PST, KPFT [HD2] > Democracy Now! > […] 0629, death bed confession on X, Raymond Wood, Gene Robe4ts […] 0638, ‘police-orchestrated plot to blow up the statue of liberty’, feb 16 arrests, days before assassination. […] Yuri kuchiyama ID’d Ray Woods | 0648, music break: “Malcolm X” by Dennis Brown | 0649, Malcolm X’s daughter? […] 0658, ‘Malcolm studied the etymologies of words’ Indeed. We try to teach our kids everything we have learned, as well. In fact, your author may have taught his whole family about etymologies. I will never forget Mrs. Gates, my 8th grade English teacher at Borel Middle School in San Mateo, California. Mrs. Gates taught us how to study the etymologies of words. We kept a journal throughout the school year, in which we entered words, including analyses of the etymologies. It was eye-opening to learn that the language we knew as English was actually a big mixture of a bunch of other languages. The root words of English words were not just English. Many words have Greek or Latin roots, but also Germanic and Nordic. But, then, there’s a huge influx of French from the Norman invasions and whatnot. But, yes, indeed, young people: Always look up words you don’t know in a good dictionary. And not all dictionaries are created equal. Know their differences. Some are pocket versions, desk versions, big versions. Your author has pretty much stayed with American Heritage dictionaries at home (since high school); and Wiktionary online. So, remember: Always look up words you don’t know. (We used to write words down to look up later, when we had to use paper and writing implements, in the pre-digital world.) And, when you look up a new word, be sure to also look up the etymology. After a while, you’ll notice all of the usual patterns from Greek or Latin roots or whatnot. Before you know it, you’re a lexicon wizard.
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07:00 PST, KPFT [HD2] > Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein (rebroadcast from 26 FEB 2021) [TW] THIS IS A CRITICAL BROADCAST ABOUT POLITICAL PERSECUTION AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTIVITY BY POLICE AGAINST FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. A 26-year old woman is facing 48 years in prison for working in her community for police accountability by exercising her Constitutional rights. […] 07:15 PST, “We were abducted [by the police].” ‘And we were held in for eight days, longer than law allows. But Aurora and such locales have never seen such protests.’ […] 07:20 PST, music break […] 07:24 PST, update on the US-Mexico-Central America borders […] 07:35 PST, Langston Hughes, archival audio.
The other day, I saw a truck on the road, which was emblematic of a ubiquitous type these days: White guys have been rockin’ beards for a while, since at least bands like My Morning Jacket and whatnot. The truck had decal symbolism: “WORKFORIT” read one decal. Also, a thin blue line flag was the center-piece. This seems like an obvious racist ‘Blue Wall’ symbol, which it is. But, when challenged, people with that flag simply say it’s not racist, that it’s about honoring officers, who died in the line of duty. But this is only one symbol. When scrutiny reaches a symbol, other more obscure and secretive symbols appear. The truck’s rear glas also had a Tennessee sticker with two flags, one is USA, the other is presumably a Tennessee flag. Decals on rear glass of 4×4 Toyota Tacoma. China = bad, Japan = good?
0800 wpfw […] 0823, LSB? […] arab show, ‘apocalyptic sci-fi cf. Vervaeke Awakening From the Meaning Crisis […] 0836, [TW] caller asked about program change. Manager said that’s personal? […] I called in
0900 Gary Null bias in Wikipedia [TW] gaslighting behaviors by Wikipedia bosses ‘#13 website in tye world
1007 wpfw el Salvador
10:00 PST, KPFA > Economic Update with Richard Wolff [TW] Fire, from Dr. Wolff. […] 10:33 PST, BET just said they’ll discuss “employment and re-employment”. Why no MMT? Why no job guarantee? Why no Dr. Stephanie Kelton, my former professor, former economic advisor to Bernie Sanders, now NY Times Bestseller, The Deficit Myth. Even ask Ice Cube. He tweeted about her book. […] 10:51 PST, BET just alluded to the pitfalls of confirmation bias, which, given the context of de facto suppression of MMT on KPFA and Pacifica, smacks of insidious evil. We must call them on this, by reaching out for an interview. […] 10:53 PST,
11:00 PST, KPFA > Voices of the Middle East and North Africa > Exposing Macron as an opportunist, fake leftist. This corroborated our take, especially after hearing Macron speak at the Munich Summit recently, last week, if memory serves. [Tw] experience of Arab brown folk in France is important to understand for brown folk struggle for freedom elsewhere, including USA. […] 11:42, ‘It’s all about repression. There is no interest in understanding. And this lack of confidence in Muslims is at the core of this new law [of censorship and repression] proposed by the Macron administration.’ […] 11:47 PST,
12:00 PST, KPFA > > News Headlines with Mark Mericle | Mericle just reported that ‘an airstrike hit Syria’. No mention of Mr. Biden. Why not, Mr. Mericle. Is this cover for the evils of the Democrat Party, which Malcolm X and Dr. King tried to warn us about? […] 12:06 PST, […] 1209, excerpt: Speaking Peace, Marshall Rosenberg. […] 12:18 PST, ongoing clip. […] 1238, ‘needs literacy’ and ‘feelings literacy’ we need a vocabulary to express our feelings. Again, all this is true at the interpersonal level. And when dealing with people in good faith. What can we say about people who deal in bad faith? Evil? Narcissistic abusers? Racists? Genocidal people? […] 12:49 PST, THIS IS A REBROADCAST. […] 12:50 PST, next clip from Marshall Rosenberg: ‘Use positive action words’ […] 12:57 PST, CS Soong just interpreted Marshall Rosenberg as holding the philosophical or theoretical or practical position that what is guilt-inducing is not non-violent. Perhaps. But if one feels guilt, and if one is deserving of said guilt, at least in the eyes of the observer, then one must feel the violence of the guilt. As Meredith Miller (Inner Integration) and others acknowledge: The only way to heal it is to feel it. And that means all of it, even the feedback from others. […] 13:02 PST,
1210, wbai, danny glover on Haiti and Haitian.
1216 kpft, talk; avoiding contractor malfeasance
13:00 PST, KPFA > Project Censored with Mickey Huff > We’re 99% sure this is a rebroadcast from last week. But please listen twice, even thrice! It’s that good. Real talk. […] 13:05 PST,
13:00 PST, WPFW > […] 13:07 PST, sincere- and honest-sounding voices. [TW] An interview with a “Little Mason”, a pre-teen-sounding entrepreneur selling love shirts at the local and black-owned Nubian Human located in D.C. Don’t support evil corporations, when good alternatives exist. […] 13:10 PST, ‘We’re about to make it real blackity-black on the Fantastic Friday Show.’ […] 13:11 PST, music break: dope hip hop vibes.
13:11 PST, WBAI > On the Ground | Yes! This is one of our Top Ten shows on Pacifica Radio. We hope to publish a Best of Pacifica list. […] 1327, Wow, Esther just articulated so much better what your author poorly tried to articulate to Mr. Robruken on the Robruken Podcast recently. […] 13:29 PST, ‘Angola’ ‘Capoera(sp?) combat sport, Brazilian style.’ […] ‘the Battle Royal’ (cf. Conan the Barbarian masculinity, we saw that movie heavily in the 1980s) ‘Bo Jack’ […] | 13:55 PST, News Headlines with Sue Goodwin. [TW]
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“Is a Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity” by Academy of Ideas, 26 FEB 2021.
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14:00 PST, WPFW > Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod > ‘Sojourner Truth Malcolm X Special on Saturday(?)’ [TW] It seems Malcolm’s case is open and “active”. This is glorious news, brother and sisters. This is how we win our freedom. We must fight for justice for our martyrs and our political prisoners. When the oppressor learns they can kill a revolutionary, but they can’t kill the revolution, that is the moment of kairos. That is the light at the end of the tunnel to freedom. […] 14:05 PST, […] News Headlines with Aileen Alfandary (KPFA News)
14:00 PST, WBAI > […] 14:08 PST, “Reggie and I will be pitching.” It sounds like Dr. Gary Null. ‘pineal gland’ ‘melatonin’ Indeed. We agree with Dr. Null on physiology, nutrition, and fitness. But we disagree with his blanket statements, or generalizations against communism. […] 14:18 PST,
14:00 PST, KPFT > […] 14:19 PST, ‘teaching hospital’ ‘trained Haitians’ ‘So, I’m delighted to be with all of you today and Lara Flynn(sp?) and Danny Glover.’ ‘struggle for freedom and democracy‘ ‘the Dr. Aristide foundation‘ […] 14:22 PST, […] N.B.: Danny Glover also discussed Haiti earlier today on WBAI. […] 14:23 PST, next speaker: Mrs. Aristide. [TW] […] 14:23 PST, It sounds like Sunsara Taylor. WBAI.org simply says, “Special”, in its description of this broadcast. (See screenshot above.) […] 14:28 PST, music break. […] Margaret Prescod just announced the name of the special. Apologies, it was roughly called, Independence for Haiti or something to that effect. Busy doing chores. Revolutionary struggle also involves taking out the trash, washing dishes, and other housekeeping (until we get more volunteers, lol). […] extended description of clinics established in Haiti […] 14:43 PST, ‘UNIFA board’ ‘commissioned’ Wait, is this Mrs. Aristide? Or is it someone reading her words? […] 14:45, ‘Dr. Ford, a Haitian-born doctor, who visits regularly, to speak on the health situation in Haiti. “Mildred, all I can say is wow, double wow.” ‘You really painted a picture like no one else can because you are living it. So, I will dispense with my prepared remarks because I am so inspired. I was born in Haiti. […] 14:47, ‘Haiti needed my money, but also my talent and skills.’ […] 14:48 PST, ‘I can say that after spending two of the hardest years of my life trying to save lives after the earthquake…’ […] ‘So, it became clear to me that I had to go back…’ […] ‘also to teach…’ […] ‘because a lot of babies were dying of very pedestrian medical problems’ […] 14:49, ‘Then, I had the privilege of meeting Mr. & Mrs. Aristide. And I learned of their bold vision. I was skeptical, but I thought, if anybody can do it, Mildred and President Aristide could do it.’ […] Indeed. But the US empire got rid of Aristide, didn’t they? […] 14:51 PST, ‘So, Haiti needs more doctors. So, we need medical schools. But, then, we need hospitals to train doctors in. Hence, the teaching hospital…’ […] 14:53 PST, next speaker, ‘Ira Kerzan(sp?)’, who has worked for decades fighting for human rights, including work with the Aristides. […] Haiti Emergency Relief Fund organized the webinar, said Margaret Prescod. […] 14:58 PST, the univ of Aristide Foundation, UNIFA, has opened a teaching hospital. The Aristides remain in exile. We remember Sean Penn going down to Haiti and endorsing a candidate, seemingly unaware of the Aristides in exile. […] 15:00 “an airstrike of questionable legality”, said Aileen Alfandary, a bit more honestly than Mark Mericle earlier today. Thankfully, Sonali Kolhatkar framed it even more honestly than that in her broadcast today on Rising Up.
15:00 PST, KPFA > Rising Up with Sonali Kolhatkar > News with Sonali, highlights: KKK Act?| 300K sign 350.org petition to halt pipeline builds | Biden admin declassified CIA docs re: Kadhoggi Assassination | topic: ? […] 1512, ‘white-sounding guy was on with Sabrina Jacobs this morning.’ She’s legit. We met her back circa 2007, if memory serves.
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“Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The German Ideology” by Epoch Philosophy, 26 FEB 2021.
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[26 FEB 2021]
[Last modified on 1 MAR 2021 at 04:02 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 working class left perspective.]
