Russia's Nuclear Sub in Cuba: What It Means for the U.S.

20 Jun · Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon

00:34:01

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Wilmer Leon (00:00):

There have been tensions between the US and its neighbor 90 miles to the South Cuba since 19 59, 65 years. Why? And are there indications that changes on the horizon or will the issues become more significant?

Announcer (00:27):

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Wilmer Leon (00:33):

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which these events occur. During each episode of this program, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. My guest for today's show is a Cuban American journalist, radio host, author, and host of RTS Direct Impact. He is Ricardo Leon Sanchez de Ronaldo, also known as Rick Sanchez. Let's connect some dots. Rick, welcome to the show.

Rick Sanchez (01:33):

Hey, it is great. Great to be here with you. Wilmer. Always a pleasure, doctor.

Wilmer Leon (01:37):

Did I get it right?

Rick Sanchez (01:38):

Well, yeah, you did. I mean, I don't use it anymore, but it's funny. I guess one point back in 1958, when I was born on July 3rd, my mother named me in little Guanabacoa, Cuba, a suburb just outside of Havana. The doctor said, what are you going to name this kid? He's ugly as hell, but let's give him a name anyway. And she said, Ricardo de San Aldo. So there you go. Is part of the history in Latin America, which I think is a great thing in our culture, you carry the mother's name for at least one generation. So when a woman marries a man and they have a child, that child will carry her name for at least that one generation. Whereas in our culture, you just throw the mother's name away.

Wilmer Leon (02:17):

Well, out of respect to your mother. So just a little historic context, because context for me is always so important. Cuba's ruler CIO Batista.

Rick Sanchez (02:35):

Oh yeah, the old Batist. You're

Wilmer Leon (02:37):

Starting there overthrown. He was overthrown by Fidel Castro, his brother, Raul Checo Rivera, and a lot of other folks in 1959.

Rick Sanchez (02:47):

That's correct.

Wilmer Leon (02:47):

This revolution had and continues to have powerful and profound domestic and international repercussions. Give us your thoughts on where the countries, the US and Cuba is today. Because for example, a lot of people don't really even appreciate the impact that this relationship has on us. Domestic politics.

Rick Sanchez (03:14):

Oh my God. Politics are fascinating in that sense. I don't think there's ever been a better example of a country that is being castigated more than Cuba has been castigated by the US government. No country in the history of the world has been sanctioned and castigated economically for a longer period of time than Cuba has. The United States has done everything possible for some 70 years to literally keep Cuba under its thumb, by the way. And Cuba's economy has paid for it drastically. Remember when I was in Cuba interviewing Fidel Castro in 1991 during Glas and Troika? I remember at the time that I talked to Castro and I asked him about what was happening. He seemed desperate. He had to be desperate to invite me to give me an interview on the island. At the time, they don't usually talk to Guanos. I am a guano.

(04:15)A guano means a worm. A worm is somebody who left the revolution and betrayed the revolution. But I left because my parents left. I mean, I was two years old when I left Cuba. But it's funny because I'll just say this, that era, that 1991, I go and I talk to Castro in Cuba, which was really fascinating. Then I go to New York and I talk to Gorbachev, and I asked Gorbachev, I was working as a correspondent at NBC, and I was assigned to go to New York to speak with President Gorbachev, and I asked President Gorbachev about Fidel Castro, and I said, you were recently in Havana. You and Mr. Castro apparently have had a falling out. He didn't even go see you at the airport. And Gorbachev stops right there, Wilmer. And he says to me, you know what your problem is. You know what the problem you have and the problem with all you Cubans, you're obsessed with Castro.

(05:07)Why are you asking me a question about Castro with all the things going on in the world? I don't want to talk about Castro. Next question. I was like, whoa. I couldn't believe he was coming at me like that. But it just shows. There's an old story if you want to talk history, and I wrote this once in one of my books. I said, let's see if I can quote myself here. Cuba was the slave of the Spanish, the prostitutes of the Americans and the child of the Soviets. It has always been taken and oppressed and used and mistreated by somebody. First, it was the Spanish. They broke from that. Then they got the Americans. The Americans really screwed the Cubans over in every way they could. Americans just owned 70% of the land in Cuba. Think about that for a minute. So it was easy for Fidel Castro to turn to these people back then and say to them, they own 70% of your land. You can't own a business here. They control the government. Batista works for the mafia, which he did. By the way. He was one of the most corrupt presidents. Literally, the mafia ran Havana. So when he says,

Wilmer Leon (06:20):

Watch the Godfather,

Rick Sanchez (06:22):

Yeah, the scene in Godfather two. So in the end, let me close with this. The US government, like the Spanish government, and in many ways, like the Soviets all used and abused Cuba. And to this day, Cuba is suffering the consequences of it because it's a sad place economically to go. And the US to this day is doing everything possible to punish Cuba and keep him under the thumb with an embargo that still persists. And they also have him on a list called the States that condone terrorism lists. There's only like three or four countries, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and a couple others. And I mean, really, Cuba, it's tough to be Cuba because of that.

Wilmer Leon (07:10):

So to that point, at the end of May, it was reported that the Biden administration eases some economic restrictions on Cuba. Private enterprises with no link to the government will be granted access to US banks and additional internet services. The Biden administration seems to have amended and clarified a number of sanctions against Cuba, allowing private entrepreneurs and businesses again to open US bank accounts. They portray this as increasing support for Cuban people. But we'll talk about what that really means. The acronym Micro and Deanna's impress us.

Rick Sanchez (08:10):

Yes,

Wilmer Leon (08:10):

Rick Sanchez. Small

Rick Sanchez (08:11):

Businesses. Small Businesses is what Businesses Small. Yeah, yeah, essentially. I mean, it's a bunch of acronyms. Too many letters for a very simple description. You're absolutely right. And you know what? I think the Biden administration did a good thing with that. A lot of people have been pushing for it. And what it basically says is the Biden administration is looking at Cuba and saying, wow, there's something going on in Cuba for the first time in some 60 or 70 years. Now, I thought what Obama did was fantastic. Obama was the first president, thank God, who came along and said, why do we hate these people? Why do we have to have an enemy that's 90 miles away because of something between Khrushchev and Kennedy? And Eisenhower? Man, that's been a long time. Let's turn over a new leaf. Let's start something new. And Obama allows the United States and people in the United States to start traveling to Cuba. Suddenly, Cuba starts doing really well. People in Miami start going to see their cousins. They're buying, they're trading. Suddenly the Cuban economy starts to show signs of life. It was all really good

Wilmer Leon (09:13):

Cruise lines.

Rick Sanchez (09:14):

What cruise lines, exactly. The whole thing had the promise of starting all over again. So let me attack that first before I tell you about the people you mentioned a little while ago. But we have these absolute morons in Florida politics in particular. You have some idiot named Marco Rubio, for example. You got another guy named Rick Scott. These guys, they live off of hate. The only way that they can stay in power is to make sure the people in South Florida vote for them. And the only way they think the people in South Florida will vote for 'em if they scare them into thinking that somehow Cuba is the boogeyman. It's a horrible communist country that's coming to kill and blah, blah, blah. And because of that, people in South Florida, even if they really deep down don't think that, and even if they really deep down would love nothing more than to be able to visit their mom and their dad and their brothers and their sisters, and to somehow create some kind of reproachment with Cuba, they're afraid to say it.

(10:18)So they say publicly, oh, I hate Cuba. It's horrible. Yay. Marco Rubio. They're afraid because they live in an environment in South Florida, which is run by the older exiles and by the Marco Rubios, where they think if they say that they're not going to get a job, they're not going to be hired. Nobody wants to be called a communist in Miami. So it's this vicious cycle that has continued for so many years, and it's the politicians who continue that. Marco Rubio went to President Trump as soon as President Trump came into office, and he said, here's what you have to do. Cancel everything Obama did. Kill it, destroy it. Make sure people are never allowed to go to Cuba, make sure families are not allowed to see themselves, et cetera, et cetera. And this idiot Biden went along with it. When he got into office, instead of going back to the Obama thing, Biden's been acting like more of a Republican than the Republicans. So finally,

Wilmer Leon (11:12):

Wait a minute, because he was playing to the politics in South Cuba,

Rick Sanchez (11:19):

In South Florida.

Wilmer Leon (11:20):

I'm sorry, south Florida. Thank you. Exactly. He was playing to the politics. Because if my memory serves me correctly, when I look at the demographic data of both Obama elections, when you break it out by age, the older Cuban Americans voted Republican. Their children voted. Obama did, which is why Obama carried Florida both times,

Rick Sanchez (11:57):

And they voted for Clinton as well. But

Wilmer Leon (12:01):

Yeah,

Rick Sanchez (12:01):

It's interesting that soon after that, to be elected president in the United States, you must go to Miami and say that you're an anti-communist and down with Castro, even though he's dead. But people still think he's alive. People still think Russia's a communist country, but whatever. That's another thing. And

Wilmer Leon (12:16):

Elvis, Elvis is still alive.

Rick Sanchez (12:18):

It's like, it'd be stupid, but

Wilmer Leon (12:20):

Whatever. In fact, Elvis and Castro are going to be in Vegas in August.

Rick Sanchez (12:26):

So you have to come to South Florida if you're running for president and say all these patented lines like a script. But then Obama said, okay, I'm going to say all that crap. But then when I get into office, now that I'm in my second term, you know what? I'm going to try and open Cuba back up. Nobody's had the intestinal fortitude to do that, and by golly, I'm going to do it. And he did.

Wilmer Leon (12:47):

Credit was that partially due to agribusiness, US agribusiness seeing a market in Cuba,

Rick Sanchez (12:56):

Which still exists by golly. But for some reason, Trump got rid of it because Trump does whatever he thinks some guy tells him, and he has a bunch of rich friends who are Cubans. So they told him, get rid of everything Obama did. So he did. And along now comes Biden, which brings us back to your point, and it's the me Pimas along. Now comes Biden and enough people get to Biden and say, look, there's actually entrepreneurs in Cuba right now. There's these young guys who are starting these small businesses, and they're distribution centers, and they're actually beating the government at their own game. You've got a socialist country and you have all these young entrepreneurs who are selling vacuum cleaners and clothes and water bottles and glasses. I visited them. I was just there the other day in Cuba, and I was amazed by what I saw.

(13:43)So somebody got to Biden and said, look, if nothing else, throw these guys a bone. There is right now, so many restrictions on any Cuban citizen. They can't use phones, they can't use internet, they can't use American banks. They can't trade with other countries. They are totally isolated, locked up. It's nasty in a horrible, one of the worst sanctions in the world. So finally along comes Biden or somebody in the Biden administration, and they open that up a little bit, and they let these entrepreneurs start to have banks in Florida. Good idea. Now, the other side, the Cuban government looks at this and says, well, wait a minute. But the way you wrote this, you say they can't have any ties to the Cuban government. So you're saying you're going to run an enterprise again in our country, but we're not allowed to monitor it.

(14:31)We're not allowed to tax it. We're not allowed to have contact with them. Go to hell. We're not going to do that. I mean, this is back to Batista again. You guys want to control the economy of our country. So when I met with Cuban officials in Havana last weekend, and I sat down with somebody from the president's office, but not the president himself, but one of the high ranking foreign policy guy, he said, look, here's how we feel about, because I told him, I said, look, whatever it takes, go along with it. This will be good for the Cuban people. And he goes, look, we want to go along with it, but we've got to protect ourselves too. I mean, we want to make sure that we at least have some say in this new system.

Wilmer Leon (15:13):

It is our country.

Rick Sanchez (15:15):

Yeah. See, that's where the thing is difficult. But you know what, in the end though, I think my bottles half full. I'm going to half full guy. I think this is a good thing. It might be a starting place, and it might be the beginning of something that could hopefully flourish and turn Cuba into what it should be. It's a beautiful island, a mecca for tourism where a lot of very successful people have come from. It's such a shame that it's deteriorated into what it's become simply because the United States was angry 70 years ago and has never stopped being angry and has now turned it into a political football.

Wilmer Leon (15:59):

First of all, it was the mob that was pissed 70 years ago.

Rick Sanchez (16:03):

That's true.

Wilmer Leon (16:04):

And so one of the things that I've been saying for a number of years, United States, if your game is as good as you says it is,

(16:15)Then alleviate the sanctions, remove the sanctions. Let the Cuban people see the benefit of the United States. And if your game is as good as you say it is, then stop sanctioning them. Because we know sanctions have never worked. All sanctions do is create a greater sense of nationalism because the entity in charge is able to say, your suffering is not my fault. Your suffering is their fault. They're the ones that are not allowing you to trade. They're the ones that are not allowing you to talk to your relatives in the united. All of that. So it creates a greater sense of them versus US nationalism. So I've been saying for years, just release the sanctions, let the Cuban people decide for themselves. Now, with all that being said, and

Rick Sanchez (17:19):

Let me just underscore here's where you're right, because what you're saying is by having sanctions, you give the Cuban government an excuse to fail, which they have taken. And most countries do. They say, well, and by the way, I mean they're partly right. How the hell can we succeed? We're not allowed to trade with other countries. We can't trade with you. We're not allowed to do business in the United States. We can't buy oil and gas from any of NATO countries or any European countries or any G seven or anything. So we're kind of flummoxed in not being able to succeed the way we should. Now, the Cuban government has also made its economic stupid mistakes as well, to be fair. But nonetheless, they do have that excuse, and it only exists because of the embargo. You're right.

Wilmer Leon (18:03):

So now my question to you, when you've talked to the Cuban officials, did anybody mention the National Endowment for Democracy? And here's why I asked that question, because what this whole, and help me up with the pronunciation.

Rick Sanchez (18:25):

No, that's right. Me.

Wilmer Leon (18:27):

What this whole thing sounds like to me is the NDA, the national end down for democracy. Like they went into Ukraine and Victoria Newland threw around a bunch of cookies to a bunch of Nazis, and they overthrew the Ukrainian government. This sounds eerily reminiscent of a tactic used by the NDA. We're going to fund Cuban small businesses. We're going to show them the wonderful benefits of democracy in the United States as we entice them to overthrow their government. Is that a concern that the Cuban government has?

Rick Sanchez (19:06):

It is, and it should be. But at the same time, speaking to you as a Cuban who has watched the history of this country for so many years, when you're eating dirt, anything becomes a sirloin steak. So at this point, the level of desperation in Cuba is so bad. I mean, I don't know if you've had a chance to go there, but recently I have not. I've ever seen it. The people are really hungry. I mean, nothing works. Everything's slow. There's no efficiency. I mean, it is down to a crawl in Cuba. And if they can at least have something that works. I mean, you compare it to Ukraine, but Ukraine is like one of the basket, the bread, the corrupt

Wilmer Leon (19:52):

Countries

Rick Sanchez (19:52):

In the world, and it has a good economy. The only problem with Ukraine was it was super corrupt, but the economy was good. There's billionaires in Ukraine. I mean, there ain't no billionaires in Cuba, my friend. I mean,

Wilmer Leon (20:03):

No, no. I only compare it to Ukraine in the context of the NDAs involvement in fomenting a coup. Because the president in 2014 was that Jankovich. Yeah, was in the eyes of the United States. Too close to Russia in order to, you're

Rick Sanchez (20:25):

Smart to say that. You're smart to say that. And I think you're right. I think we would be foolhardy not to consider that given our history, the United States of America, this country we love, but can't help but notice that our CIA goes all over the world and screws things up and abuses people and kills people, and assassinates people. They tried 13 times to assassinate Fidel Castro. I mean, they put poison in his cigar. They put poison in his diving suit. I mean, it's crazy. So yeah, we need to also remember and reconcile into anything. We look at exactly what our state department and our CIA and the administration, whatever administration it is, is capable of based on the history and what they've done in the past. That said, I still believe we should try and be optimistic about this and try and figure out a way to use good old fashioned ingenuity to make this work.

(21:18)And I think it's at least the beginning of an opening that didn't exist before. The problem is as soon as there's another presidential election, whatever's done that moves the needle forward will be pushed back because Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and all these other morons who could give a crap about the people of Cuba who are really the ones suffering, not the government, they could give a crap about those people. We'll do whatever it takes to squeeze the hell out of the Cuban economy even more just like they've done in Venezuela and in other places around the world, Guatemala, et cetera, et cetera, because they're mad at some guy who may have said something leftist. Its nuts. But that's actually what has taken place and what our government has done, as you well

Wilmer Leon (22:03):

Know. So the question that I posed is are there indications that changes on the horizon or will the issues become more significant? And the latter part of that question has to do with, last week, a squadron of Russian ships, including a frigate capable of firing hypersonic missiles, arrived in Cuba as part of an international partnership program. Now, that immediately took me back to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Rick Sanchez (22:33):

It was a show. It was Well, go ahead.

Wilmer Leon (22:35):

Rick Sanchez (22:35):

Ahead. The genesis of that, you well know because I know you and I speak a lot and we talk about these things, but the genesis of that is that both Macron and President Biden intimated that they would be willing to use missiles, our missiles. They will give permission to Ukraine to shoot missiles into Russian territory. The next day, Putin picked up the phone and says, oh, so let's see. They have a country next to our territory. Guess what? We've got some friends next to their territory too. He picked up the phone and sent three ships to the Cuban Harbor. Why? To send the world a message that two can play that game. And essentially it's a tit for tat where Putin is trying to tell the US administration, okay, you got some missiles in Ukraine. I got some nuclear subs in Havana. Let's talk. By the way, we got more nuclear warheads than you guys.

(23:30)Do you want to start this thing? Let's go. I mean, it was like, oh my God and the world, and I'm sure there's a lot of bravado coming from Washington, but in the end, I guarantee you they kind of got the message. I almost get the sense there's already backing off going on a lot of NATO countries, and certainly half of the mps in the German parliament came forward and said, this is crazy. Stop this crap. No more weapons to Ukraine that can be used to shoot into Russia. That can start another world war that we are going to have to pay for, not the Yankees, not the Americans. So I wouldn't be surprised if the genesis of that, which led to that, which what you just mentioned, is the three ships in Havana, is what may be causing a little bit of a slowdown now in the Ukraine push, especially on the part of many members of the European community.

Wilmer Leon (24:22):

There you go. So what does that say to you about the empire? What does that say to you? Because 10 years ago, going back to the Godfather, I'm drawing a blank. I'm going to Des name. When the Turk hit the Don and they said 10 years ago, could we got it? Could we have gotten to the Don like that Soso, when Soso hit the Don 10 years ago, could we have got the Don is slipping, so is the Don, the us, is the Don slipping because 10 years ago, Vladimir Putin couldn't have made that play.

Rick Sanchez (25:08):

No. Let me just say this, and it's a two part answer, I think. One, I think if you ask the average American in the United States, should the embargo be lifted, I think 90% of them will say yes,

Wilmer Leon (25:21):

Absolutely.

Rick Sanchez (25:22):

They think it's silly.

Wilmer Leon (25:23):

Absolutely. If

Rick Sanchez (25:23):

You ask the average young American under 30 or something and tell 'em they can't go to Cuba unless they fill out 19 forms and get a special visa and all kinds of crap, whatever

Wilmer Leon (25:35):

It is, or fly to the moon and get a flight from Southwest from the moon,

Rick Sanchez (25:39):

They're going to say, why? What's the difference between that and Mexico? That and The Bahamas, Cuba's right next to The Bahamas. People go back and forth between The Bahamas and Cuba every day, and they're fishing together and stuff. So it makes no sense. It's silly. So two things, A, as time goes by, younger people will look at this and think it's just ridiculous, shameful and foolhardy. Two, when I spoke with Cuban officials in Havana last weekend, and we were sitting in the hotel bar, and I asked the ambassador, the guy who used to be the ambassador to the United Nations Kabana, who's an interesting man and very guarded, and I said, are you guys going to play a waiting game? And he goes, what do you mean? I said, well, you know what's going on in the world? The Western powers are now being pushed back by Brazil, which is your friend by Iran, which is your friend by

Wilmer Leon (26:32):

Russia, Venezuela, your friend,

Rick Sanchez (26:34):

Right? China, which is your friend. So suddenly you have all these allies who've created these interesting consortiums which are fighting back against the western power, which have always had you under your thumb. So does that make you look at things a little differently? And he just kind of smiled at me and he said, we're playing by different rules now. And I said, okay, we'll leave it at that because I don't want to get myself or you in trouble. So I get a sense that they know that and they think that could be a reproachment as well for the island.

Wilmer Leon (27:11):

And for people to really understand, they have to understand the development of bricks.

Rick Sanchez (27:16):

Of course,

Wilmer Leon (27:17):

They have to understand a number of the leaders that the United States labels as dictators and labels as anything but a child of God. President Xi Jinping is traversing the world and is a respected diplomat. Vladimir Putin traversing the world a respected diplomat. Nicholas Maduro traveling. He's sitting in Iran talking with President. Well, now the Supreme leader, these guys are being recognized internationally as diplomats. Tony Blinken is considered a goon.

Rick Sanchez (28:11):

Yeah, it's funny the way things have now developed, and we are seeing a world that's changing, and I think that the world order for lack of a better term is not what it was before. And Cuba is really, I think, in a unique position. I mean, here's an island with 11 million people that's 90 miles away from the United States and has had a 70 year torment of economic sanctions and resistance against it. And suddenly it's in a position where it can finally make peace with Washington. Or it can tell Washington to go to hell and say, you know what? We're going to be a part of B bricks. We're going to be a part of the global south. We're going to be a part of all of these things, and we don't want anything from you anymore. We think we can get it over here, especially if there's a change in currency or in the monetary policy that these guys are able to adjust, which

Wilmer Leon (29:05):

They are in fact implementing. Look at the deal between India and Russia. India is buying Russian oil based on the ruble, which by the way, Joe Biden said he was going to turn it into rubble, but that's now one of the top five fastest growing economies in the world.

Rick Sanchez (29:28):

Well, but the thing is, the thing that look bothers me about all of this, and I think it probably bothers you too, is just the all out hypocrisy. I'll give you an example of something that happened overnight, just within the last 24 hours. The Chinese have apparently come up with a fantastic ev. I drive a Tesla. I love EVs. I think apparently they've come up with something that they make for 20 to 30,000 less than what I paid for my,

Wilmer Leon (29:55):

I thought it was 15. They make it for 10.

Rick Sanchez (29:57):

Yeah, it's crazy. They're making, and it's a great vehicle. It's fantastic. So they basically said, we want to introduce this car, this Chinese car, the Chinese technology into Europe. And the Europeans are saying, no, screw you. We're not going to let you do it. You want to put your cars in here? We're going to give you a 40% tariff, 38.7 actually, but pretty close, man, that's almost half. That means if they sell a car for $20,000, they really have to sell it. People there still have to pay 40 plus be the administrative fees and everything else. The tariff alone is brutal. It's punishment. So yesterday afternoon, Beijing announced it's going to start considering putting tariffs on all pork products. Now, the Chinese eat more pork than anybody in the world. 50% of the pork that's eaten in China comes from Europe. So the Chinese are now telling the Europeans, okay, you want to put a 40% tariff on our cars and our technology? We're going to put a 40% tariff on the pork, the pork Spaniards, which by the way is where all the 50% of the pork eaten in China comes from Europe. And 20% of that comes from Spain. So the who's going to get screwed? The poor farmer in Spain who has the pig farm. So the whole thing is cyclical. But my main point in that story is I thought that we were the country who pushed for democracy and free markets. Free

Wilmer Leon (31:21):

Markets,

Rick Sanchez (31:22):

Where

Wilmer Leon (31:23):

The fuck, the invisible hand let the market decide winners and losers. Adam Smith told us that.

Rick Sanchez (31:30):

Right? It goes back to your point about Cuba. It's like we say, well, we don't like Cuba because it's a communist country. So we do everything possible for them not to be able to compete in the free market. And then we say, we believe in the free market. Well, if you believe in the free market, you got to let China play. You got to let Cuba play. And you can't say, I don't like how they smell, or I don't like their policies, or I don't like their system of government. Everybody gets to play, right? That's what the free market means. Oh,

Wilmer Leon (31:59):

And by the buy, just really quickly, the United States made the conscious decision to export its manufacturing to China. We de-industrialized. That's true. The United States

(32:17)Why? For cheaper labor. Why for greater profit? Now, what we found is the Chinese have found a better way to beat us at our own game. Once you learn how to play the game, then you got to learn how the game gets played, and we can't break that code. I got it. My brother, Rick Sanchez, thank you so much for joining me today. I love you, man. You're a great guy and a great friend and a great golf partner. Well, you are too kind. You probably just need to get out more. Hey folks, thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me. I'm a great guy. I'm a great friend. I'm a great golf partner, according to Rick Sanchez with me, Dr. Woman Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You'll find all the links below in the description. Go to that Patreon site. Please make a contribution because, hey, I got to pay Rick. It ain't cheap. Anyway. This is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis. It's just chatter. We don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a great one. Peace and blessings. I'm out

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The Next World War? Gaza on the Brink as Tensions Explode!
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In this explosive episode of "Connecting the Dots," I tackle the recent drone strike on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's vacation home—an intense response to the IDF’s assassination of Hamas leader Yaya Seir. With award-winning journalist Laith Maru by my side, we break down the escalating conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, Netanyahu’s hardline stance, and the powerful symbolism of martyrdom. We also expose the Western media’s biased coverage and dive deep into the impact of U.S. foreign policy. The stakes are high, and we explore the very real possibility of a broader regional war—calling for global solidarity in these dangerous times.
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Wilmer Leon (00:00):A drone strike hit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vacation home after the IDF martyred Hamas' political and military leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza. The genocide operations continue in Gaza and Lebanon, while Netanyahu declares, "nothing will deter us." Yet, this insanity continues. Let's dive into it.
Announcer (00:37):Connecting the Dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:44):Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast. I am Dr. Wilmer Leon. Here's the point: we often view current events as though they occur in isolation, but most events take place within a broader historical context. My guests and I probe these issues to connect the dots between events and the broader context, helping you better understand and analyze the global events shaping our world. Today, we’re tackling the ongoing U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza and the looming threat of World War III. My guest for this episode is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, based in Beirut, Lebanon—my dear brother, Laith Marouf. Welcome back, Laith.
Laith Marouf (01:43):Great to be with you, Wilmer.
Wilmer Leon (01:45):Laith, I finally got it right this time! For further analysis and interviews from the region, go to FreePalestine.Video to see Laith in action. Did I get that right, Laith?
Laith Marouf (02:08):Yes, absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (02:09):Alright, let’s dive in. Al Jazeera and other outlets confirmed that Israel’s IDF killed Hamas’ political and military leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza. He was martyred a few days ago. Laith, can you talk about his significance? Some compare him to Che Guevara or General Soleimani. Who was Yahya Sinwar?
Laith Marouf (02:49):Yahya Sinwar was a crucial leader for the Palestinian cause. He was imprisoned for over 20 years by the Israeli regime, with a 400-year sentence against him. During his imprisonment, he worked closely with Palestinian prisoners from various factions, becoming a prominent figure in the movement for prisoner rights in occupied Palestine. He was later released in a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, after Hamas captured Israeli soldiers.
Once released, Sinwar vowed to fight for the rights of Palestinian prisoners, whom many Palestinians regard as living martyrs—those who pay the ultimate price for Palestine's liberation. Sinwar’s leadership culminated in the planning of the October 7th operation, where Israeli soldiers were captured to secure the freedom of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.
Even until his last moments, Sinwar fought for the freedom of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli media had slandered him, claiming he was hiding or that he kept Israeli prisoners around him as shields. But the truth? He was on the frontlines with his soldiers, resisting Israeli invaders for over a year.
Wilmer Leon (05:30):Laith, I want to explore something you’ve brought up before—the concept of martyrdom. I think many in the West know the term, but they don’t grasp its significance in the region. Could you elaborate on what it means when someone like Yahya Sinwar or Palestinian prisoners are called martyrs?
Laith Marouf (08:21):Absolutely, Wilmer. The concept of martyrdom exists in many cultures, even beyond a religious context. For example, Soviet communists called their dead martyrs when fighting the Nazis, and French revolutionaries used the term during their revolution. In Christianity, saints who died spreading the faith were considered martyrs.
In Islam, the word "Shahid" (martyr) holds even more weight. It comes from the Arabic root meaning "to witness." A Shahid is an eternal witness to the injustice they fought against and provides testimony to God. In Islam, martyrs hold the highest place in heaven, alongside the prophets.
Wilmer Leon (10:08):President Joe Biden called Yahya Sinwar’s death an “opportunity for a new day” in Gaza and suggested this could lead to a political settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. Biden described Sinwar as an insurmountable obstacle. What are your thoughts on these statements, Laith?
Laith Marouf (11:29):Biden’s comments show how much they feared Sinwar as a leader. To call him an “insurmountable obstacle” reveals the West's complete misunderstanding of the situation. This is not the politics of personality; it's the politics of persecution. Biden's administration and the West fundamentally misunderstand that this is a people's resistance movement, not centered around one individual. Yahya Sinwar’s principles and actions galvanized the resistance. In truth, it is the imperialist mindset that’s failing here.
The West tries to erase its historical crimes—genocide in the Americas, Africa, and more. Sinwar exposed the beast for what it is. His achievement on October 7th? He showed the world the real face of white supremacy and colonialism.
Wilmer Leon (13:14):What’s your take on the rhetoric from Western leaders like Biden and Kamala Harris? They talk about peace, but they’re assassinating negotiators and leaders like Hassan Nasrallah or Soleimani, who could facilitate dialogue. How does this fit in with their supposed efforts toward peace?
Laith Marouf (21:53):There’s no safety with the empire, Wilmer. Assassination has always been part of its modus operandi. Indigenous leaders in the U.S. were murdered while negotiating treaties. Soleimani was killed on a peace mission in Iraq. This hypocrisy isn’t new—it’s just becoming more blatant. The Zionist regime and the U.S. imperial powers believe they can impose whatever deal they want on Palestine and Lebanon. But they are gravely mistaken.
Wilmer Leon (24:00):Before we talk about the drone strike on Netanyahu’s vacation home, I want to address the idea that some confuse restraint with weakness. Could you explain why resistance movements, like Hezbollah, take a different approach compared to an oppressing force like Israel?
Laith Marouf (25:05):Absolutely. Resistance movements like Hezbollah are defensive. In 1982, Israeli forces took just four days to march from southern Lebanon to Beirut. In 2006, they couldn’t get past the valleys in the south, and now, in 2023, they can’t even advance a few meters into Lebanon. Hezbollah has repelled their attempts for 18 days straight, destroying their tanks and armored vehicles.
Hezbollah doesn't need to invade northern Palestine at this moment. Its strategy is to weaken the Israeli military, so when the time comes, an invasion will be decisive.
Wilmer Leon (28:13):You mentioned that a full-scale war could erupt before the U.S. elections. Why would the Biden-Harris administration risk such a conflict so close to an election?
Laith Marouf (29:06):Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby in the U.S. want to ensure that, no matter who wins the election, the war continues. Both Trump and Biden will be trapped into supporting Israel's agenda. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Kamala Harris suspended the election under martial law, should American soldiers start returning in body bags.
Wilmer Leon (31:24):Many African Americans ask why they should care about Palestine. Could you explain the connection between our struggles?
Laith Marouf (33:37):Historically, the struggles of African Americans and Palestinians are deeply intertwined. The Black Panthers trained with Palestinian resistance fighters in Algeria. In the 60s and 70s, many African Americans, Indigenous Americans, and leftist movements understood the international struggle against imperialism. Today, the empire is once again repressing marginalized communities, and Palestinians are facing similar repression. This should resonate with African Americans, as it's a global fight against the same oppressors.
Wilmer Leon (37:03):Now, about the drone strike on Netanyahu's vacation home. I remember saying on my show that someone needed to send a message, perhaps with a missile in his swimming pool—not to assassinate him, but to show they could reach him anytime. What do we know about this recent strike?
Laith Marouf (38:48):Yes, the drone strike was surgical. Netanyahu’s house near Tel Aviv was hit, and although Israeli media claims that Netanyahu and his wife narrowly escaped, the message was clear. The operation was meticulous, with missiles and drones sent in layers to confuse Israel's defense systems. Hezbollah has shown it can strike when and where it wants.
Wilmer Leon (40:59):This dark humor among Palestinians and Lebanese—like the jokes about sending quiet drones—seems to reflect something deeper about their mindset. What are your thoughts?
Laith Marouf (41:42):You're absolutely right. People here use dark humor and poetry to cope with endless invasions and destruction. It's a way to assert their humanity despite being subjected to constant imperial aggression.
Wilmer Leon (42:44):The U.S. media is so out of touch. I saw an "expert" on MSNBC comparing Hamas to drug cartels. The journalist didn’t push back at all. How does this speak to the state of journalism in America?
**Laith Marouf (44:19(continued from last segment…)
Laith Marouf (44:19):The propaganda in the West has reached a point where groupthink dominates. Critical thinking has been rooted out, so media narratives continue building on false assumptions. This has caused severe cognitive dissonance, especially regarding Israel and Palestine. The Western media has become so detached from reality that it’s making poor decisions seem justified. Assassinating negotiators and leaders only galvanizes resistance, and yet they keep making the same mistakes.
Wilmer Leon (46:38):There’s a saying attributed to Sun Tzu, “The evil ruler burns his own village to rule over the ashes.” I believe this applies to Netanyahu, Biden, and Harris. But it’s important to note that this is not just administration policy—this is American foreign policy. It transcends the individual leaders. What’s your take on that?
Laith Marouf (47:41):Absolutely. This is deeply embedded in U.S. foreign policy, especially in relation to the Middle East. Countries like Iran, Lebanon, and Syria stand in the way of imperial control, and the U.S. is willing to burn 30,000 years of civilization to maintain dominance. It’s not about protecting the land or people, but rather about control at all costs. They’re willing to destroy the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of human civilization, to get what they want.
Wilmer Leon (48:53):Let’s talk about Yemen. The U.S. is now going after Ansar Allah, known in the West as the Houthis. The head of Ansar Allah, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, is reportedly being targeted. What does the name "Ansar Allah" signify, and what’s their role in the broader resistance?
Laith Marouf (49:39):Ansar Allah means "Helpers of God." Historically, it refers to the Yemeni tribes who allied with Prophet Muhammad when he migrated to Medina. They view themselves as the original Muslims and carry that banner in their struggle today. Despite being the poorest country in the world, Yemen has managed to withstand bombings from U.S., British, and Saudi forces for years. Recently, they hit an American aircraft carrier, showing their power on the high seas. Yemen is a key part of the axis of resistance, and it’s no surprise that the empire is now targeting them.
Wilmer Leon (52:22):People need to understand how costly this war is. It costs between $6 million and $8 million a day to operate a U.S. supercarrier like the USS Eisenhower or Gerald Ford. We struggle to fund infrastructure here at home, but we're spending billions abroad.
Laith Marouf (55:50):Exactly. They claim it costs $20 billion a year to support Israel’s war efforts, but that number is far from accurate. It’s probably closer to trillions. Qatar, for instance, admitted to spending $2 trillion funding the war in Syria. The U.S. and its allies in the Gulf are pouring dark money into these wars, and we’re seeing the same playbook in Palestine.
Wilmer Leon (58:16):As we wrap up, Laith, what are the two or three key points you want people to take away from our conversation?
Laith Marouf (58:32):First, visit FreePalestine.Video to stay informed and support the truth. Second, we’re at a critical moment in history. The West will go to extreme lengths to maintain the Zionist colony. We’re likely headed toward an Israeli attack on Iran, which will lead to a regional war involving Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, and Lebanese fighters. This will draw the U.S. into direct conflict. Finally, Western citizens have a responsibility to stop their governments from escalating this into a nuclear war. The stakes couldn’t be higher—this is about the survival of humanity.
Wilmer Leon (01:01:07):Laith Marouf, my dear brother, thank you for your time today. I’m always grateful for your insights. Stay safe, and we’ll talk again soon.
Laith Marouf (01:01:31):Thank you, Wilmer. See you soon.
Wilmer Leon (01:01:34):And thank you all for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Follow, subscribe, leave a review, and share the show. You can find all the links to our social media in the show description below. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge—because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don’t chatter here on Connecting the Dots. See you next time. I’m Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I’m out.
Announcer (01:02:18):Connecting the Dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon—where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Divide and Rule: The Elite’s Playbook to Control America
17 Oct· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
In this electrifying episode of Connecting the Dots, I sat down with Jon Jeter—two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, former Washington Post bureau chief, and Knight Fellowship recipient—who pulled no punches as we unraveled the hidden dynamics of America’s class war. Drawing from his explosive book Class War in America, Jeter revealed how the elite have masterfully weaponized race to keep the working class fractured and powerless, ensuring they stay on top. He delves into the ways education is rigged to widen inequality, while elite interests tighten their grip on public policy. With gripping personal stories and razor-sharp historical insight, Jeter paints a vivid picture of the struggle between race and class in America and leaves us with a tantalizing vision of a united working-class revolution on the horizon. This is an episode that will shake your understanding of power—and inspire you to see the potential for change.
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Wilmer Leon (00:00:00):
I'm going to quote my guest here. We've been watching for a while now via various social media platforms and mainstream news outlets, the genocide of the Palestinian people, what do the images of a broad swath of Americans, whites and blacks, Latinos, Arabs and Asians, Jews and Catholics and Muslims, and Buddhists shedding their tribal identities and laying it all out on the line to do battle with the aristocrats who are financing the occupation. Slaughter and siege mean to my guest. Let's find out
Announcer (00:00:40):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history
Wilmer Leon (00:00:46):
Converge. Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which many of these events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur, thus enabling you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue before us is again, quoting my guest. When the 99% come together to fight for one another rather than against each other is the revolution. Na, my guest is a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. His work can be found on Patreon as well as Black Republic Media, and his new book is entitled Class War in America. How The Elite Divide the Nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? Phenomenal, phenomenal work. John Jeter is my guest, as always, my brother. Welcome back to the show.
Jon Jeter (00:02:07):
It's a pleasure to be here. Wilmer.
Wilmer Leon (00:02:10):
So class war in America, how the elites divide the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? You open the book with two quotes. One is from the late George Jackson, settle Your Quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation. Understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying, who could be saved that generations more will live. Poor butchered half lives. If you fail to act, do what must be done. Discover your humanity and love your revolution. Why that quote? And then we'll get to the second one. Why that quote, John?
Jon Jeter (00:02:50):
That quote, really that very succinct quote by the revolutionary, the assassinated revolutionary. George Jackson really explains in probably a hundred words, but it takes me 450 pages to explain, which is that the ruling class, the oligarchs, we call 'em what you want. Somewhere around the Haymarket massacre of 1886, I believe they figured out that the way that the few can defeat the many is to divide the many to pit it against itself, the working class against itself. And so since then, they have a embark on a strategy of pitting the working class against itself largely along, mostly along racial or tribal lines, mostly white versus black. And it has enveloped, the ruling class has enveloped more and more people into whiteness. First it was Italians and Germans and Jews, or Jews really starting after World War II and the Holocaust. And then it was gays and women, and now even blacks themselves have been enveloped in this sort of adjacency to whiteness where everyone sort of gets ahead by beating up, by punching down on black people. And so George Jackson's quote really sort of encapsulates the success that we, the people can have by working together. And I want to be very clear about the enemy is not white people. The enemy is a white identity.
(00:04:48):
Hungarians and Czech and the Brits and the French and the Italians are not our enemy. They are glorious people who have done glorious things, but the formation of a white identity is really the kryptonite for working class movements in this country.
Wilmer Leon (00:05:07):
In fact, I'm glad you make that point because I wanted to call attention to the fact that a lot of people listening to this and hear you talk about the Irish or the Poles or the Italians, that in Europe, those were nationalisms, those were not racial constructs. Those were not racial identities. And that it really wasn't until many of them came to America and or post World War ii, that this construct of whiteness really began to take hold as the elite in America understood, particularly post-slavery. That if the poor and the working class whites formed an alliance with the newly freed, formerly enslaved, that that would be a social condition that they would not be able to control.
Jon Jeter (00:06:11):
It was almost, it was as close to invincible as you could ever see. This coalition, which particularly after slavery, very tenuously,
(00:06:24):
But many, many whites, particularly those who were newer to the country, Germans and Italians and Irish, who had not formed a white identity, formed a white identity here. As you said in Europe, they were Irish Italians. Germans. One story I think tells the tale, it was a dock workers strike in New Orleans in 1894. I read about this in the book, and the dock workers were segregated, black unions and white unions, but they worked together, they worked in concert, they went on strike for higher wages, and I think a closed shop, meaning that if you worked on the docks, you had to belong to the union and they largely won. And the reason for that is because the bosses, the ship owners tried to separate the two. They would tell the white dock workers, we'll work with you, but we won't work with those N words.
(00:07:22):
And many of the dock workers at that time had just come over from Europe. So they were like, what are you talking about? He's a worker just like me. I worked right next to him, or he works the doc over from me or the platform over from me. He's working there. So what do you mean you're not going to work with, you're going to deal with all of us? And that ethos, that governing ethos of interracial solidarity was one that really held the day until 20 years later, 20 years later, by which time Jim Crow, which was really an economic and political strategy, had really taken hold. And many of the dock workers, their children had begun to think of themselves as white.
Wilmer Leon (00:08:06):
In fact, I'm glad you referred to the children because another parallel to this is segregated education. As the framers, and I don't mean of the constitution, but of this culture, wanted to impose this racial caste system, they realized you can't have little Jimmy and little Johnny playing together sitting next to each other in classrooms and then try to impose a system of hierarchy based on phenotype as these children get older. What do you mean I can't play with him? What do you mean I can't play with her? She's my friend. No, not anymore. And so that's one of the things that contributed to this phenotypical ethos separating white children from black children.
Jon Jeter (00:09:01):
Education has been such a pivotal instrument for the elites, for the oligarchs, for the investor class in fighting this class war. It's not just been an instrument, a tool to divide education in the United States. It's largely intended to reproduce inequality, and it always has been, although obviously many of us, many people in the working class see, there's a tool to get ahead. That's not how the stock class sees it.
(00:09:35):
But beyond that even it is the investment in education. This is a theme throughout the book from the first chapter to the last basically where education, because it is seen as a tool for uplift by the working class, but by the investment class, it's seen as a tool to divide. And increasingly really since about really the turn of the century, this century, the 21st century, it's been seen as an investment opportunity. So that's why we have all of these school closures and the school privatization effort. It's an investment opportunity. So the problem is that we're fighting a class war. We've always been fighting a class war, but it's something that is seldom mentioned in public discussions in the media, the news or entertainment media, it's seldom mentioned, but schools education, you could make an argument that it is the holy grail of the class war, whoever can capture the educational system because it can become a tool both by keeping it public or I guess making it public now, returning it to public. And so much of it is in private hands by maintaining its public nature, and at the same time using it to reduce inequality as opposed to reproducing inequality
Wilmer Leon (00:11:08):
And public education and access to those public education dollars is also an element of redistribution of wealth because as access to finance is becoming more challenging, particularly through the neocolonialist idea using public dollars for private sector interest, giving access to those public education dollars to the private sector is another one of the mechanisms that the elite used to redistribute public dollars into private hands.
Jon Jeter (00:11:49):
One of the things that I discovered and researching this book was the extent to which bonds sold by municipalities, by the government, those bonds are sold to investors. That is more and more since really the Reagan era, because we've shipped manufacturing offshore. So how do you make money if you are invested, if you've got surplus money laying around, how do you make money? You invest it, speculate. Loan tracking essentially is what it is. One of the ways that you can make money. One of the things that you can invest money in is the public sector. So schools become an instrument for finance. And so what we see around the country are schools education becoming an investment vehicle for the rich and they can invest in it and they're paying higher and higher returns. Taxpayers.
(00:12:57):
You and I, Wilmer, are paying more and more to satisfy our creditors. For as one example, I believe it was in San Diego or a school district near or right outside San Diego, this was about 20 years ago, but they took out a loan to finance public education there, I believe just their elementary schools in that district. And it was something like a hundred million dollars loan just for the daily operations of that school district. And that had a balance due or the money, the interest rate was such that it was going to cost the taxpayers in that district a billion dollars to repay that loan, right? So that is an extreme example. But increasingly what we've seen is public education bonds that are used to pay for the daily operations of our municipalities are the two of the class war are an instrument of combat in the class war because the more that cities practice what we call austerity, what economists call austerity, cutting the budget to the very bare minimum, the more investment opportunities it creates for the rich who then reap that money back.
(00:14:15):
So they've got a tax cut because they're not paying for the schools upfront, and it becomes an investment opportunity because they're paying for the schools as loans, which they give back exorbitant interest rates, sometimes resembling the interest rates on our credit card. So a lot of this is unseen by the public, but it really is how the class war being waged in the 21st century speculation because our manufacturing sector has been shipped offshore, and that's how we made the elites made their money for more than a century after World War ii, after the agrarian period. So yeah, it's really invisible to the naked eye, but it is where it's the primary battlefield for the class war.
Wilmer Leon (00:15:00):
The second quote you have is Muriel Rukeyser. The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. And I know that that resonates with you particularly because as a journalist, one who tells stories, why is that quote so significant and relevant to this book?
Jon Jeter (00:15:26):
This book is really, it took me almost a quarter of my life to write this book from the time that the idea first occurred to me, to the time I finished almost 15 years. And it's evolved over time. But one of the biggest setbacks was just trying to find a publisher. And many publishers, I think, although they did not say this, they objected to the subject matter. And my characterization, I have one quote again from George Jackson where he says, the biggest barrier to the advancement of the working class in America is white racism. So I think they objected to that. But I also faced issues with a few black publishers, one of whom said that after reading the manuscript that it didn't have enough theory. I would say to anyone, any publisher who thinks that theory is better than story probably shouldn't be a publisher. But I also think it's sort of symptomatic of today's, the media today where we don't understand that stories are what connects us to each other, Right? The suffering, the struggle, the triumphs of other people of our ancestors,
Wilmer Leon (00:16:48):
The reality Of the story
Jon Jeter (00:16:51):
reality, yes,
Wilmer Leon (00:16:52):
Juxtaposed to the theoretical.
Jon Jeter (00:16:56):
That's exactly right.
Wilmer Leon (00:16:57):
In Fact,
Jon Jeter (00:16:59):
The application of the theory,
Wilmer Leon (00:17:01):
I tell my students and when I was teaching public policy that you have to understand the difference between the theoretical and the practical, and that there are a lot of things in policy that in theory make a whole lot of sense until you then have to operationalize that on a daily basis and then have it make real sense. Big difference between the theoretical and the practical.
Jon Jeter (00:17:26):
No question about it. And you see this over and over again throughout the book, you see examples of, for instance, the application of communist theory. And I'm not advocating for anyone to be a communist, just that there was a very real push by communists in the United States encouraged by communists and the Soviet Union in the 1930s to try to start a worldwide proletarian revolution, the stronghold of which was here in the United States. And so the Scotts Corps boys, nine teenage boys, black boys who were falsely accused of rape, became the testing ground for communism right now, communism. It was something that sparked the imagination of a lot of black people. Very few joined the party, but it sparked the imagination. So you found a lot of blacks who were sympathetic to communism in the thirties and the forties.
Wilmer Leon (00:18:21):
Rosa Parks's husband Rosa.
Jon Jeter (00:18:23):
That's correct.
Wilmer Leon (00:18:24):
Rosa. Rosa Parks's husband, Rosa Parks, the patron saint of protest politics.
Jon Jeter (00:18:31):
Yes. Coleman Young, the first black mayor of Detroit. I write about very specifically. It was a thing, right? But it was the application of it. And ultimately, I think most of the blacks, many of the blacks certainly who tried to implement communism would argue not only that they failed, but that communism failed them as well. So I don't, again, not an advocacy for communism, but that idea really did move the needle forward. And I think our future is not in our past. So going forward, we might sort of learn from what happened in the past, and there might be some things we can learn from communism, but I think ultimately it is, as the communist say, dialectical materialism. You can't dip your toe in the same river twice. So it is moving like it's gathering steam and it's not going to be what it was. Although we can take some lessons from the past, from the Scottsboro boys from the 1930s and the 1940s.
Wilmer Leon (00:19:29):
You write in your prologue quote, I cannot predict with any certainty the quality of that revolution, the one we were talking about in the open, or even it's outcome only that it is imminent for the historical record clearly asserts that the nationwide uprisings on college campuses' prophecy the resumption of hostilities between America's workers and their bosses. I'm going to try and connect the dot here, which may not make any sense, or you may say, Wilmer, that was utterly brilliant. I prefer the latter. Just over the past few days, former President Trump has been suggesting using the military to handle what he calls the enemy from within, because he is saying on election day, if he doesn't win, there will be chaos. And he says, not from foreign actors, but from the radical left lunatics, he says, I think the bigger problem are the people from within. And he says, you may need to use the National Guard, you may need to use the military, because this is going to happen. Now, I know you and Trump aren't talking. You're about two different things. I realize that different with different agendas, but this discussion about nationwide uprisings, and so your thoughts on how you looking at the college protests and what that symbolizes in terms of the discontent within the country and what Trump is, the fear that Trump is trying to sow in the minds relative to the election. Does that make any sense?
Jon Jeter (00:21:18):
It makes perfect sense. You don't say that about warmer Leon, all that all.
Wilmer Leon (00:21:21):
Oh, thank you. You're right.
Jon Jeter (00:21:22):
It makes perfect sense. But no, and actually I would draw a pretty straight line from Trump to what I'm writing about in the book. For instance, Nixon, who was a very smart man, and Trump was not a very smart man, it's just that he used his intelligence for evil. But Richard Nixon was faced with an uprising, a nationwide uprising on college campuses, and he resorted to violence, as we saw with Kent State.
Wilmer Leon (00:21:52):
Kent State, yes.
Jon Jeter (00:21:53):
Very intentional.
Wilmer Leon (00:21:54):
Jackson State,
Jon Jeter (00:21:55):
Yes, it was
Wilmer Leon (00:21:56):
Southern University in Louisiana.
Jon Jeter (00:21:58):
Yes, yes, yes. But Kent State was a little bit of an outlier because it was meant white kids as a shot across the bow to show white kids that if you continue to collaborate with blacks, with the Vietnamese, continue to sympathize with them and rally on their behalf, then you might get exactly what the blacks get and the Vietnamese are getting right. And honestly, in the long term, that strategy probably worked. It did help to divide this insurgency that was particularly activated on college campuses. So what Trump, I think is faced with what he will be faced with if he is reelected, which I think he very well may be, what he's going to be faced with is another insurgency that is centered on college campuses. This time. It's not the Vietnamese, it's the Palestinians, and increasingly every day the Lebanese. But it's the very same dynamic at work, which is this, you have white people on college campuses, particularly when you talk about the college campuses in the Ivy League.
(00:23:13):
These are kids who are mostly to the manner born. If you think about it, what they're doing is they are protesting their future employer. They're putting it all on the line to say, no, no, no, no, there's something bigger than my career than me working for you. And that is the fate of the Palestinian people. That's very much what happened in the late sixties, early seventies with the Vietnamese. And so Mark Twain is I think perhaps the greatest white man in American history, but one thing he got wrong. I don't think history rhymes. I think it does indeed repeat itself, but I think that's what we're seeing now with these kids on college campuses, that people thought that they dismantled these campus, these encampments all across the nation during the summer, the spring semester, and that when they came back that it would be over squash.
(00:24:07):
That's not what's happening. They're coming back loaded for bear. These college students, that does not all go well for the establishment, particularly in tandem with other things are going on, which is these nationwide, very likely a very serious economic crisis. Financial crisis is imminent, very likely. And these other barometers of social unrest, police killings of blacks, the cop cities that are being built around the country, environmental issues, what's happening in Gaza that can very much intersect. We're already seeing it. It's intersected with other issues. So there is a very real chance that we're going to see a regrouping of this progressive working class movement. How far it goes, we can't say we don't know. I mean, just because you protest doesn't mean that the oligarch just say, okay, well, you got it, you want, it doesn't happen that way. But what's the saying? You might not win every fight, but you're going to lose every fight that you don't fight. So we have a chance that we got a punch a chance like Michael Spinx with Mike Tyson made, but we got a shot.
Wilmer Leon (00:25:26):
And to that point, what did Mike Tyson say? Everybody can fight till they get punched in the face. Yeah,
Jon Jeter (00:25:32):
Everybody's got to plan until they get punched in the nose right
Wilmer Leon (00:25:35):
Now. So to your point about kids putting everything on the line and the children of the elite, putting it on the line, there was a university, a Bolt Hall, which is the law school at University of California, Berkeley, Steven David Solomon. He wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the law firm of Winston and Strawn did the right thing when it revoked the job offer of an NYU law student who publicly condemned Israel for the Hamas terrorist attacks. Legal employers in the recruiting process should do what Winston and Strawn did treat these students like the adults they are, if a student endorses hate dehumanization or antisemitism, don't hire 'em. So he was sending a very clear message, protest if you want to, there's going to be a price to pay.
Jon Jeter (00:26:30):
Yeah, I think those measures actually are counterproductive for the elites. It really sort of rallies and galvanizes. What we saw at Cornell, I'm not sure what happened with this, but a few weeks ago, they were talking about a student activist who was from West Africa, I believe, and the school Cornell was trying to basically repatriate, have them deported. But I think actions like that tend to work against the elite institutions. I hate to say this because I'm not an advocate of it, although I realize it's sometimes necessary violence seems to work best both for the elites and for the working class. And I'm not advocating that, but I'm just saying that historically it has occurred and it has been used by both sides when any student of France, Nan knows that when social movements allow the state to monopolize violence, you're probably going to lose that fight. And I think honestly speaking, that the state understands that violences can be as most effective weapon. People don't want to die, particularly young people. So it becomes sort of a clash between an irresistible force and an immovable object. Again, that's why I say I can't predict what will happen, but I do think we're on the verge of a very real, some very real social upheaval
Wilmer Leon (00:27:54):
Folks. This is the brilliance of John Jeter, journalist two time Pulitzer Prize finalists. We're talking about his book Class War in America, how the Elites Divide the Nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? As you can see, I have the book, I've read the book, phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal writer. Writer. You write in chapter one, declarations of War. And I love the fact you quote, Sun Tzu, all warfare is based on deception.
Jon Jeter (00:28:24):
That's Right.
Wilmer Leon (00:28:25):
You write on the last day of the first leg of his final trip abroad, his president with Donald Trump waiting in the wings, a subdued Barack Obama waxed poetic on the essence of democracy as he toured the Acropolis in Greece. It's here in Athens that so many of our ideas about democracy, our notions of citizenship, our notions of rule of law began to develop. And then you continue. What was left unsaid in Obama's August soliloquy is that while Greece is typically acknowledged by Western scholars as the cradle of democracy, the country could in fact learn a thing or two about governance from its protege across the pond. What types of things do you see that we still could learn from them since we're being told in this election, democracy is on the ballot and all of those rhetorical tactics? Yeah, a minute, a minute, a minute. Especially in the most recent context of Barack Obama helping to set the stage of a Kamala Harris loss and blaming it on black men.
Jon Jeter (00:29:43):
Yeah, that's exactly what he's doing. He's setting us up to be the scapegoats,
Wilmer Leon (00:29:48):
One of the does my connecting the dots there. Does that make sense?
Jon Jeter (00:29:52):
It makes perfect sense. And one of the themes of this book that I guess I didn't want to hammer home too much because it makes me sound too patriotic, but in one sense, what I'm writing about when I talk about the class war, what I'm writing about is this system of racial capitalism, right? Capitalism. Capitalism is exploited. Racial capitalism pits the workers against each other by creating a super exploited class that would be African-Americans and turning one half of the working class against the other half, or actually in the case of the United States, probably 70% against 30% or something like that. Anyway, but the antidote to racial capitalism is racial solidarity, which is a system of governance in which black men are fit to participate in, because we tend to be black men and black women tend to be the most progressive actors, political actors in the United States, the vanguard of the revolution, really, when we've had revolution in this country, we've been leaders of that revolution. And so what I was really trying to lay out with that first chapter where I talk about this interracial coalition in Virginia in the late 1870s, early 1880s, is that this was a century before South Africa created the Rainbow Nation, right? Nelson Mandela's Rainbow Nation, which didn't produce the results that the United States.
Wilmer Leon (00:31:32):
There was no pot of gold. There was no pot of gold.
Jon Jeter (00:31:34):
Yeah, not so far, we've seen no sight of it. And Brazil hadn't even freed its slaves when this readjust party emerged in Virginia. And so what I'm saying is that this interracial coalition that we saw most prominently in Virginia, but really all across the nation, we saw these interracial coalitions, political coalitions, were all across the Confederacy after the Civil War, and they had varying degrees of success in redistributing wealth from rich to poor, rich to working class. But the point is that no country has really seen such a dynamic interracial rainbow coalition or racial democracy, such as we've seen here in the United States, both in that period after the Civil War, and also in the period between, say, I would say FDRs election as president in 1930, was that 31, 33? 33.
(00:32:36):
So roughly about the time of Ronald Reagan, we saw, of course there was racism. We didn't end racism, but there was this tenuous collaboration between white and black workers that redistributed wealth. So that by 1973, at the height of it, the working class wages accounted for more than half of GDP. Now it's about 58%, I'm sorry, 42% that the workers' wages accountant for GDP. So the point I'm making really is that this racial democracy, this racial democracy has served the working class very well in the United States, and by dissipating that racial democracy, it has served the elites very well. So Barack Obama's plea to black men, which is really quite frankly aimed at white men, telling them, showing them, Hey, I've got the money control. His job is to sort of quell this uprising by black men, and he's trying to tell plea with black men to vote for Kamala Harris, knowing that the Democratic Party, particularly since 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected, has not only done nothing for black men, but in fact has sought to compete for white suburban voters, IE, many of them racist has sought to compete with the GOP for white suburban voters
(00:34:04):
By showing they can be just as hard on black people as the GOP. People think that the 1995, was it 1994, omnibus crime Bill 94, racial 94, the racial disparities were unintended consequences. They weren't unintended at all. They weren't in fact, the point they wanted to show white people, the Democratic Party, bill Clinton, our current president, Joe Biden, and many other whites in Democratic party want to show whites, no, no, no, no. We got these Negroes in check. We can keep them in control just like the GOP can. And that continues to be the unofficial unstated policy today, which is why Kamala Harris says, I'm not going to do anything, especially for black people. It's why, for instance, nothing has changed legislatively since George Floyd was lynched before our eyes four years ago. Absolutely nothing has changed. That's an accent that is by design. So there's some very real connections that could be made. There's a straight line that can be made from the read adjuster party in Virginia in the 1880s, which had some real successes in redistributing wealth from rich to the workers and to the poor. And it was an interracial collaboration to Barack Obama appearing, pleading with black men to come vote for Kamala Harris, despite the fact she's done nothing for black men or for black people.
Wilmer Leon (00:35:31):
And to your earlier point, offering nothing but rhetoric and the opportunity economy where everybody, what in the world is, how does that feed the bulldog? So we've gone from, at least in terms of what they're, I believe, trying to do with black politics. We've gone from a politics of demand. We've gone from a politics of accountability to just a politics of promises and very vague. And this isn't in any way, shape or form trying to convince people that Donald Trump is any better. No, that's not what this conversation is about. But it's about former President Obama coming to a podium and telling black men how admonishing black men, how dare you consider this. But my question is, well, what are the specific policies that Vice President Harris is offering that she can also pass and pay for that are going to benefit the community? Because that's what this is supposed to be about, policy output.
Jon Jeter (00:36:55):
And that's the one thing that's not going to happen until the working class, we, the people decide, and I don't know what the answer's going to be, if it's going to be a third party, if it's going to be us taking control of the Democratic Party at the grassroots level, I don't know what it's going to be. But the philosophical underpinnings of both political parties is black suffering, right? Black suffering is what greases the wheel, the wheel, the political wheel, the economic wheel of the United States, the idea that you can isolate blacks and our suffering. What Reagan did, what Reagan began was a system of punishing blacks in the workplace, shipping those jobs overseas, which Reagan began, and very slowly, Clinton is the one who really picked up the pace,
Wilmer Leon (00:37:44):
The de-industrialization of America.
Jon Jeter (00:37:47):
The de-industrialization of America was based on black suffering. We were the first, was it last hired? First fired. And so we were the ones who lost those jobs initially, and it just snowballed, right? We lost those jobs. And think about when we saw the crack epidemic. Crack is a reflection of crises,
(00:38:12):
Right? Social crises. So we saw this thing snowball, really, right? But you, in their mind, you can isolate the suffering until you can't. What do I mean by that? Well, if you have just a very basic understanding of the economy, you understand that if you rob 13% of your population buying power, you robbed everybody of buying power, right? I mean, who's going to buy your goods and services if we no longer have buying power? We don't have jobs that pay good wages, we have loans that we can't repay. How does that sustain a workable economy? And maybe no one will remember this, but you've probably heard of Henry Ford's policy of $5 a day that was intended to sustain the economy with buying one thing, the one thing
Wilmer Leon (00:39:07):
wait a minute, so that his workers, his assembly line automobile workers could afford to buy the product they were making. There are those who will argue that one of the motivations for ending slavery was the elite looked at the industrialists, looked at this entire population of people and said, these can be consumers. These people are a drag on the economy. If we free them, they can become consumers.
Jon Jeter (00:39:45):
You don't have to be a communist to understand that capitalism at its best. It can work for a long time, for a sustained period of time. It can work very well for a majority of the people. If the consumers have buying power. We don't have that anymore. We're a nation of borrowers.
Wilmer Leon (00:40:07):
It's the greed of the capitalists that makes capitalism consumptive, and there's another, the leviathan, all of that stuff.
Jon Jeter (00:40:19):
Yes. And again, black suffering is at the root of this nation's failure. We have plunged into this dark hole because they sought first to short circuit our income, our resources, but it's affected the entire economy. And the only way to rebuild it, if you want to rebuild a capitalist economy, and that's fine with me, the only way you can rebuild is to restore buying power for a majority of the Americans. As we saw during the forties, the fifties, particularly after the war, we saw this surge in buying power, which created, by the way, the greatest achievement of the industrial age, which was the American middle class. And that was predicated again on racial democracy. Blacks participating in the democracy.
Wilmer Leon (00:41:10):
You mentioned black men and women tended to be incredibly progressive, and that black men and women were the vanguard of the revolution. What then is the problem with so many of our black institutions that, particularly when you look at our HBCUs that make so many of them, anything but progressive,
Jon Jeter (00:41:42):
That's a real theme of the book. This thing called racial capitalism has survived by peeling off more and more people. At first, it was the people who came through Ellis Island, European Central Europeans, Hungarians checks, and I have someone in the book I'm quoting, I think David Roediger, the labor historian, famous labor historian, where he quoted a Serbian immigrant, I think in the early 1900's , saying, the first thing you learn is you don't wanna be, that the blacks don't get a fair chance, meaning that you don't want to be anything like them. You don't want to associate with them. And that was a very powerful thing. That's indoctrination. But they do. They peel off one layer after another. One of the most important chapters in the book, I think was the one that begins with the execution of the Rosenbergs, who were the Rosenbergs. Ethel and Julius Rosenbergs were communists, or at least former communists who probably did, certainly, Julius probably did help to pass nuclear technology to the Soviet Union in the late forties, early fifties.
(00:42:52):
At best. It probably sped up the Russians. Soviet Union's ability to develop the bomb sped up by a year, basically. That's the best that it did. So they had this technology already. Ethel Rosenberg may have typed up the notes. That's all she probably did. And anyway, the state, the government, the US government wanted to make an example out of them. And so they executed them and they executed Ethel Rosenberg. They wanted her to turn against her husband, which would've been turning against her country, her countryman, right? She realized that she wouldn't do it. I can tell you, Ethel Rosenberg was every bit as hard as Tupac. She was a bad woman.
Wilmer Leon (00:43:40):
But was she as hard as biggie?
Jon Jeter (00:43:41):
I dunno, that whole east coast, west coast thing, I dunno. But that was a turning point in the class where, because what it was intended to do, or among the things it was intended to do, was the Jews were coming out the Holocaust. The Jews were probably, no, not probably. They certainly were the greatest ally blacks. Many of the communists who helped the Scotsboro boys in the 1930s, and they were communists. Many of them were Jews, right? It was no question about, because the Jews didn't see themselves as white. Remember, Hitler attacked them because they were non-white because they were communists. That's why he attacked them. And that was certainly true here, where there was a very real collusion between Jewish communists and blacks, and it was meant execution of the Rosenbergs was meant to send a signal to the working class, to the Jewish community, especially. You can continue to eff around with these people if you want right,
Wilmer Leon (00:44:43):
but you'll wind up like em.
Jon Jeter (00:44:44):
Yeah. Yeah. And at the same time, you think right after the Rosenbergs execution, this figure emerged named Milton Friedman, right? Milton Friedman who said, Hey, wait a minute. This whole brown versus Board of Education, you don't have to succumb to that white people. You can send your kids to their own schools or private schools and make the state pay for it. So very calculated move where the Jews became white, basically, not all of them. You still have, and you still have today, as we see with the protest against Israel, the Jewish community is still very progressive as a very progressive wing and are still our allies in a lot of ways. But many of them chose to be white. The same thing has happened ironically, with black people, right? There is a segment of the population that's represented by a former president, Barack Obama, by Kamala Harris, by the entire Congressional black office that has been offered, that has been extended, this sort of olive branch of prosperity.
(00:45:40):
If you help us keep these Negroes down, you can have some of this too. Like the scene in Trading Places where Eddie Murphy is released from jail. He's sitting in the backseat with these two doctors and they're like, well, you can go home if you want to. He's got the cigar and the snifter of cognac, no believe I can hang out with you. Fell a little bit longer, right? That's what you see happening now with a lot of black people, particularly the black elite, where they say, no, I think I can hang out with you a little bit longer. So they've turned against us.
Wilmer Leon (00:46:13):
Port Tom Porter calls that the NER position.
Jon Jeter (00:46:17):
Yes. Yes.
Wilmer Leon (00:46:19):
And for those that may not hear the NER, the near position that Mortimer and what was the other brother's name? i
Jon Jeter (00:46:28):
I Can't remember. I can see their faces,
Wilmer Leon (00:46:30):
Right? That they have been induced and they have been brought into this sense of entitlement because they are near positions of power. And I think a perfect example of that is the latest election in New York and in St. Louis where you've had, where APAC bragged publicly, we're going to invest $100 million into these Democratic primary elections, and we are going to unseat those who we believe to be two progressive anti-Israel and Cori Bush in St. Louis and Bowman, Jamal Bowman in New York were two of the most notable victims of that. And in fact, I was just having this conversation with Tom earlier today, and that is that nobody seemed to complain. I don't remember the Black caucus, anybody in the black caucus coming out. That article came out, I want to say in April of this year, and they did not say a mumbling word about, what do you mean you're about to interfere in our election? But after Cori Bush lost, now she's out there talking about APAC, I'm coming after your village. Hey, home, girl. That's a little bit of aggression, a whole lot too late. You just got knocked out.
(00:48:19):
Just got knocked the F out. You are laying, you are laying on the canvas, the crowd's headed to the exits, and you're looking around screaming, who hit me? Who hit me? Who hit me? That anger should have been on the front end talking about, oh, you all going to put in a hundred million? Well, we going to get a hundred million and one votes. And it should have been exposed. Had it been exposed for what it was, they'd still be in office.
Jon Jeter (00:48:50):
And to that point, and this is very interesting. Now, Jamal Bowman, I talked to some black activists in New York in his district, and they would tell you we never saw, right? We had these press conferences where we're protesting police violence under Mayor Eric Adams, another black
(00:49:11):
Politician, and we never saw him. He didn't anticipate. In fact, one of them says she's with Black Lives Matter, I believe she says, we called him when it was announced that APAC was backing this candidate. He said, what can we do? Said they never heard back. Right? Cori Bush, to her credit, is more from the movement. She was a product of Michael Brown. My guess is she will be back, right? That's my guess. Because she has a lot of support from the grassroots. She probably, if anyone can defeat APAC money as Cori Bush, although she's not perfect either.
Wilmer Leon (00:49:44):
But my point is still, I think she fell into the trap.
Jon Jeter (00:49:51):
No question. No question. No question. No, I don't disagree at all. And that again, is that peeling off another layer to turn them against this radical black? That's what it really is. It's a radical black political tradition that survived slavery. It's still here, right? It's just that they're constantly trying to suppress that.
Wilmer Leon (00:50:10):
And another element of this, and I'm trying to remember the sister that they did this to in Georgia, Congresswoman, wait a minute, hang on. Time out. Cynthia McKinney. The value of having a library, Cynthia McKinney.
(00:50:31):
Most definitely!
(00:50:33):
They did the same thing. How the US creates S*hole countries. Cynthia McKinney, they did the same thing to her. So it's not as though they had developed a new strategy. It's that it worked against Cynthia and they played it again, and we let it happen.
Jon Jeter (00:50:57):
Real democracy can immunize these politicians though, from that kind of strategy.
Wilmer Leon (00:51:01):
Absolutely. Absolutely. In chapter six, the Battle on the Bay, you talk about 1927, you talk about this 47-year-old ironworker, John Norris, who buys this flat, and then the depression hits and he loses everything. You talk about Rose Majeski,
Jon Jeter (00:51:24):
I think I
Wilmer Leon (00:51:26):
Managed to raise her five children. You talk about the Depression. The Harlem Renaissance writer, Langston Hughes wrote, brought everybody down a peg or two, and the Negro had but few pegs to fall. Travis Dempsey lost his job selling to the Chicago defender. Then you talk about a gorgeous summer day, Theodore Goodlow driving a truck and a hayride black people on a hayride, and someone falls victim to a white man running into the hayride. And his name was John Jeter. John with an H. Yours has no H
Jon Jeter (00:52:13):
Legally it does.
Wilmer Leon (00:52:14):
Oh, okay. Okay, okay. All right. Anyway, so you make a personal familiar connection to some of this. Elaborate,
Jon Jeter (00:52:26):
My uncle, who was a teenager at the time, I can't remember exactly how old he played in the Negro Leagues, actually, Negro baseball leagues was on this hayride. And I know the street. I'm very familiar with. The street. Two trucks can't pass one another. It's just too narrow, and it's like an aqueduct. So it's got walls there to keep you. Oh,
(00:52:52):
Viaduct. I'm sorry. Yeah. Not an auc. Yeah, thank you. Public education. So basically what happened is my uncle had his legs sort of out the hayride, like he's a teenager, and this car came along, another truck came along and it sheared his legs off, killed him. I don't think my father ever knew the story. I think my father went to his grave not knowing the story, but we did some research after his death, me and my sister and my brother, my younger brother. And there was almost a riot at the hospital when my uncle died, because the belief, I believe they couldn't quite say it in the black newspaper at the time, but the belief was that this white man had done it intentionally, right? He wasn't charged, and black people were very upset. So it was an act of aggression, very much, very similar to what we see now happening all over the country with these acts of white, of aggression by white men, basically young white men who are angry about feeling they're losing their racial privileges or racial entitlement.
(00:53:52):
So anyway, to make the story short, I was named after my uncle, my father, my mother named me after my uncle, but I think it was 1972. I would've been seven years old. And me and my father were at a farmer's market in Indianapolis where I grew up. And this old man at this time, old man, I mean doting in a brown suit, I'll never forget this in a brown suit. He comes up to us and he just comes up to my father and he holds his hand, shakes his hand, and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And my father's said, no, it's okay. You didn't know. It wasn't your fault. Nobody blamed you. And come to find out that he was the driver of that hay ride, right? I think a dentist at the time, he was the driver of that hayride in which my uncle was killed.
(00:54:38):
And he had felt bad about it, I guess, the rest of his days. So yeah, it's really interesting how my life, or at least the lives of my parents and my grandparents, how it intersects with this story of the class war. And it does in many, many aspects. It does. And I suspect that's true of most people, I hope, who will read the book, that they will find their own lives and their own history intersecting with this class war. Because this class war is comprehensive. It's hard to escape from it. It is all about the class war to paraphrase Fred Hampton. And yeah, that story really kind of moved me in a lot of ways because I had personal history, personal connection.
Wilmer Leon (00:55:25):
You mentioned when you just said that there was almost this riot at the hospital. What a lot of people now today don't realize is how many of those incidents occurred during those times. And we know very little, if anything about 'em, we were raising hell. So for example, you listened to some kids today was, man, if I had to been back there, I wouldn't have been no slaves. I'd have been out there kicking ass and taking names. Well, but implicit in that is a lack of understanding that folks were raising hell, 1898 in Greenwood, South Carolina, one of my great uncles was lynched in the Phoenix Riot. Black people tried to vote, fight breaks out, white guy gets shot, they round up the usual suspects,
Jon Jeter (00:56:23):
Right
Wilmer Leon (00:56:23):
Of whom was my great uncle. Some were lynched, some were shot at the Rehoboth Church in the parking lot of the Rehoboth Church, nonetheless. And that was the week before the more famous Wilmington riot. It was one week before the Wilmington Riot. And you've got the dcom lunch counters. And I mean, all of these history is replete with all of these stories of our resistance. And somehow now we've lost the near position. We've lost. We've lost that fight.
Jon Jeter (00:57:02):
We don't understand, and I mean this about all of us, but particularly African Americans, we don't understand. We once were warriors. And so one of the things I talk about in the book I write about in the book is the red summer of 1919. Many people are familiar with 1919, the purges that were going on. Basically this industrial upheaval. And the white elites were afraid that blacks were going to sort of lead this union labor organizing movement. And so there were these riots all across the country of whites attacking blacks. But what people don't understand is that the brothers, back then, many of them who had participated in World War, they were like Fred Hampton, it takes two to tango, right? And they were shooting back. And in fact, to end that thought, some of these riots, which weren't really riots, they were meant to be massacre, some of these, they had scouts who went into the black community to see almost to see their vulnerability. And a few times the White Scouts came back and said, no, we don't wanna go in there. We better leave them alone.
Wilmer Leon (00:58:12):
I was looking over here on my bookcase, got, oh, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Red summer, the summer of 1919, and the Awakening of Black America. Yeah, yeah.
Jon Jeter (00:58:24):
I've got that book. I've got that same book. Yep.
Wilmer Leon (00:58:26):
Okay, so I've got a couple others here. Death in the Promised Land, the Tulsa Race Riot in 1921, and see what a lot of people don't know about Tulsa is after the alleged encounter in the elevator
Jon Jeter (00:58:44):
Elevator, right!
Wilmer Leon (00:58:45):
Right? That young man went home, went to the community, went back to, and when the folks came in, the community, they didn't just sit idly by and let this deal go down. That's why, one of the reasons why I believe, I think I have this right, that it got to the tension that it did because it just came an all out fight.
Jon Jeter (00:59:12):
Oh yeah, Oh yeah!
Wilmer Leon (00:59:12):
We fought back
Jon Jeter (00:59:14):
tooth and nail.
Wilmer Leon (00:59:16):
We fought back,
Jon Jeter (00:59:16):
Tooth and nail. Yeah, no, definitely.
Wilmer Leon (00:59:18):
We fought back. So Brother John Jeter, when someone is done reading class War in America, how the elites divided the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? And I'm reading it backwards anyway, what are the three major points that you want someone to take away from reading? And folks I've read it, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal. In fact, before you answer that question, let me give this plug. I suggest that usually when I recommend a book, I try to recommend a compliment to it. And I would suggest that people get John Jeter class war in America and then get Dr. Ronald Walters "White Nationalism, Black Interests."
Jon Jeter (01:00:13):
Oh yeah.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:14):
And read those two, I Think.
Jon Jeter (01:00:18):
Oh, I love that. I love being compared to Ron Walters, the great Ron Walters,
Wilmer Leon (01:00:23):
And I would not be where I am and who I am. He played a tremendous role in Dr. Wilmer Leon. I have a PhD because of him.
Jon Jeter (01:00:33):
He is a great man. I interviewed him a few times.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:36):
Yeah, few. So while you're answering that question, I'm going to, so what are the two or three things that you want the reader to walk away from this book having a better understanding of?
Jon Jeter (01:00:47):
Well, we almost end where we begin. The first thing is Fred Hampton. It is a class war gda is what he said, right? It's a class war. But that does not mean that you can put class above race if you really want to understand the battle, the fight,
Wilmer Leon (01:01:09):
Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Lemme interrupt you. There was a question I wanted to ask you, and I forgot. Thomas Sowell, the economist Thomas Sowell. And just quickly, because to your point about putting class above race, I wanted to get to the Thomas Sowell point, and I almost forgot it. So in your exposition here, work Thomas, Sowell into your answer.
Jon Jeter (01:01:30):
Yeah, Thomas. Sowell, and I think a lot of people, particularly now you see with these young, mostly white liberals, although some blacks like Adolf Reed, the political scientists, Adolf Reed posit that it's class above race, that the issues racial and antagonisms should be subordinate to the class issue. Overall, universal ideas and programs, I would argue you can't parse one from the other, that they are connected in a way that you can't separate them. That yes, it is a class issue, but they've used race to weaken the working class to pit it against the itself. So you can't really parse the two and understand the battle that we have in front of us. The other thing I would say too, because like the Panthers would say, I hate the oppressor. I don't hate white people. And it really is a white identity. But as George Jackson said, and I quote him in the book, white racism is the biggest barrier to a united left in United States. That which is true when he wrote it more than 50 years ago,
(01:02:43):
It was true 50 years before that is true today. It is white racism. That is the problem. And once whites can, as we see happening, we do see it happening with these young, many of them Jewish, but really whites of all from all walks of life are forfeiting their racial privileges to rally, to advocate for the Palestinians. So that's a very good sign that something is stirring within our community. And the third thing I would say is, I'm not optimistic, right? Because optimism is dangerous. Something Barack Obama should have learned talking about the audacity of hope, he meant optimism and optimism is not what you need. But I do think there's reason for hope, these young students on the college campuses who are rallying the, I think the very real existential threat posed to the duopoly by the Democratic Party, by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's complicity in this genocide. I think there's a very real possibility that the duopoly is facing an existential threat. People are understanding that the enemy is, our political class, is our elite political class that is responsible for this genocide that we are seeing in real time.
(01:04:03):
That's Never happened before. So I would say the three things, it is a class for white racism is the biggest barrier to a united left or a united working class in this country. And third, there is reason to hope that we might be able to reorganize. And in fact, history suggests that we will organize very soon, reorganize very soon. There might be a dark period in between that, but that we will reorganize. And that this time, I hope we understand that we need to fight against this white racism, which unfortunately, whites give up that privilege. History has shown whites give up that privilege of being white, work with us, collaborate with us. But they return, as we saw beginning with Ronald Reagan, they return to this idea of a white identity, which is really a scab.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:50):
Well, in fact, Dr. King told us in where we go from here, chaos or community, he said, be wary of the white liberal. He said, because they are opposed to the brutality of the lash, but they do not support equality. That was from where we go from here, folks. John Jeter class War in America, how the elites divide the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? After you read that, then get white nationalism, black interests, conservative public policy in the black community by my mentor, Dr. The late great Dr. Ronald Walters, and I mentioned the Dockum drugstore protests. He was Dr. Ron Walters was considered to be the grandfather of,
Jon Jeter (01:05:40):
I didn't know that
Wilmer Leon (01:05:41):
of the sit-in movement.
Jon Jeter (01:05:42):
Did not know
(01:05:43):
The Dockum lunch counter protests in Wichita, Kansas. He helped to organize before the folks in North Carolina took their lead from the lunch counter protest that he helped.
(01:06:01):
I did not know that.
Wilmer Leon (01:06:02):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Jon Jeter (01:06:03):
I did not know that.
Wilmer Leon (01:06:04):
Alright, so now even I taught John Jeter something today. Now. Now that's a day. That's a day for you. John Jeter, my dear brother. I got to thank you as always for joining me today.
Jon Jeter (01:06:16):
Thank you, brother. It's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure.
Wilmer Leon (01:06:19):
Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon, and stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe, lie a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You'll find all the links to the show below in the description. And remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter. And we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. And folks, get this book. Get this book for the holidays. Get this book. Did I say get the book? Because you need to get the book. We don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you all again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Y'all have a great one. Peace. I'm out
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The Real Impact of U.S. Foreign Policy: Connecting the Global Dots
10 Oct· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
In this episode of Connecting the Dots, I dive into how U.S. foreign policy impacts major conflicts in Ukraine, China, and the Middle East. Rather than simply telling you what to think, my goal is to provide context and analysis so you can form your own conclusions about these complex issues.
We’ll look at the roots of the Ukraine conflict, the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, and how these events ripple across Europe. I also examine U.S. military aid to Israel and its implications for the Gaza conflict, touching on questions of international law and diplomacy.
Additionally, I explore the effects of significant events, like the deaths of Hassan Nasrallah and Qasem Soleimani, and what they mean for long-term stability in the region. Join me as I connect the dots and invite you to critically assess how U.S. policy shapes the global landscape today.
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Wilmer Leon (00:01):
Hey folks. Look, when you understand what's happening in Ukraine, when you understand what's happening in China as it relates to the United States trying to start a war with China over Taiwan, when you look at the latest developments the Middle East, you have to ask yourself this. And has President Biden become a victim of his own rhetoric? Has he fallen into his own trap? Let's talk about this,
Announcer (00:41):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:49):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which they take place. So today, looking at Ukraine, looking at China, looking what's happening in the Middle East, I decided that I would just take a few minutes and just give you some extemporaneous just off the top of the head kind of stuff. No guests on this segment. Y'all are just stuck with me. So let's start here. In his last address to the United Nations as President Joe Biden said, I recognize the challenges from Ukraine and Gaza to Sudan and beyond. War, hunger, terrorism brutality, record displacement of people, a climate crisis, democracy at risk, strains within our societies, the promise of artificial intelligence and its significant risks. The list goes on.
(02:00):
Well, when you start to unpack that knapsack, when you really pay attention to the list of things, the litany of conflicts and tensions that Joe Biden just articulated, you have to ask yourself this. He mentions Ukraine, who started the conflict in Ukraine? Why did it start? Well, it started in 2014, during the Obama administration went with what was known as the Maidan Coup. The United States went in. In 2014, Victoria Newland led the effort overthrew the democratically elected government of Victor Jankovich, and installed a Nazi based Ukrainian nationalist government led by the current President, Volodymyr Zelensky. It escalated during the Biden administration and it has become a full-blown military conflict that President Biden refuses to settle. In fact, one of the most recent speeches given by Vice President Harris talking about the Ukraine, she said, the Russian proposal is not a peace deal. It is not a settlement.
(03:30):
She said, it is a surrender. Well, if you look at the data, it is a surrender because the Ukraine has lost, they hardly have any artillery shells left. Just about all of their tanks have been blown to smithereens. The F-16's that they've just received, some of them were blown up before they even made it off the runway. And you have US generals saying that the F sixteens that the United States and NATO sent are no match for the Russian Air Force. Their army is totally depleted. They've had to go to their prisons, empty their prisons, and send prisoners to the front. They have what are called press gangs that are scouring the Ukrainian countryside kidnapping men of age, sending them to the front.
(04:35):
It's over, it's over. The fat lady just ain't sung yet. That's really what you're looking at in Ukraine. It's over, but they just haven't blown the whistle. So yeah, it's going to be a surrender. You might as well, you might as well fire up the USS Missouri resurrect Emperor Hirohito from World War II and have Ukraine surrender the same way Japan had to because that's the way this has gone. September 26th, 2022, a series of underwater explosions and consequent gas leaks occurred on three or four pipelines of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea. This occurred during and based upon the Sy Hersh reporting tells us that this was conducted during the Biden administration. The Biden administration blew up three of the four pipelines of the Nord Stream pipeline, which provided natural gas from Russia to Germany and Germany was the distribution point for low cost natural gas throughout Europe.
(05:59):
And since 2022, what has happened to the economy of Germany and what has happened to other economies of European countries? They've been decimated because they now are forced to buy natural gas from the United States because the United States blew up their pipeline cutting off their access to Russian natural gas. Why? Because if you remember, when the Ukraine conflict started, president Biden told us what we're going to turn the rubble into rubble. Y'all remember that We're going to turn the ruble into rubble. Has that happened? Not at all. In fact, the rubble, the rubble, the ruble, which is the currency in Russia, is now one of the most stable currencies in the world. The Russian economy is in the top five economies in the world. Why? Because the United States was not able to bring about regime change in Russia through the Ukraine conflict. The United States was not able through its sanctions regime to bring about crippling sanctions on the Russian economy.
(07:18):
They have been able to find workarounds, and they have been able to continue to engage in international business all around the world. Look at the BRIC's meeting that's about to take place in Russia. You've got China. Well, the BRIC's, the acronym for what? For Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And now you have a number of other countries that are joining this economic cooperative, and they are finding workarounds around the sanctions that the United States is imposing on all of these countries. In terms of Gaza, who's funding the genocide in Gaza, the Biden administration, of course, president Biden in May of 2024 said, he said what he would halt some of the shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged had been used to kill civilians in Gaza. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a major invasion in the city of Rafa, well, Netanyahu did it. Biden did not honor his word. He still sent those weapons to Israel. And what do we find now?
(08:47):
$8.7 billion on their way of weapons and military aid are now on their way to Israel. Citizens have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of the bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers. Biden said this on CNN to Aaron Burnett back in May of 2024, civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they Israel go after population centers. He said that to CNN, and he still sends weapons to Gaza. He said, I made it clear that if they go into Rafa, and they haven't gone into Rafa yet, if they go into Rafa, this was May of 2024. I'm not supplying the weapons. They've been used historically to deal with Rafa to deal with the cities that deal with that problem. Where are we now? Four months later, Israel said in September, it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support its ongoing military efforts and to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region.
(10:20):
Folks for the United States to send military weapons into Israel violates international law. It violates American law. It violates the Arms Export Control Act. It violates American law for the United States government to send weapons to countries that are in the midst of oppressing their own people. Look up the arms. Export Control Act. $8.7 billion of your hard earned tax dollars are being sent to Israel to support genocide. This package includes three and a half billion dollars for essential wartime procurement, what they call essential wartime procurement, which has already been received and earmarked for critical military purchases. What does that mean? Well, in common parlance, we'd call that a money laundering scheme. So the United States sends $8.7 billion or earmarks or tags or identifies $8.7 billion for Israel for military weaponry. And what then happens? Well, that money goes to Lockheed Martin, that money goes to Boeing, that money goes to Raytheon.
(11:52):
That money goes to what Dwight Eisenhower told us in his 1959 farewell address to the American people, the military industrial complex. So the United States Funds genocide is backing the extermination, the elimination, the removal of innocent Palestinian people while American arms manufacturers make billions and billions of dollars. Oh, and by the bye, president Biden also said he's sending another $8 billion to Ukraine. So that's 8 billion to Ukraine. That's 8.7 to Israel. That's $16.7 billion, and they're sending almost 600 million to Taiwan. That's $17 billion in just one month that the United States is sending for militarism and the United States isn't being attacked. We're not under threat.
(13:17):
8 billion to Ukraine. Ukraine is the proxy of the United States. The Ukraine is the proxy of NATO. Volodymyr Zelinsky, the president of Ukraine, he tried to negotiate a settlement with Vladimir Putin in April of 2022, right after two months after the damn thing started. And right as they were reaching an agreement, the United States had the former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, go to Ukraine and tell Zelensky, under no circumstances is the West going to accept a peace deal with Russia. Go figure. And now Kamala Harris says, oh, we won't tolerate this proposed peace plan because the peace plan is surrender. You had the opportunity in 2022 to bring a peaceful resolution to the conflict that you started, but you ignored it. You ignored it. Your hubris got in the way. Your ego got in the way. You were blinded by your ego to the realities that were right before you on the ground, and you ignored the opportunity. And now what has Russia done? They just keep saying, y'all want to drag this out? We'll keep fighting. When we keep fighting, we keep taking territory, and when we take territory, we don't give it back.
(15:08):
So yeah, it's going to be surrender. It's going to be surrender. The question simply becomes, how much of an ass whooping do you want to take? So now back to the Middle East. According to Middle East Eye on September 27th, Israeli fighters, they carried out a series of massive airstrikes on Beirut southern suburbs in what appeared to be the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capitol. Since the 2006 war, at least 10 explosions rocked the capitol's southern suburbs, a densely populated area, colloquially known as Dahiyeh, with large clouds of blacksmith rising over the city. The result of that attack, Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nala, was assassinated.
(16:08):
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was assassinated by the way, in violation of international law. Aaron Mate wrote one week after Israel began its US back campaign in a rampage in Gaza last October, Biden was asked by CBS news if fueling a Middle East conflict on top of the proxy war in Ukraine was more than the United States could take on at the same time. Basically, Hey, you're fighting wars on multiple fronts, and anybody that understands military history will tell you the more fronts you open up. This is my commentary, not mate, the more fronts you open up, the bigger problems you're going to have. What was Biden's answer to that question about is the United States taking on more than it can manage at the same time? No, Biden said, and he was incredibly indignant when he said it, we're the United States of America, for God's sake, the most powerful nation in the history, not in the world, in the history of the world. Not only does the US have the capacity to do this, Biden said, we have an obligation. We are the essential nation. And if we don't, who does?
(17:38):
Joe, you're reading your own press clippings, Joe, you're caught up in your own rhetoric, Joe. You've fallen victim of your own trap. It had overlooked comment. Biden gave his blessing not only to an Israel scorched earth campaign in Gaza, but Lebanon as well for Israel. Biden said, going in and taking out the extremists in Hezbollah up north along with Hamas down south is a necessary requirement. But what you got to understand, when you look at Hamas in the South, when you look at Hezbollah in the North, when you look at Ansar, Allah in Yemen, when you look at Iran, these are the forces of resistance.
(18:43):
They are resisting the occupation of historic Palestine. This isn't anti-Semitic rhetoric, it's fact. There's a reason why that area is referred to as the occupied territories. They don't use that language a lot in today's parlance because the West has now clearly come to understand that that narrative, that language contradicts the narrative that they're trying to present. But there's a reason why in the international criminal court, in the international Court of justice, in all kind of parliaments, in all kind of countries all over the world, they're referred to as the occupied territories. Who is the occupier? The Zionist government of Israel? Who is the occupied the Palestinians international law tells us? So when Vice President Harris steps to the podium at the DNC convention and says, Israel has the right to defend itself, nay, that's not true. When Joe Biden steps to the podium and says, at the un, Israel has the right to defend itself. That's not true. When Netanyahu steps to the podium and says, Israel has the right to defend itself, that's not true because international law is very clear. The UN is very clear.
(20:53):
The occupier, in this case, the Zionist government of Israel, does not have the right to defend itself against the interaction or the response by the occupied. In this instance, the Palestinians international law is, here's a very simple analogy. I can't walk into your house armed or unarmed, but I can't walk into your house armed, threaten you and your family, have you resist my aggression? And then I claim self-defense. I can't do it. It won't pass the laugh test. It won't pass the giggle test. It won't pass the smell test. I can't do that. I cannot walk into your home, take over your home, have you resist my aggression, shoot you in the process, and then claim I was defending myself. It's the same thing that's going on right now in the occupied territories.
(22:25):
So this isn't me being pouring haterade on Vice President Harris or Joe Biden. No, this is just the facts. So getting back to the recent assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, they reportedly used 2000 pound bunker busting bombs supplied by the United States in the attack that in the assassination of Hassan Raah, they leveled several apartment buildings. They killed dozens of people. I mean scores with others still being believed, trapped in a rubble, which means you're going to have, they leveled a whole damn neighborhood. They leveled a neighborhood to kill one guy.
(23:27):
And here is an incredibly interesting revelation to all of this. The Lebanese foreign minister now says that Hassanah Raah agreed to a ceasefire, a 21 day ceasefire right before the IDF assassinated him. Abdullah Habib, the Lebanese foreign minister says, Naah agreed to the US and French proposal for a 21 day ceasefire. He said that to on CNN to Christian Yama aur. They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed to this. And so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that. And you know what happened after that? They assassinated the man. So let's trace this back. If the reporting is true, and I believe that it is Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah was ready to accept the proposed ceasefire, which by the way, the US via Vice President Kamala Harris and a number of others, president Biden claim that they're desperately working on a ceasefire. You've heard him say this, we are desperately working on a ceasefire. We are desperately working on a ceasefire. We're doing everything in our power to come up with a ceasefire. So the US and France propose to Hezbollah a 21 day ceasefire.
(25:38):
Nasra says, okay, not only will there be a ceasefire in Lebanon, as in between Lebanon and the Zionist colony of it, settler colony of Israel, that ceasefire also has to apply to Gaza as well. There will be a cessation of violence across the landscape because after all, why is Hezbollah fighting the IDF in defense of Hamas, in defense of the Palestinians? Why is Ansara Allah in Yemen sending missiles into Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel? Why is Ansara Allah, why have they shut down the Red Sea and not allowing Israeli flagged or ships that are delivering goods or receiving goods from Israel from the Zionist colony to transit the Red Sea in support of the Palestinians? So you can't have a ceasefire with Lebanon and not with Palestine. That wouldn't make any sense.
(27:07):
So the story is Hassan Nasrallah was told Netanyahu has agreed the United States and France, everybody's in sync. We can now work towards the ceasefire 21 day ceasefire. And what happens? They assassinate it. And this is what Netanyahu said at the un, his words last week, knowing he said this, knowing that they were going to assassinate the man to speak for my country to speak for the truth. And here's the truth. Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again. Yet we face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against them.
(28:17):
That's what he said last week at the un. Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. If that is true, then why did you assassinate the guy you were negotiating with for peace after you had received the message that he agreed to your proposal? Yet we face savage enemies. So you are negotiating for a peace deal. You're on the verge of accomplishing a ceasefire, which can then get you to a peace deal, and you assassinate the guy you're negotiating with, who's the savage Bebe, you or them, and you claim that these savages seek your annihilation. Oh, show me evidence where they have been the aggressor. And please don't give me this noxious BS about October 7th because this conflict did not start on the 7th of October of 2023. That's just revisionist history. This conflict started damn near 80 years ago. October 7th was just the latest iteration of the Palestinians saying enough. October 7th was just the latest iteration of the Palestinians defending themselves.
(30:22):
And I go back to international law. The oppressed have the right to resist oppression and the oppressor through any means at their disposal. So please, Kamala Harris, don't tell me that this started October 7th. Please, governor Waltz, don't say at the vice presidential debate that this started on October 7th. Spare me of that bs. Spare me of that revisionist history because you're lying. And I say you're lying because you're wrong. You know you're wrong, and you are intentionally perpetrating a lie. So I ask Netanyahu again, who, by the way, his real name, his family name, his grandfather's name before his grandfather immigrated from Poland to Palestine was Milikowsky His family name is not Netanyahu. The family name is Milikowski.
(31:40):
They're Polish. They're European. They're not Arab. Remember, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew with skin of burnt bronze and hair of lambs wool, kind of like this. They weren't Polish, they weren't French, they weren't Russian. They're Palestinian. That's why it's called the occupied territory. Again, I digress. Nasrallah was ready to accept the proposed ceasefire and the US and Israel assassinated him. Go back to this past July. Hamas' top political leader, Ishmael Heah, was assassinated in Tehran. He was attending the installation of the Iranian president who was Ishmael Haniyeh. He was not a terrorist. He was not a military leader. He was the head of the political wing of Hamas. Understand Hamas has basically two factions. They have a military faction and they have a political faction. They started as a political group, but only when they were compelled to develop a military response to the genocide and oppression that the Zionist government of Israel was imposing upon them in the West Bank. And in that concentration camp called Gaza, did they develop a military response. But Ishmael was not part of the, he was a negotiator.
(33:43):
He was in the process of negotiating a ceasefire slash peace deal with Israel and the United States. And what did they do? Assassinated him. They assassinated the man. But Netanyahu stands before the world at the United Nations and says, he's speaking for truth. Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. That's what he said. Who's the savage? Joe Biden, who's the savage? BB Netanyahu. BB Milowski. Nasrallah was ready to accept a ceasefire. You assassinated him. Haniyeh was negotiating a ceasefire. You assassinated him. Let's switch gears. January 3rd, 2020. Remember General Soleimani, Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian major general who was assassinated by an American drone strike near Baghdad international airport in Iraq. Donald Trump pushed the button on Soleimani.
(35:14):
Why was Qassem Soleimani in Iraq? He had been lured there under the false pretense of a peace negotiation. The Saudis trying to make peace with the Iranians. You've got Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia. You've got Shia Muslims in Iran trying to find peace between the two. He General Soleimani was brought to Iraq under the pretext of bringing letters of negotiation between the two governments. False pretense. It was a lie. He was there on a peace mission and was assassinated. I'm connecting some dots here, folks. Are you starting to see the picture? I'm connecting some dots here, folks. Are you starting to see the picture?
(36:39):
Why is this going on? Oh, by the way, so Soleimani goes to Iraq. They assassinate him under the pretense of a peace deal. China steps in. And what does China do? China brokers a peace deal between who? The Saudis and Iran. So months later, the deal does get done. Even though Soleimani was assassinated, Donald Trump pushed the button on him at the behest of the Zionist government of Israel. But Netanyahu Millikowski wants to stand before you stand before the world and say, Israel yearns for peace, but these savages seek our annihilation. I ask again, Bebe, who's the savage? Joe Biden, who's the savage? Y'all tell me.
(37:55):
So what do we have? Well, at least in terms of the Middle East, we have Iran responds to the assassination of Haniyeh and a number of other incursions aggressions that they have been incredibly measured and incredibly calculating. And so they send some missiles into Israel, but they were very, very careful. They selected military targets, and most of the military targets that they selected were the targets that were either a, well, primarily, I won't even go to a, and let me just say they were responsible for the assassination of keeping these names in my head is a bit challenging of Hassan Nasrallah. So they decimated some F-35's at an Air Force base in near Tel Aviv.
(39:23):
They didn't strike any civilian centers, even though Israel has strategically placed a lot of its military, its intelligence operations and whatnot in densely populated civilian spaces. See, they're not like Israel. Israel blows up a whole damn neighborhood with 2000 pound bunker busting bombs. Israel didn't do that. They could have done that. They didn't. And they were very clear in explaining why, because they said, we aren't going to attack civilians. Also, the Holy Quran guides them in their tactics for war. They are guided as Muslims. They are guided by the Quran in terms of what is allowable in war and what is not. That is why, for example, they haven't developed a nuclear program because in their mind, by their belief, too many innocent people will be affected by the action. And when they get into a it kind of eye for an eye kind of deal, when they get into a conflict, they deal with those involved in the conflict. They don't have this idea of collateral damage. They don't sit back and calculate, well, our enemy is here, our target is here, and there are so many civilians in on the periphery, and we have an acceptable number of those that we can exterminate and still call it fair. They don't operate like that.
(41:22):
Their guide, the Holy Quran dictates how conflict will be managed. So that's why, for example, they sent a message to Iran and said, we are about to strike. They let 'em know they didn't have to do that. They let 'em know. See, people are making a huge mistake by confusing restraint with fear, whether it's Russia, whether it's China, whether it is Iran, because they have been so measured in their responses. They haven't just gone all out blast because that's not their tactic, that's not their way. They have a different understanding of time and what Dr. King called the moral arc of history, because their cultures are thousands of years old, unlike the United States. That's the new kid on the block.
(42:30):
So they have a totally different concept of time. So the adage, you have the watches, but we have the time. So they're not going to be baited into a knee jerk reaction to an attack. They're going to sit back, step back, evaluate the landscape, and then they retaliate on their terms, on their timeline through their methods. And that's why, for example, when I think it was when Hania was assassinated, the United States went to Iran and said, don't retaliate, don't respond. And Iran told Joe Biden, no, no, no, no, no, no, Joe, we got to respond to this. But understand, here's what we will do. And this is what they said. Here's what we will do. We will strike military targets. We won't strike civilian targets. And the military targets that we select will be those targets that we're responsible for engaging and planning the action that we are responding to. And here's the key that you all need to understand. They also said, Joe, once we respond, we will consider the matter settled.
(44:04):
Once we respond, once we retaliate, we will consider the matter settled unless you or them engage in further action. If you do that, then we are going to have to handle that business. We're going to have to do what we got to do. So they are, and I'm I'm speaking about the resistance in general. They are incredibly measured because not only do they have tactics, they have strategy. See what you see playing out from the Israeli side. There's no strategy here. There's no strategy, there's no plan. There's no long-term methodological. I think that's proper pronunciation plan.
(45:08):
They're just out there shooting first and asking questions later. They have tactics, but no strategy. So that takes you to the adage, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. I mean, they know Annihilation, they know genocide is what they're after. But in terms of a planned, calculated strategy doesn't exist. That's why it's so hard for people to make sense out of what's happening. People keep going, what the hell are they doing? Why are they doing this? You don't know. They don't know. You don't know. They don't know. So look, that's kind of where we are now.
(46:11):
Israel is talking about, oh, the response is going to be horrific. Oh, the response is we are going to have a ground invasion into Lebanon. Well, they tried that and they're getting their butts kicked. They got their butts kicked. Israel got their butts kicked the last time they tried it in 2006. Israel tried to go into Lebanon in 2006, got their asses handed to 'em, and Hezbollah has only gotten stronger and smarter and even more determined if that is possible. I remember when George W. was getting ready to go into Iraq and Minister Farrakhan, and I guess I'll end with this. And Minister Farrakhan was trying to convince America that this was going to be a fool's errand. In fact, he called it the precipitant of greater tragedies to come. And one thing that he said to George W. in an open speech and letter, he said, you can't win this with your technology.
(47:45):
He said, the first week you got this, he says, your technology and your missiles. He said, the first week you got it, he said, but eventually you're going to have to bring your soldiers in here. And when you do that, they got something for you. He said, because you've never fought a soldier with the heart of a Muslim. He said, you're fighting God in a man. And so when you look at what the resistance is all about, when you look at what Hamas is all about, when you look at what Hezbollah is all about, when you look at what Ansar Allah is all about, do you know what anah means?
(48:45):
Servants of God. Would did Minister Farrakhan say you're fighting God in a man? That's not rhetoric. That's not rhetoric. My very rough limited understanding Ansar Allah means, and these are the folks in Yemen. You all know him as the Houthis servants of God. And where did that come from? When the prophet Muhammad may peace be upon him was in that region in what is now Yemen. There were a group of people that assisted him and protected him during his travels in, what were they called? Ansar Allah. So they have a history, long history of being anah servants of God. So when you have a people that have taken on that identity, this is who we are, this is what we do, you put them up against a group of 18, 19, 20-year-old Israelis that have been conscripted into military service because they are obligated by law to serve three or four years in the military. And so really all they're trying to do is get the hell out of town alive so that they can check that mark off of the list and say, okay, I did what I was supposed to do. I served my country. You put them kids up against these folks.
(50:42):
Sad day in Mudville, boys and girls. So I can tell you, when Casey came to bat, it was a sad day in Mudville. So hey folks, look, I thank you all for listening to my rant. Take some time, research what I've said, because what you'll find, I'm telling you all the truth. Thank you all for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Please follow and subscribe, leave a review, share the show, follow me on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. I'll tell you this. I ain't joking. I ain't playing. I'm just saying, Hey, see you allall again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
Announcer (51:53):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Mossad’s Deadly Plot: Espionage, Terrorism, and the Global Fallout
3 Oct· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
n this hard-hitting episode of Connecting the Dots, I reveal the shocking truth behind Israel’s Mossad planting deadly devices in pagers ordered by Hezbollah. Joined by lawyer and journalist Dimitry Lascaris, we expose the dangerous global implications—this isn’t just espionage, it’s terrorism and a war crime, all ignored by Western media.
We uncover the sinister connections between Zionist ideology, Christian nationalism, and neoliberal politics, showing how civilians are left to suffer while world powers look the other way. Our political system is failing, and bold, principled leadership is more urgent than ever. Don’t miss this eye-opening truth they don’t want you to know.
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Wilmer Leon (00:00):
Reuters reports. Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside as many as 5,000. Taiwan made pagers ordered by the Lebanese group Hezbollah months before they were detonated. Is anyone safe? Let's talk.
Announcer (00:27):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:34):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which most of these events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events in the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is, as I said earlier, is anyone safe? Israel's consumer tech terrorism across Lebanon signals a terrifying new threat raising urgent concerns about the security of international supply chains and the growing insecurity of civilians worldwide. For insight into this, let's turn to my guest. He's a lawyer and journalist. He's based in Montreal, Canada and Kalama Greece. In fact, he joins us from Ada Greece. Dimitry Lascaris, Dmitri, welcome to the show.
Dimitry Lascaris (01:48):
Thank you, Wilmer. It's a pleasure to be here.
Wilmer Leon (01:51):
So I thought that this most recent act of terrorism in a spate of acts of terrorism would be a great place to start the conversation. The cradle reports that this brutal attack should serve as a dire warning to the world. A stark reminder that the occupation states criminal actions, no, no limits indiscriminately targeting those who challenge its interest or those of its Western allies. Dmitri, your thoughts?
Dimitry Lascaris (02:24):
Well, for really decades, but particularly the last 11 months, the West and particularly the major Western powers, the governments of the United States, Britain, Germany, and France, have sent an unequivocal message to Israel. And that message is you can do whatever you want. There's no red line From our perspective, we will continue to shovel weapons your way, even if that involves the depletion of our own weapon stocks. We will continue to exercise vetoes or abstentions at United Nations. We will continue to repeat your lies and support you rhetorically and from a propagandistic perspective. We'll continue to give you trade benefits under free trade agreements. So-called free trade agreements between our countries and yours. We will not impose any sanctions on you, even though we've imposed sanctions on states that were far less violative of international law and human rights than you. That's the message. They got the message very loudly and clearly, and I fear, I hope I'm wrong, Wilmer, I really do.
(03:31):
But I fear that this pager, walkie talkie terrorist attack is just a harbinger of things to come. Who knows what dirty, nasty, terroristic tricks Israel has up its sleeve, and it is not used up until this point in time because frankly before the genocide began in Gaza, there was some restraint being imposed upon Israel. It wasn't much, but there was some, so occasionally you would get leaders of the United States or other western countries signaling to Israel that their appetite for the depravity of this genocidal regime was not unlimited, but that's gone away now. And so everything that Israel is capable of doing from the perspective of violence, terror, oppression, we are now going to see it's all going to come out. And I think that this is just an indication of what is coming. What we saw in Lebanon last week, and it was as the former head of the CIA Leon Panetta said to a national audience on CBS last week, it was unquestionably a form of terrorism.
Wilmer Leon (04:38):
When someone in the position and former positions such as Leon Panetta makes a statement like that, what does that signal to you? Former head of the CIA, he's from the Clinton camp and advisors advisor Conti to the biggest and the best, and I put that in quotes. What does that signal to you? He definitely went off script on that one.
Dimitry Lascaris (05:16):
Yeah, I don't think that Leon Panetta has had a come to Jesus moment. I think he's still the self-interested war monger,
(05:27):
Neoliberal that he always was. So when I saw this statement, which was startling, it was quite something to see the former head of the CIA. And by the way, this was not surprisingly, I guess picked up by the Israeli press. The Times of Israel had an article yesterday which was expressing its chagrin that Leon Panetta said this. So what's going on here? I can only hazard a guess Wilmer because I'm not in the man's mind and nor do I have any desire to be. But the first thing that popped into my head was this guy has some connection to a major technology company, and he's doing this because his boss or his benefactors in the technology industry are alarmed. They're alarmed about the fact that their business model is being threatened by Israel's latest technological terrorist gimmick. And sure enough, I didn't know this before I learned of the Panetta statement to CBS, but I discovered that he is on the board of Oracle, one of the most important, significant, powerful and influential technology companies in the world based in the United States.
(06:30):
Of course, whether this is influencing him, I can't say for sure, but the best guess that I can hazard based on the limited information available to me is that his colleagues in the technology industry are very upset about this and so should they be. If they're not, they aren't nearly the wizards and geniuses that they claim to be. If I were in their position, I'd be saying already the public has serious doubts. Thanks, for example, to the heroic revelations from Edward Snowden about the devices we sell to them, the technologies we sell to them, they already suspecting that this is a means whereby we can engage in mass surveillance, destroy their privacy, but never before have they thought that these devices that we sell to them are potentially bombs that could blind them, dismember them, kill them, or their children. Now everybody, any rational human being out there who knows about this terrorist attack has that thought in their mind, and that is a serious threat to the profitability of the Western technology industry.
Wilmer Leon (07:40):
One of the things that really, I use the word surprise, but I use it guardedly, is how little follow up there has been with Western media in terms of how horrific these actions by Israel have been. I remember reading a story, I think the young girl's name was Fatima, she was maybe five or six years old. Her father's pager was on the kitchen table. The pager goes off, she picks up the pager to take it to her father, and before she can get to him, the pager explodes. And I think the story said blowing off half of her face. And this happened all over Lebanon and it was reported on, but the context in which it was reported on was solely, solely lacking.
Dimitry Lascaris (08:38):
I am going to plug two outlets right now, and I want be clear before I do that, that I have absolutely no connection to them. None whatsoever. And they are two telegram channels. One of them is called the Military Media Channel and the other is called the Resistance News Network. These were brought to my attention a few months ago by people in Lebanon who are sympathetic to the resistance. And every single day Wilmer, I spend, I devote an hour to two hours to reviewing what they put out, not because I believe everything that they say they're engaged in a war and information is part of warfare. So I'm cognizant of that, but they're giving us, they offer to us another perspective. So one of the things that I've learned by following the military media channel and the Rise News Network is that an extraordinary number of people, and they've offered gruesome video evidence and photographic evidence to back this up in Lebanon, were blinded by these devices.
(09:42):
People lost their hands. There are people with holes in their pelvises, in their abdomens, and I'm talking about children, women, elderly men, and of course military aged men. A cross section of Lebanese society was basically maimed, wounded and killed massed by these attacks. You're not going to find this information in the Western media, nor would you find information in the western media about the retaliation that Hezbollah has engaged in since then. It's amazing the disparity of the information you see from them and what you're seeing from the Western media. All of these sources I counsel, everybody who's listening to our conversation should be approached with a healthy degree of skepticism. You should believe nothing on its face, always exercise your own independent thinking, your capacity for critical thought, but do not confine yourselves to Western media because if you do that, you're going to end up supporting a diabolical, genocidal regime. That's what's going to happen to you. You need to have access to all sources of information and think critically.
Wilmer Leon (10:48):
Another source that I go to is Laith maros free Palestine tv. For me, that's another invaluable source for getting an alternative perspective. I'm glad that you framed it in the manner in which you did, because one of the elements of the so-called analysis is October 7th. It says, though this conflict started on October 7th, ignoring the decades of oppression that Palestinians have been subjected to. When I listen to whether it's Kamala Harris, when I listen to former President Donald Trump, if they make reference to the conflict at some point in their dialogue, it's going to be October 7th. Look what Hamas did on October 7th, totally ignoring 70 years of oppression. And so how this gets framed is very, very important.
Dimitry Lascaris (12:01):
Oh, 100% Wilmer. And I think that the answer that Kamala Harris gave in the debate with Trump to the question of how to deal with the human tragedy as they call it, it's not really a human tragedy, it's much more than that. It is a genocide. In Gaza, the way she responded,
Wilmer Leon (12:21):
The earthquake in Haiti was a human tragedy. Correct.
Dimitry Lascaris (12:28):
Humans did not cause the earthquake. You're right. Absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (12:31):
Exactly. And so I made that point again because how these things get framed is incredibly, famine is a human tragedy. Floods are human. So go ahead.
Dimitry Lascaris (12:45):
So the first thing out of her mouth, and I'm sure you know this Wilmer, probably many of the people listening us know this. Kamala Harris went into that debate with extensive training from public relations professionals. And she was told, when you get the question about Israel, because she knew there, they all knew a question about Israel was coming. This is how you start your answer.
Wilmer Leon (13:09):
Wait a minute, wait minute, wait minute, wait a minute, minute, wait a minute. Lemme see if I can channel my inner Dmitri Karus. Israel has a right to defend itself.
Dimitry Lascaris (13:20):
That was actually the second thing mouth, the first thing out of her mouth. There was no question. You're absolutely right. That was going to be front and center in her answer to any question about Israel and Gaza. But the first thing out of her mouth was, let's remember when this all began. October 7th, right? A colossal lie, A stupendous lie. And of course, the moderators who in my opinion were extraordinarily biased in favor of Kamala Harris, they didn't do any fact checking of her. They said nothing at this point. It might've been the most audacious lie during the entire debate, the one that certainly has the most impact on actual human lives. This did not start on October 7th. This started decades ago when the Palestinian people were dispossessed of their land forcibly by Zionist militias in the nakba. And even before then,
(14:16):
And it has continued year after year after year, you can go and consult the casualty figures from any independent reputable source like the United Nations. And you will find that year after year after year for decades, the Palestinian people have suffered far more civilian casualties than Israelis every year. And it's a multiple. We're talking about a ratio 10 to one, 15 to 1...21. How the hell can you say in good conscience that all of this began what we're seeing today in Gaza and now in the West Bank, that this began on October 7th. It takes a colossal act of self-deception and mendacity to say such a thing. And she was prepared to say exactly that, and it was the first thing that came out of her mouth. This is the peculiar expertise that sort of the propaganda system part excellence that we have in the West is they always start history on the date that is most advantageous to their narrative always. And we always fall for this like suckers, like chumps, like as Malcolm X said many times, you're a sucker, you're a chump. That's exactly what we are when we believe this crap, that history starts on the date that's most advantageous to our government's narrative. So
Wilmer Leon (15:33):
Article 51 of additional protocol one to the Geneva Convention from 1949, it prohibits the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and Article 85 lists attacks on civilians as grave breaches, that amount to war crimes, still talking about these pagers in these walkie talkies, you have to identify who qualifies as a combatant under international humanitarian law when analyzing the pager detonations, and this is from the cradle, when analyzing the pager detonations from a legal standpoint, it becomes clear that Israel's killing spree in Lebanon lies somewhere between a war crime and an act of terrorism. And they say the classification depends on the current state of affairs. Your thoughts, because one of the things to your point about, we have to look at this in the context of October 7th, a lot of this depends on how it gets classified. But as a former prosecutor, if she does not realize when she makes the statement about October 7th, when she makes the statement about Israel has the right to defend itself based upon international law, that's just flat out wrong.
Dimitry Lascaris (17:10):
Yeah, I need to address this whole thing about a former prosecutor. Okay? And I know you're entirely right to bring this up, that that's what she is, Kamala Harris, and that's what people constantly point out about her. Let's just start by acknowledging that the US justice system is rigged. It's rigged against people of color, the poor, minorities, workers. It always has been, and it arguably is worse now that it has been at any time in the post World War II history. And so Kamala Harris, the fact that she was a prosecutor, nobody should think that that for one moment has conferred upon her any expertise in of the rule of law. Prosecutors in the United States are basically instruments of oppression, and that's what she was when she was a prosecutor. In any event, it's important to know that something can be a war crime in an act of terrorism.
(18:05):
At the same time, these concepts are not mutually exclusive and in my opinion, as a capacity as a lawyer, these fall squarely within the definition of a war crime. And within the classical conventional definition of terrorism in the West, which is the use of violence or threats of violence against civilians or civilian infrastructure in order to achieve a political objective. Clearly the political objective here is to terrorize the Lebanese population into either turning against Hezbollah or if you're already a supportive of Hezbollah, to demanding that Hezbollah stand down and allow Israel to complete the genocide without any armed resistance from outside of occupied Palestine. That's the political objective. And clearly this was going to have a massive and unknowable impact on the civilian population because nobody can know where a pager is going to be at any time. If you just think about, I don't know if you've used a pager before or some other electronic,
Wilmer Leon (19:09):
I'm old enough, I'm pre-cell phone. You can tell by the gray.
Dimitry Lascaris (19:12):
I'm pre too. In days bygone, I too used a pager. So I used many different, I used a Blackberry, I used a Motorola phone back in the nineties. And think about what you did with that device when it was in your possession. Oftentimes you put it down in the kitchen. Sometimes your children would play with it, sometimes you would leave it in your car, you'd forget it in your car, or sometimes you'd have it on you while you're driving your car. Or you might just be a civilian who is or is not sympathetic to Hezbollah like a doctor and you use this device. There is absolutely no way Wilmer, absolutely no way that the Israeli military could have made a confident assessment of who was going to be killed and maimed directly and indirectly by the explosion of these devices, by the detonation of these devices that is both a war crime and an act of terrorism.
Wilmer Leon (20:13):
A minute there's, there's another element to this as well. I believe there's a cultural element in the West, the cell phone, the pager is a very personal item. I don't give my cell phone, I don't even give my cell phone to my son. He has his own phone. I don't give my cell phone to my wife. She has her own phone. In many African countries and middle Eastern countries, there may be one cell phone in a family, and so it gets or pager, it gets distributed and used, I'll say indiscriminately within a family. It could be within a neighborhood. So you don't even really know at any given time who's going to be to your point. But I also wanted to add the cultural aspect of this. You have no idea whether the person whose name is on the contract is going to be the sole user of that device.
Dimitry Lascaris (21:24):
I think that's an excellent point. The only modification I would add to it is that I wouldn't say it's so much cultural as it is socioeconomic.
Wilmer Leon (21:34):
Okay, I got it.
Dimitry Lascaris (21:35):
But at the end of the day, it's a distinction without difference Wil. But I think what, from my perspective, why your point is so powerful is because people living in West Asia generally don't have ordinary citizens. The economic means that we have.
Wilmer Leon (21:51):
Correct, correct. Good point.
Dimitry Lascaris (21:52):
You can't have multiple devices in a family. Absolutely. That is a very important consideration. But also another consideration is that a pager, one of the reasons why we want to have our own cell phones is because there's a lot of stuff in there that's personal to us. Emails, there's text messages and so forth. The page is different. A pager just makes a noise when somebody wants to draw your attention to something.
(22:17):
So people are much more, I think, willing to share pagers with others, leave them in the possession of others. Then they might be with a cell phone, for example, or a tablet. So this is a particularly dangerous device. And if you're going to use it as an explosive for all of the reasons that you and I have been discussing, there is a very high potential that you are going to maim or kill innocent bystanders. And you have no way, no way of accurately assessing what the damage is going to be to the people in those categories.
Wilmer Leon (22:52):
And that is considered by international standards, collective punishment of civilians. And that is illegal. And I understand your point about being a prosecutor, but she was a prosecutor. And I go back to that because that's a point that her campaign and that she loves to make, that is a point of validation of her and for her. So since they want to use that point, then I'll use the point.
Dimitry Lascaris (23:24):
Totally, totally. You're absolutely right. Absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (23:28):
It's just wrong. The world isn't flat, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth, and one plus one does not equal 17. I want to go back to something else that Joe Biden has said on more than one occasion that he is a Zionist. In fact, the last maybe it wasn't the, yeah, I think it was the last time Netanyahu was at the White House, sitting next to Joe Biden, he turned to Joe Biden and said, you are a Zionist. In fact, he said, you are a Irish Zionist. That spoke volumes to me. It took me back to the Secretary of State saying, when he first got to the region in October, I'm not only here as the American secretary, Tony Blink said, I'm not only here as a Secretary of state, I'm here as a Jew. What does that say to you about the mindset and how do statements like that resonate within the region when the United States continues to try to hold itself out as some unbiased arbiter of this conflict? Is that a valid question to ask?
Dimitry Lascaris (25:01):
Well, first of all, let me say that in defense of our brothers and sisters in Ireland, most of them are not Zionists. In fact, in Europe, the Irish people, I'm not talking about the political elite Ireland, the Irish people are amongst the most principled and courageous and sympathetic when it comes to the Palestinian cause, number one. Number two, I think what Anthony Blinken said was antisemitic because he was implying that if you're a Jew, you support this genocidal regime and all of the crimes that's committed over decades. But you and I both know that all around the world, there are conscientious members of the Jewish community, people who identify as Jews and who have always identified as Jews, who are adamantly opposed to Israel with every fiber of their being. So when Anthony Blinken goes to Israel and he says, I come to you as a Jew, he's implying that if you're a Jew, you support this monstrosity.
(26:03):
That's antisemitic fundamentally, in my opinion. But at the end of the day, and I'll tell you on a personal level, Wilmer, I've had to deal with this issue in a painful way. And the painful way in which I had to deal with it was about six years ago, there were two members of the Liberal Party caucus, the governing party in Canada who are Zionist and who happened to be Jewish as well. And I'll tell you their names. Their names are Anthony HouseFather and Michael Levitt. And at the time, Michael Levitt was the chairman of the Canada Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group. And Anthony Housefather was the vice chair, and they were the two most outspoken, aggressive defenders of Israel in the governing party's caucus. And just to give you an example of how aggressive they were in supporting Israel in 2018, a friend of mine who's a Palestinian Canadian doctor, his name is Ek Banani, he was shot by an Israeli sniper in Gaza while he was wearing medical garb.
(27:10):
And he was out in the field during the great march of return tending to civilians who were being shot by Israeli snipers. He himself took a bullet to each leg. And the liberal government, Justin Trudeau, on a rare occasion, condemned Israel for this. And these two characters, Michael Levitt and Anthony Housefather put out their own statement, even though they came from the same party as Justin Trudeau, and even though their boss was Justin Trudeau and defended what Israel did, and I pointed out, in my opinion, they were showing more devotion to Israel's apartheid regime than they were to Canada, which they took an oath to defend as parliamentarians. And for this, I was accused by the Prime Minister of antisemitism. I didn't say what I said because they were Jewish. I said, what I said, because they're radical Zionists. It's as simple as that. So we have to recognize, I think today that there are people in Western politics, some of whom are Jewish, but not all of whom are Jewish by any means, who place Zionist ideology over the interests of their own country.
(28:23):
And by the way, I saw this myself when I was a child of Greek immigrants growing up in Canada. My parents told me when I was a kid, they came from Greece. They had a nationalistic orientation, and they said, you are a Greek first and a Canadian second. They told me that when I was a little boy, they were putting the homeland where their country of origin, ahead of the country, where I, myself, their child was born. So this is not a phenomenon that's peculiar to the Jewish community. It's one that you see in all kinds of the Asdas, including my own, the Greek, the Aspera. We need to be honest and say there are people in this community and other communities who put the interests of a foreign state ahead of the country that they have sworn to represent. This is absolutely the case. And Anthony Blinken is a classic example of this. I mean, my God, he's basically telling people, he telegraphed from the outset that I'm going to prioritize the agenda of the Israeli government over that of the United States. And that's exactly what he has done every single day of this conflict. That man is unfit to be the Secretary of state of the United States. He is not serving the national interest. He is undermining the national interest. People need to be honest about that.
Wilmer Leon (29:41):
When you have, I think people, because of how events have unfolded, whether it be with the Ukraine, Russia conflict, whether it be with the United States trying to pick a fight with China over Taiwan, folks need to remember that the Department of State, the Secretary of State, is supposed to be the chief diplomat in the United States. When I say chief diplomat, that means using diplomacy, not militarism to solve conflict. But you have people in the Pentagon, which used to be known as the Department of War. You have people in the Pentagon looking at Tony Blink and saying, no, no, no, no, sir, no man, no, you're you. You're traversing down the wrong road here in a number of instances saying, we don't have the capability to engage in the level of militarism that you are invoking or trying to get us into. People need to understand this man is not doing his job, even though he's following in the steps of Hillary Clinton, even though he's following in the steps of Madeline Albright, he's not doing his job.
Dimitry Lascaris (31:05):
Wilmer, I'm going to make a strong statement, and I'm going to go on a limb here. I think that pretty much every leader of every western country, every foreign minister of every Western country day, certainly the major ones, they're traitors, in my opinion, they're traitors. They are all betraying the interests of the people they have sworn to represent. This is true in Canada, the United States, Greece, where I'm currently situated, I believe this government as a moral matter. I don't know whether it's true from a legal perspective. I'm not offering a legal opinion here. I'm talking about ethics, morality, the moral matter. The Greek government is a traitor. They have sold us out to Brussels and Washington. They're looking out for the agenda of a narrow elite based in Brussels in Washington to the detriment of the Greek people. The same is happening in Canada. It's happening in France.
(31:56):
It's happening in Britain. And we as people need to rise up and put into power those who actually represent our interests right across the west. We are governed by vassals. Even the United States is governed by vassals. They're vassals of a US-based oligarchy and the military industrial complex. I cannot stress enough that incredible speech that Dwight d Eisenhower gave at the very end of his presidency. We don't talk about that enough. When he warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex, he was very clear. It was a very, very ominous warning that it was going to destroy American democracy. What happened within the next 10 years? JFK is assassinated. Malcolm X is assassinated, MLK is assassinated. Bobby Kennedy is assassinated. And from then, it's been downhill ever since,
(32:47):
Downhill, ever since. And we've moved gradually, incrementally towards fascism, an oligarchic led fascism. That's where we find ourselves today. People need to rise up. I'm not suggesting that people engage in violence. We can do this in a way that is nonviolent against the elites who claim to represent us and remove them from power as quickly as possible before we are all taken down by their depravity. Whatever you may think of the Palestinian cause, whatever you may think about Israel, this may not be something. This entire region may not be something that matters to you, but the implications of this go, they're global. They're global. If this stays out of control, we are all going to be devastated and impacted by it in a profoundly negative way. And ultimately, we may find ourselves in a nuclear Armageddon.
Wilmer Leon (33:35):
In fact, that right there, and you went down this litany of domestic assassinations, you didn't even go down the litany of African assassinations. That's a whole nother show. I just wanted to make that point. And this could also be, excuse me, a whole nother show. But I want you just to quickly, you mentioned you're in Greece. You mentioned the traitorous action of leadership. Greece has been subjected to an incredible amount of neoliberal policy and privatization, which has not, through machinations by the World Bank and the IMF and Greece has been suffering with this, I want to say it's one of the first European countries to find itself. If my memory serves me correctly involved in these practices, am I right to make that assessment? And I bring that up in validation of your point of how leadership has sold out the Greek people to oligarchs.
Dimitry Lascaris (34:47):
Oh, it's so true of this country. Wilmer starting in 2010, a financial crisis that was precipitated not by the ordinary Greek workers. It was precipitated by the fraudsters, the liars, the cheats in the banking industry in Greece and beyond Greece. And so in order to bail out the banking industry, the Greek people were made to pay ordinary workers, citizens the most vulnerable. They imposed upon Greece starting in about 2010, a neoliberal austerity program, the likes of which no country in Europe had ever seen in the post World War II period. And the country suffered an economic contraction in excess of 25%, which is I think the height of the economic contraction in the United States during the Great Depression. That's how severe it was. And it was totally engineered by Washington, Brussels and Mario Draghi, who at that time was the president of UCB, was entirely avoidable. And the unemployment rate soared to something like 27, 28%. The youth unemployment rate was nexus of 50%. The suicide rate soared, the poverty rate soared, the lifespan of Greeks fell. This was all engineered by Neoliberals and in Washington and Brussels, and I think in many ways it was an experiment and they
(36:10):
Found out that they could get away with it. And now we're seeing this transported exported to the rest of Europe. We're seeing this done in Germany. We're seeing this done in Britain, and they just elected Keir Starmer, who's supposed to be a Labor party leader, who's supposed to be prioritizing the interests of workers. And one of the first things Keir Starmer government does, it comes out and says, oh, we're going to have to deliver some very tough medicine to you. We have some real budgetary difficulties,
Wilmer Leon (36:38):
Austerity measures.
Dimitry Lascaris (36:40):
Absolutely. Absolutely. They don't represent us. This goes back to the question of treason. They do not represent us. They represent a neoliberal oligarchic elite whose appetite for wealth is insatiable. It's never enough. Wilmer, I got $500 billion. Ain't enough. I got a trillion dollars. Ain't enough. There's never enough money for these people. The Elon Musks of the world, the Jeff Bezos of the world, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett. These people have an insatiable appetite for money, and they are ruling us. They are the true rulers of our societies. I'm sorry to say, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is just reality by now. We should be able to recognize this.
Wilmer Leon (37:23):
It started in Greece in two. Who would've thought they were talking about privatizing the Parthenon. They were talking about privatizing Greek antiquity. I said, what? They were going to sell the coliseum to private interests, to raise money to pay the debt. And so you've seen it in Greece, you've seen it in Italy. You've we're seeing it now play itself out in Germany. It's playing all over Europe. It's playing itself out in France. I just wanted to quickly hit on that point. So now getting back to the conversation that all of this is inextricably linked, but wanted to get back to the point of the expansion of the conflict. You now have Hezbollah sending missiles into Israel. You have Israel increasing its attack on Southern Lebanon. Talk about how dangerous it is becoming even more dangerous if that's even imaginable, that this conflict is escalating. And what I think a lot of people are mistaking, they are mistaking restraint on behalf of the resistance for weakness.
Dimitry Lascaris (38:48):
Absolutely. And when the contrary is true, restraint is a sign of strength. When you were able to control your emotions in situations where most people would feel their passions being inflamed and would act in ways that are contrary to their own interests, that's strength. That's an inner strength that we should commend and admire, and whatever we may think of, the politics of these resistance organizations in the government that we're in that particular aspect of their conduct deserves to be commended. They have shown a tremendous amount of restraint, but that doesn't mean they aren't escalating the Islamic resistance in Lebanon. The armed wing of Hezbollah has now expanded the zone of attack well beyond the 20 kilometers or so to which they can find themselves during the first 11 months. They are now attacking areas outside of Haifa. I think they've quite consciously said, we aren't going to attack the center of Haifa, yet.
(39:45):
We are going to attack the outline areas to give the Israelis an opportunity to retreat from the precipice to which they have brought us. There are reports that they fired, that they hit areas outside of Tel Aviv. Again, not inside the heart of Tel Aviv, but outside, I think this is a message. We can hit Tel Aviv, we can hit Haifa, draw back from the precipice to which you have brought us. They have hit the Ramat David Airbase for the first time. They hit Raphael facilities, which this is a major military contractor in Israel, which produces their obviously inadequate air defense systems in its facilities. I think it's the largest production facility they have in Israel is just outside of Haifa. So they're sending a message in a very disciplined manner despite the suffering that they have incurred over the last 10 days, and really the last 11 months that civilian casualties on the Lebanese side have been much higher from day one of this war.
(40:46):
The destruction to civilian infrastructure has been much higher on the Lebanese side from day one of this war. And now the disparity between what the Israelis are suffering and what the Lebanese are suffering is growing even wider. And yet we are seeing this very calculated, measured response and let us hope that there are some adults in the room somewhere in the west who will get the message. So far, there is nobody, I mean, the speech that Biden gave, I didn't have the opportunity to watch it, but I read reports about it and I saw a couple of excerpts from it suggest to me that there is no one getting the message in Washington. No one. These people are as arrogant as ever. They're as determined as ever to support this regime until it takes down the entirety of West Asia with it.
Wilmer Leon (41:32):
Two quick points I want to get to before we get to Biden's speech, and we'll wrap up with that. One is I think when we talk about restraint, there are some practical elements of this restraint, because Iran has been very, very clear. They don't want a war. Hezbollah has been very clear. They don't want a war. The only ones that seem to be encouraging this are Ansar, Allah in Yemen. They're saying, oh, United States wants to attack us. Please, please do that. They're the only ones that really seem to be saying,
Dimitry Lascaris (42:13):
Someone's got to be the Bad cop. Wilmer. Ansar Allah is the bad cop.
Wilmer Leon (42:18):
And folks need to understand that's a fight you don't want. I don't know if you ever saw the story about Mike Tyson on the airplane coming across the top of his seat to beat up the guy that was kicking his seat behind him, but imagine Mike Tyson coming across the top of his seat in an airplane. You don't want that smoke quickly, though I think this is another very important aspect of this that doesn't get a whole lot of articulation or explanation. The impact that Christian nationalism is a lot of people are just attributing this to mistakenly Judaism, Zionism. They're trying to conflate the two. They are not anywhere near being the same, but Christian nationalism gets left out of this analysis.
Dimitry Lascaris (43:09):
Oh, that's so true, and it's so important. The first time I went to Israel or occupied Palestine, as I prefer to call it, was when I was 21 years old. So this would've been back in the eighties. And at that point, I was basically incapable of seeing through the propaganda narrative about Israel, I believed it was assigning island of democracy in the sea of barbarism, and we had shared values, and the Israelis were just trying to live their lives in peace. But there were people in the region who were determined to destroy them for antisemitic reasons. I believed all of that. I went to Jerusalem, and I don't even remember how I found out about it, but there was this huge gathering of evangelical Christians from the United States in an outdoor stadium to which Shiman Perez, who I think at the time he was the prime minister of Israel, I think delivered the most really, it was a tremendously racist, anti-Arab racist propagandistic speech about the Zionist agenda, and they were wildly supportive of him. I saw a level of fanaticism I'd never experienced in my life sitting that Audience.
Wilmer Leon (44:32):
Wow, okay.
Dimitry Lascaris (44:32):
These were American evangelical Christians, thousands upon thousands of them. It only was later in life that I realized as I came to study this conflict more closely that there are lots of reasons to believe that the most fanatical Zionists in the world are, in fact, Christian. Some of them are not even Christian or Jewish. They're secular. They described to this ideology for reasons that are completely non-religious.
Wilmer Leon (44:58):
Wasn't Theodore Herzl an atheist.
Dimitry Lascaris (45:00):
I believe he was. That's my understanding. Absolutely. Yeah.
(45:04):
So this is a non religious ideology. It is an ideology of imperialism and colonialism and racism, and we shouldn't be shy about saying that, and never ever conflate that ideology with any particular religion or ethnic group, whether it be Judaism or Christianity, or of course there are many wonderful Christians who are adamantly opposed to what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people. There's a segment of self-professed Christians. I dispute whether they're Christians at all, just as I dispute whether Jewish Zionists are actually Jews. I have serious doubts about that. But they call themselves Jews. They call themselves Christians. They do not represent the Christian community. They do not represent the Jewish community. They represent an ideology that is racist and colonial.
Wilmer Leon (45:50):
In fact, to that point, Benjamin Netanyahu, his last name, his family last name isn't really Netanyahu. It's like WojaKowski, Mil Mil Milakowski, Milakowski. His grandfather immigrated from Poland to the region in 1920 and Arabis the family last. And there are a number of those who now are proclaiming their rights to that land, when in fact they are European immigrants. That that's hence the whole thing in terms of it's a settler colonial project. And people and settler colonial projects don't go nicely. They don't go quietly when you invade somebody else's land. The people that are there, the indigenous population usually wants to resist. But I make the point that so many of these people that are proclaiming a heritage to the space are actually parts of a settler colonial project.
Dimitry Lascaris (47:13):
Absolutely, and you reminded me. So it's something I got. It's a be on my mind. And I got to say, does everybody notice when Netanyahu speaks? He sounds like he comes from the streets of New York because
Wilmer Leon (47:23):
He does, or Philly.
Dimitry Lascaris (47:25):
Philly, yeah. Or Philly. Sure. I lived in New York for six years, and if I ran into that dude in the street and didn't know who he was, I'd say he was in New York or he is a Philly. He's from the northeast of the United States. Why does he speak that way? Because fundamentally, he is an American and he's speaking to an American audience. He's not from the region, he's not indigenous the region. I mean, come on, man. Benjamin Netanyahu, that man is indigenous to the region of West Asia. He's an alien in the region of West Asia, and he's treating people in the region like he's an alien. And why does he speak that way? He speaks that way because ultimately the very existence of Israel depends upon the sport of the United States people, the Society of the United States. Without that support, Israel would not exist in its current form. Impossible.
Wilmer Leon (48:15):
Final point here, and you mentioned Joe Biden's speech at the un. I want to read two short excerpts, which I think speak volumes from a couple of perspectives. The Washington Post reported Biden points to the relative success of his administration's efforts to rally western support for Ukraine, coordinating a robust response with European partners to the Russian invasion and reinvigorating the transatlantic alliance. He stressed, he didn't want to see a full scale war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He called for the war to end. Innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell. Thousands and thousands killed including aid workers. Too many families dislocated crowding into tents facing a dire humanitarian situation. They didn't ask for this war. Hamas started.
(49:16):
So a couple of things. One, I'm looking at what he said, and I'm looking at how the Washington Post has reported. I go back to the question we talked about earlier. When we hear Vice President Harris, secretary of State, Blinken Biden and others say that Israel has the right to defend itself, then you hear Biden say, this war has to stop. Well, the conflict in Ukraine started under his administration, and the United States started the conflict again, talking about restraint being mistaken for weakness. And in terms of what he sees in Gaza, if he truly wants it to stop, all he has to do is pick up the phone. Tell Netanyahu you don't get another artillery shell. You don't get another tank, you don't get another dime, and the war stops in two days. Is that too simplistic, Dmitri Karus?
Dimitry Lascaris (50:23):
No, there's absolutely not. It is absolutely the reality, and I'm as hostile to the Israel lobby as anybody, so please don't mistake me as an apologist for the Israel lobby. But I think that people like John Meir shier, for example, all my respect a lot are grossly overestimating the power of the Israel lobby. I don't think that, sure, the Israel lobby can take out people who don't have a lot of power.
(50:56):
They can take out like Val Bowman, they can take out Cori Bush, and maybe people are somewhat more powerful, but the president of the United States states, the sitting president of the United States, what are they going to remove him from office? No, they're not going to be able to remove him from office. If he wanted to actually stop the war in Gaza, he could stop the war in Gaza with a phone call. It is that simple. He doesn't do it because as he told us, he's a Zionist. I mean, he told us, and he's also said repeatedly, Wilmer, as I'm sure you know, if Israel didn't exist, we would have to invent it in order to protect America's, what he calls, not really, but what he calls America's strategic interest in the region. What that really means is the interest of the US oligarchy, not the American.
(51:39):
The unsinkable aircraft carrier in the region.
(51:44):
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So all of this is Kabuki theater. Joe Biden wants Israel to achieve the agenda that Netanyahu is set for it, which is to destroy by any and all means necessary any resistance to Western slash Israeli hegemony in West Asia. He wants them to achieve that objective. That should be our operating assumption. And just because from time to time, he or Blinken or anonymous sources go to the press and say, oh, we're frustrated with Benjamin Netanyahu and we really want to cease fire, and man, we feel so terrible about what's happening to those civilians, too many are dying. Nobody should buy any of this crap. Watch what they do. Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do. And what they're doing is enabling a genocide that is unequivocal.
Wilmer Leon (52:37):
And you mentioned the power of APAC, and we will wrap up with this. And folks, those of you that are listening to this, that are rolling your eyes and saying, oh, this is propaganda. Look it up. I mean, there's hardly anything that's been said here that you can't research and find to be true. APAC boasted back, I want to say it was in April in the New York Times, you mentioned Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush. They touted, they bragged in the New York Times and the Washington Post that they were going to spend $100 million in the US election to unseat Democrats that they deemed to be anti Zionist. And Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush were victims of that. And I put that in quotes because at the time that that story was released, I didn't hear anybody in the Democratic Party come out and challenge APAC for making that statement.
(53:46):
It was only after Cori Bush lost that. She then came out and said, APAC, I'm coming after your village. Well, if you'd have said that on the front end, you'd probably still be in office because that could have been used as a rallying point. If they're going to spend a hundred million dollars, we need a hundred million votes. That to me, would've been the line that would've made the difference. And Kamala Harris finds herself in the same position. When you look at the data, over 70% of Americans want this thing ended and they want it ended. Now, she would gain votes outside of the money she would lose from APAC funding. If she were truly looking at this from an electoral politics perspective, she would gain votes. The race wouldn't even be close if she erred on the side of Wright. And on the right side of history with that, Dimitri Lascaris, I'll let you take us home, what you got,
Dimitry Lascaris (55:02):
You can get elected in the United States, despite all the obstacles by running as a principled candidate committed to the wishes and the priorities of the people, you can absolutely get elected. The problem Wilmer is that the system is constructed in such a way as to squash anybody who actually has a commitment to justice and to representing the wishes of the people. There are a series of filters that have been set up. So for example, you're seeing now, I'm actually working on Jill Stein's campaign.
(55:33):
They're waging, and I don't think any candidate is perfect, and I don't have an expectation that Jill is going to win. I certainly would love for that to happen. But the Democratic Party is waging war against the Green Party candidacy in every single state, a legal warfare. And they have enormous resources at their disposal to do that because the oligarchy is funneling massive amounts of money to them, to squash candidates like Jill Stein. If we had a system where it was a level playing field, so people who were truly committed to the wishes of the people and were able to, they were given an equal amount of airtime to other candidates who favored the wealthy, for example, you would see principled, honorable, decent people being elected to public office over and over and over again. But we have a political system throughout the west. This is not peculiar to the us, although I think the US is a bit of an extreme case. It's also true in Canada, it's also true in Western European countries, a series of filters that have been established to squash candidates before they get an opportunity to present their case to the people. If we could get them before the people on an equal playing field, the best candidates would win time and again, the problem is the system is designed to defeat them before they even get out of the gate.
Wilmer Leon (56:55):
And to that, I say, dare to be moral, dare to stand on the side of right. Dare to be on the right side of history. With that, let me say Dimitri Lascaris, I want to thank you so much for giving me the time that you've given me today. I greatly, greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining the show.
Dimitry Lascaris (57:16):
Great pleasure, Wilmer. As always. We've had opportunity to speak before and it's the first time we had to meet today, and I love what you do and keep doing it.
Wilmer Leon (57:25):
Well, thank you. Thank you. Without guests like you, I'd just be sitting here talking to myself. Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace and blessings. I'm out
Announcer (58:10):
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Fighting to Survive: The Uhuru 3 and the True Cost of Justice
26 Sep· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
n the latest episode of "Connecting the Dots," Dr. Wilmer Leon drops bombshell revelations on the U.S. government's alleged attack on free speech. Featuring Chairman Omali Yeshitela recently cleared of shocking charges of being a Russian agent, this episode dives deep into systemic oppression, global politics, and the fight for freedom of expression. Despite government seizures and legal battles, Yeshitela and his colleagues triumphed in court. Don’t miss this urgent call to action—your rights could be next!
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Wilmer Leon (00:00):
I opened with this piece last week, and I'm going to open with it again because it's as applicable today as it was last Thursday. The linguist, no Chomsky tells us the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum, even encouraged the more critical and dissident views that gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. That's from Noam Chomsky. Is this what the so-called Justice Department is doing via selective persecution and mainstream American media, and those in Western established press are complicit in promoting and protecting. Let's discuss it,
Announcer (01:00):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (01:08):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events in the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is very simply the first amendment, freedom of speech and the US government's attack on this inalienable, right? And my guest is a political activist and author, co-founder and current chairman of the African People Socialist Party, which was formed in 1972 and which leads the O Movement and he's one of the oi, he is Chairman Omali Yeshitela. Chairman Omali, welcome back to the show.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (02:15):
Thank you so much. It's very good to be with you, Dr. Wilmer.
Wilmer Leon (02:22):
Not a problem.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (02:24):
But the reason I really want to express appreciation to you and even the comments that you just quoted from Chomsky is that one of the reasons that we were able to come out of that courtroom after going to trial on September 3rd with an amazing victory, and we were able to fracture the total or the absolute solidarity of opinion regarding black people and the righteousness of our struggle and the validity of the criticism that we make against the United States government. Because as you know, we were charged the three of us, me, penny Hess and Jesse Neville with being Russian agents. And then we were charged with conspiring, I guess, to be Russian agents. And what they have done is taken issues like reparations, like the charge of genocide against the United States government for treatment of black people. Our opinion that differed from theirs on the Ukraine war and things like that.
(03:35):
They're saying that it was the Russians who were responsible. In fact, in the trial itself, they went so far as to say the Russians came up with the reparations idea. Russians came up with the genocide idea. Russians were responsible for the institutions that we've created over the number of years for the liberation of African people. So they would maintain that kind of position, and so that would protect them from any criticism that black people had about our treatment in this country. So they would restrict the discussion so that if we said something that challenges acceptable narrative, then it was because we were paid by the Russian. Some foreign entity was responsible for that. And so I think it was really important that we went to trial and that the jury was able to see through the essential question here, and the state lost in terms of its efforts to criminalize black people fighting for freedom.
(04:43):
It lost by saying that what we were doing was a consequence of being hired by the Russians. The jury said they didn't believe that the jury said not guilty. We were not guilty of being paid working for Russia and without registering as foreign agents. And the conclusion there was that the struggle of act people is legitimate, that we have legitimate wives, we have legitimate criticism of the government, and we showed the whole history of our fighting around these interests going back many, many years. We connected the struggle of African people here and African other places around the world. We did that during this trial. And so the jury said that they agreed that we had the right to do that. The problem, of course, was the confusing second charge, if you will. I say second, I don't know if it was a second charge, what order if you want to put it in, but there was the secondary charge.
(05:45):
It was secondary in the sense that not just because the penalty is like five years as opposed to a maximum 10 year penalty that we would've gotten for the conviction of working for the Russians. But also the fact is that the jury was confused by what that meant as I am even as we have this discussion now, what was the conspiracy? If the jury said that we were innocent, that we were not guilty of working for the Russians, then what was the conspiracy? And are they saying that we wanted to work for the Russians but it didn't work and so we conspired to do something and fail to carry it out? Is that what they're saying? And I think it's a lot more to it than that. And of course, we're going to be appealing this and there's a lot of work we have to do between now and then and the work that you have done, the doors you have opened for us and others, forces like yourself contributed to I think this magnificent victory that we had.
(06:50):
They couldn't put us on trial in the darkness. People were aware of it. People came to Tampa, the courthouse was full, and they had to get a larger courtroom. And every day the courtroom was full. And when the jury looked out at that courtroom, they saw people who looked just like them. And I doubt if they saw anybody that they would've characterized as a Russian there. So that was really important to get the people there, to get people from September 3rd throughout the duration of the trial and to make them have to put this thing carried out in the light of day. And that's what we are contending with right now because we still have to go for sentencing for on November 25th, we'll be going to sentencing and it's going to be important to get people to Tampa to that courthouse for that as well.
Wilmer Leon (07:42):
You talk about September 3rd, and the trial started on September 3rd. And if my memory serves me correctly, they were expecting a four to five week trial.
(07:55):
What said. And what they wound up with was not even 10 days.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (08:00):
No, no.
Wilmer Leon (08:01):
They ran out of ammo. They ran out
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (08:03):
Of ammo.
Wilmer Leon (08:04):
Go ahead, go ahead.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (08:06):
Really important to mention that because the thing is that the government attacked us and according to their own testimony, their witnesses and what have you, they took something like terabytes of materials that constituted at least 1.5 million books. So all the stuff they took from our cell phones, from our laptops, from other devices that we had, it was enough material for 1.5 for one and a million, half million books. And the thing was that out of all of that, I think they used something like four or five emails or stuff from Facebook because there was nothing. There was nothing there. There was no there. And the state did not even have a human being or people who testified against us. All of their witnesses were people who worked for the state FBI agents, they had 12 FBI agents. They had two. So-called experts and experts who didn't know how much under cross examination had to admit, first of all, they knew nothing about the case. Secondly, one of whom had to say that he didn't even know how much he was getting paid for doing this. And he was actually a Russian who was waiting to get his citizenship to be able to achieve citizenship in this country.
(09:48):
And they were unable going through stuff for more than 10 years of materials and the two year duration after this attack on us. They could not bring a single human being into that courtroom who would validate anything they said about what we stand for, who we are, that we somehow working for Russians, that anything we're doing now is different from what we've done for the last 50 years. They couldn't do that. We were the only human beings in that court when it comes to testimony and what have you. The state testified and then they saw people, and we were the people. And the people in that audience who came to this trial were the people and the jury. The jury. Those were the people as well.
Wilmer Leon (10:34):
Is this a test case? The ARU three were on trial, but was this a test case? Pennys, Jesse Neville, yourself Chairman, Mali Ello, the three of you, the O three were on trial, but if the government had been successful, if they had gotten a guilty verdict returned on that first charge, how dynamic of a problem for free speech for the Wilmer Leons of the world, for the Scott Ritters, for the professor Danny Shaws and the Dan Vallis of the world. Would this have been Go ahead.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (11:25):
Yeah, I think so. I think that very smart people, I think the FBI and the Justice Department are going to have to recalibrate how they take this issue on because it doesn't mean they're going to stop just because of what we have been able to do up to now. They will try to find ways to make even this conspiracy charge unfold in a fashion that challenges free speech rights of people even more. And that the conspiracy charge itself is a challenge to free speech. But this one, I think they'll have to recalibrate this whole thing about working for Russians, et cetera. And I think that people have been watching this, smart people, especially people like Scott Riter, especially people who have the audacity to share views about situation in the world, US foreign policy, what's happening in this country that challenges the narrative that the United States government puts forth itself. I think that people who have been dealing with the cop city question, I think there's a whole array of forces out there who have stakes in the outcome of this trial. And I think that so far we've done much better than I think many expected. And I think we can go ahead and further this by winning this case in the conspiracy. But beyond that, we are going to be doing more Dr. Wilmer. We think that the law itself is a political law.
(12:57):
When you got a law, it's a political law. It's not a law against robbing, killing, shooting, stealing or kidnapping, anything like that. It's a political law. The law was created for the purpose of carrying out political objectives in the contest with whomever was decided to be the enemy at any given moment.
Wilmer Leon (13:19):
Lemme jump in really quickly just to say, because I think it's very, very important for people to understand at this juncture, you were not charged with sedition, you were not charged with trying to overthrow the government. You were merely charged with saying things the government didn't like because what you said was consistent with some of the things that the government of Russia and other people in the country have said, which by the way, the things that you're articulating are true. So simply put it, if Russian President Putin comes out and says, the world is round, and you come out and say, the world is round, but Washington will have us believe the world is flat, all of a sudden now you're conspiring with Russians, you're working with Russians, you're operating on behalf of Russians.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (14:28):
Well, it doesn't even matter if Putin says the Russian, the world is round and we say the world is round. What they're saying is that we don't have to be lying. What we say has to be something that undermines the United States.
Wilmer Leon (14:45):
No, I use that example simply to make the point that what you're saying is actually accurate.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (14:52):
Yes, yes.
Wilmer Leon (14:53):
That's my point.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (14:54):
Yeah, I think that's true, and I think that's real because at one time we had talked about bringing in experts of our own to testify about the whole history, for example, of the Ukraine War and how all of that stuff got started. And it wasn't just some evil Russians who decide, let's jump on this helpless and defenseless and innocent Ukrainians or something to that effect. And the point is, of course, that it is true what we said. It is true. But even if it were, this is what the court is saying, what the judge affirmed at one juncture, I think, and certainly the prosecution, that even if it was true, even if it's true, the Russians told you to do it and therefore it's a crime, and they say, we will move it from the element of speech now to an action, it becomes an action because the Russian told you to do it.
(15:52):
So they liquidate the free speech question, and this is what they try to do, and this is their dilemma, not ours, because we didn't write the first Amendment, we didn't write the Bill of Rights. They did it. And they say this is what they stand on and believe in. So they find themselves in this very treacherous and insidious thing all the time of trying to find out how we can have the First Amendment and our first amendment and attack it without attacking it, without obviously attacking it, without saying that we are attacking it. In fact, at one juncture, I think one of our lawyers wrote in a brief calling for the dismissal of the charges that we could have been talking about Russian cuisine, and would that have served the purpose of a charge working for Russian? They said, yes, if the Russians told us to say something about Russian cuisine and we did it, that would be working for the Russians.
(16:50):
It's garbage. It's a garbage law, and we intend to take it on. I mean, because this is just one aspect of it, fighting against these particular charges. But the law itself is a political law. It is a law based on politics. It's not a law based on criminal activity or anything except what the political climate at the moment requires. And so that's something that all of us have to be really concerned about as well, not just the winning in this particular case, in this particular instance, because it's still there and it's still something they can use. And they need to be put on the back foot around this question of having this 9 51 or whatever it is that they can say, somebody's working for Russia or somebody's involved in some kind of conspiracy because it meets the political objectives. Objectives, yeah. Yeah.
Wilmer Leon (17:46):
In fact, let me take a moment here and read the First Amendment, quote. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peacefully to a assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances and What I think is also important for people to understand about the First Amendment, the framers of the Constitution, we're very, very careful. Every word, every comma, every is in a particular place for a reason. So when they open the first Amendment by saying Congress shall make no law, what that is telling everyone is that this is a protection of the American people against action by the government. They could have said, you have the freedom of speech. They could have said, you can say what you want, you can write what you want. No, it's not. They are protecting individual rights by prohibiting action by the government. It's called a negative, right? Chairman? Yes.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (19:16):
I think that's really important. And I think this is what we've been talking about all along because that is in the Constitution, who has fought harder for the Bill of Rights than black people in this country. Historically, we started out with no rights that didn't apply to us. So free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association. We've been fighting like hell for this since we've been here. Every aspect of our existence in this country has been fighting for the benefit of the Constitution. So that is true. And I think that part of what we are looking at, so African people, black people, we've led around that question, we've led around this question of the Bill of Rights and the free speech, and we still are. And that was because even when this was put forward, when this was ratified, but the Congress, it didn't include us because we were enslaved in 1791 when this was ratified.
(20:06):
So we've been fighting forever up to now to this very moment until a trial that we just went to for the right to free speech, the right to freedom of association, the right for freedom of assembly, the right for freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. We've been fighting for that. And now the problem is because it is in the Constitution, how can they attack us on the one hand without obviously offending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? And so that's the problem they're trying to solve. And so they're saying, except for now, they're trying to come up with an exception. And that's what even this law, this political law that they've come up with, it calls on the people, the court and everybody to overlook this constitutional right under these circumstances that's chosen for political reasons at political times in place. That's what we are looking at right now.
(21:02):
And the thing about that too, Dr. Wilmer, that's so important to us. I mean, the whole thing is important to us and to all the people. Make no mistake about it. When they come at us, it is not us because we never had the free speech. But it's for all those other people who, but the presumption that they had these rights presumption of free speech. So when they attack us and using attack on the First Amendment, it's on everybody's right to the First Amendment that's under assault. But I think it's especially and particularly significant for us, what we've seen just transpire because what they have concocted is this notion that everything is wonderful and peaceful. Everybody is acting civilized. There are no oppression of black people. There are no contradictions that we have that are legitimate contradictions. If we are criticizing the government, if we are criticizing our treatment, it's because we are working for some foreign agent, not because it's a legitimate criticism that the government has to respond to.
(22:01):
So as opposed to responding to it, as opposed to responding to the genocide convention that we are talking about, they have violated, they steal all of the 130,000 signatures and they say, the Russians are the one who got us to do this. Instead of dealing with the questions of what is happening to us as the people, a huge number of African people in prison and stuff, like they said, you can't make that complaint. That's not you making that complaint. It's Russians making that complaint through you. So they were nullified, they were nullify criticism by black people against the government itself. So not just an individual, it's the whole black population that has denied the right to criticize our treatment by the United States government. And that's been the fundamental thing that's really important, and that's why this winning this, at least on the question of working for Russians, that's why that was such an important thing to occur. And we still in the trenches having to fight all the way down the line around the other aspect of this charge.
Wilmer Leon (23:07):
Do you see similarities between the persecution that you all are enduring and what the United States did to Julian Assange, the Australian publisher who through WikiLeaks released documents that he had received government documents that he had received that exposed a number of American diplomats and a number of American elected officials for lying to the American people and to the world. The United States through an attempt of extradition, held Julian Assange in Belmar prison in London for seven years. He now has been released. He's now back in his home country of Australia. And when in fact, the United States was going after somebody for violating espionage and acts when he's not an American, never been to the United States, they were using their extra judicial reach in getting one of their proxies Britain to try to carry out their torture of another individual. Are there similarities between that and what the United States did to you?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (24:24):
There certainly are, and I think that many, if not of the people who are tied to the Assange struggle, recognize that as well. We have been in touch with members of his family and they're members of the Assange resistance that have come on board in terms with us and even going into September, and we expect they'll be with us going to November 25th when we have to go and face the sentencing. So it is an absolute thing, and I'm old enough and dumb enough to have been impressed when we were hearing this stuff coming from our civic classes, et cetera, about free speech. I mean, I believed in free speech. Absolutely. I still do. Yeah. I don't think nobody believes more than freedom than slaves. You know what I mean?
(25:19):
And all of our children, all of our teachers taught us around this. I mean, they were really preached that to us. And so we were firm believers in this. We didn't need any Russians. We had our own experiences and we had magnificent training from teachers who really passionate, believed in free speech and had to believe in free speech to survive and to be able to pursue our interests. I mean, I was the same age as Emmett Till when he was killed. What was that murdered? It was at 1955. 55? Yeah, I was 14. He was 14 years old. And they murdered him. They said, because he whistled at a white woman, which was really dubious. And even if he did, so what? But the thing is, they murdered this kid, and it was something that traumatized the entire black community when his mama refused to allow him to bury him to have a closed casa at his funeral, she wanted
Wilmer Leon (26:19):
Mamie till,
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (26:20):
Yeah,
Wilmer Leon (26:22):
Mamie Till wanted the world to see. I think the quote was, I want the world to see what they've done to my son.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (26:29):
Yes. And Jet Magazine blew it up, and all the Africans saw that, and it traumatized us all and to know that people can kill you like this with impunity. But anyway, yeah.
Wilmer Leon (26:47):
So people listening to this that may not have seen you on the show before, many may be asking why. Why was this done? I will posit that the world is changing the empire, the United States, what was formerly the Empire after World War ii, its power is on the wane. Other forces is turning from a unipolar world to a multipolar world. China, Venezuela, Russia, the Middle East, A number of countries have decided we're not going to follow that playbook anymore. We're going in another direction. They're doing it peacefully, much to the United States dismay. And there's a story, there's a narrative that the United States wants to continue to tell that isn't true. And through social media, through the internet, through the use of technology, there are more voices out there now that are exposing that lie for what it is. And I believe that's really at the heart. That's the crux of your problem. What say you, sir?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (28:11):
I think you're absolutely correct. I think it's really important for our listeners to understand that when we talk about how the world is changing and what have you, this is not just some abstract issue.
Announcer (28:26):
It has a lot to do with the cost of oil and gas and properties and the relative power that the United States versus other countries that it is contending with for domination in the world, et cetera. There are all kinds of important issues. I mean the aspirations and hopes and et cetera. The majority of the people who live in this country are tied to the maintenance of the status quo, maintaining the control of the people in Iran and Afghanistan and Nicaragua and Venezuela and the black communities in this country, and maintaining control of the people in these concentration camps, reservations that Indian reservation they call concentration camps. So there's a lot at stake here. I mean, all of the petroleum in the world, I mean it is located in these countries that's contesting for freedom like Iran, like these other places. And the others who have been pushed out of history. I mean China, up until recently, people used to refer to China. People who were not doing well or who didn't appeal to have good promise, they were saying, you got as much. You don't have a China mans chance at
Wilmer Leon (29:42):
This time. China used to be called the sick man of Asia, and they decided that they were going to shred or shed that moniker and that they were going to readjust their culture. They were going to readjust their economy. They were going to readjust their society and that they were going to rise from the ashes. And to that point, another example, the Association of Sahel States, if we look at Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso and how they have been able to throw off the yoke of colonialism by removing France and the United States from their countries, they're now trying to stand. Talk a little bit about what the association of Sahel states, what some of these African countries are doing now, taking control of their own economies.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (30:36):
Yeah, I mean that's a fundamental thing. And they're moving toward it. And the association SA Health states more effectively at this point, apparently, than most of the African entities that have come to be independent, because they're not just independent. They are combining. They, because as you know, Africa and its current designation countries and stuff like that, that was created by Imperialists, by the colonizer. They drew those lines, they drew those board split up people, et cetera. It makes it very difficult for Africa to even access his access own resources collectively. But France can access all of our resources as France. They can get resources from Burkina Faso, Mali, all of them and 14 different entities. France could play one off against the other, but we couldn't get our access to our own resources, right? When France would overthrow entities, governments that tried to do that, independent of France.
(31:38):
So that's a real kind of issue. And so I'm really appreciative of what these forces are trying to do, but it's very, very, very difficult because as you've probably seen since, because the France and the United States were using the basis for having these foreign troops, French troops in the Sahel, that they had to fight these jihadists, the jihadist terrorists and et cetera, and the moment the people kicked them out, then you see the rise of terrorism again. They say, you see people getting killed, slaughtered, and I'm convinced that the same forces are slaughtering them that are responsible for overturning the government of Ukraine when it did not suit their requirements and needs. They want to be able to have us say that we can't govern ourselves or to indicate we can't govern ourselves, and therefore the white man has to come in and take charge of our affairs.
(32:35):
Look at what's happening in Haiti right now. Look at how they're doing in Haiti. They've been doing for how long in Haiti. Right? And that's an aspect of the contradiction. We have to understand that there are all kinds of ways in which the colonizers attempt to advance their interests. And part of what they would try to do is to create a situation where you beg for them to come back. And they have succeeded in doing that. They're almost succeeded in doing that in Nicaragua. But Nicaragua people won their freedom and they started bombing and hurting people in Nicaragua to extend and demanding, and that the Nicaragua was having an election. The people were so terrified that they actually voted the revolutionary organization out of power for temporarily. So they will do that kind of thing. And this is really serious stuff. And I just want to say Dr.
(33:28):
Wilmer, that the oppressed never determines what methods are going to use to be free, the oppressor. If we could walk up to the White House or walk up to important staff and say, please, let's be free. Let us be free. And they say, okay, you're free now. And that was real. That would be cool. But that's not the case. Every instance you see all around the world, the oppressive, the determination of what it was going to take to be free was made by the oppressor. The oppressor. I mean, everybody tries to solve the problem the easy way. African people go, we pray, we beg, we nonviolent, do all of those kinds of things, and then they kill us and all around the world, not just us, but other oppressed peoples everywhere. So it is never been up to us to determine what methods are going to be used to be free. We don't want violence. We want violence out of our lives, but they employ violence of all sorts against us, and sometimes they disguise where the violence is coming from.
Wilmer Leon (34:33):
A couple of things that come to mind. First of all, let me be sure I explain why we went from the discussion of your trial to the discussion of the Association of Sahel States. And I brought that up as an example of how the world is changing, how we are shifting from a unipolar one control United States in control to a multipolar world. That's why I brought that up.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (35:03):
Right?
Wilmer Leon (35:05):
You mentioned mentioned hate
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (35:06):
sounds like, What sounds like Putin.
Wilmer Leon (35:09):
Well, okay, movement of Russia, hey, right is right. The world is round, the world is round, and one plus one does equal two. Even in Russia, one plus one equals two.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (35:23):
That's right.
Wilmer Leon (35:24):
The other point you mentioned, Haiti, and I just want to point this out to show some of the contradiction and some of the hypocrisy at the debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Harris. Donald Trump made that utterly racist, ridiculous, asinine statement about Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. And Kamala Harris was aghast at that statement. She was mortified by that statement as she should have been. But here's the question. Where is the outrage of the United States tried to reinvade Haiti? Kamala Harris as Vice President, went to the CARICOM meeting, the meeting of the Caribbean states trying to convince and twist the arms of the leaders of CARICOM to back the United States invasion of Haiti. So on the one hand, she's aghast to Donald Trump's ridiculous assertions and racist assertions about Haitians eating animals in Springfield, Ohio. But if the Biden administration wasn't trying to invade Haiti, most of those Haitians wouldn't have been there in the first place. They'd be in their own country enjoying their own meals, living in their own space, doing their own thing. So I'm waiting for people that are as aghast at Trump's racist statement to be as aghast at the Biden administration for the Biden administration's racist policy. Your thoughts, sir?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (37:06):
I think you take us right back to Chomsky's observation. Like they define this reality and they place constraints on even how people can see. You can't see the whole world. They've reinvented what the quote left and the right are. So now the Democratic Party is left wing and the Republican party, the right wing, et cetera. When did Joe Biden become a leftist or Kamala Harris for that purpose? What has happened to the concept of left and right? I mean, they've redefined everything and they've placed constraints on the ability to, people see anything outside of these parameters, ideological and political parameters that they've established. And I think that's right on. I mean, I even saw that when people proclaimed to be aghast, that Trump talking about building a wall dealing with Mexico and Mexicans, but they ain't saying nothing about the walls that's being built all over Palestine.
(38:04):
The same people had the ability, the walls built, not unusual and peculiar. It's the thing that people do when they steal land, steal territory, and they want the people to be kept out of their own lands and what have you. So we allow them to define stuff, and that's one of the reasons they would attack us. That's one of the reasons they would attack the whole Bill of Rights in the First Amendment and things like that. Because the matter, the fact is, it's not just a matter of my right to talk. It's the matter of the people's right to hear what I'm saying. And that way they don't have to agree, but that gives them the ability to make an educated disagreement if that's what it is. They don't want that. They can't handle that anymore. And I think the crisis that you just talked about in terms of a changing world, this is critical.
(38:50):
I mean, it is hard to overstate how profound this transformation in the world that is happening now. It is one that's moving away from the grasp of a soul hegemon. This unipolar world as it's been characterized, is something that's under tremendous amount of stress. And you can see it fracturing and when it happens because so much of the political economy revolves around that. It has serious implications inside the country too. And so that people who have relied on being able to suck the blood of forces from around the world when this stops happening, you see greater amounts of suicide. The death spike, death rate of white people of certain ages began to happen. Alcoholism began to happen. And you see also people attacking the capitol. They attacking politicians who they feel have betrayed their ability to remain the top dogs in the world. And this is not something that's left to just Republicans or Democrats. I mean, this is something that permeates the consciousness of people in this country, and there's a certain presumption of the right of America to dominate the whole world, et cetera. Otherwise even people couldn't even see what's happening in the that under American leadership and dominance without protesting mightily. So yeah.
Wilmer Leon (40:15):
One of the things also that I think one of the assumptions that a lot of people may have made as it relates to your case is you are engaged in dialogue at a time when America is at war, and that that's what makes your narrative so dangerous. Here's the thing that people need to understand. The United States is not at war. Congress has not declared war in Ukraine. Congress has not declared war against China. Congress has not declared war in the Middle East. There's a whole lot of fighting going on. There are a whole lot of bullets being shot and a whole lot of artillery rounds being launched. But the United States has started those conflicts. But more importantly, the United States is not at war.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (41:16):
There's no declaration of war.
Wilmer Leon (41:17):
There's been no declaration of war by Congress. So this whole thing about the sensitivities of the government and it needing to protect itself against domestic insurrection because this is a time of war, that's not true.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (41:37):
No, it's not true. I mean, I'm really disturbed sometime Dr. Wilmer about what often appears to be the gullibility. I don't think this is something generally true in the African community. I mean maybe sectors of the African community, but ordinary black people, we have this experience with the government. We know like treachery abounds as it relates to Cointel Pro. Yeah, coin Pro. And even black people who didn't know about Cointel Pro and just ordinary black people, the dealing that we have with the cops on the beat, everything. I mean, most black people who have a relationship with the government, it's through the police. You know what I mean? That's the direct relationship through the police and the housing projects. Everybody's given the corner, et cetera. And so we don't have the same illusions, not fanciful illusions about the state. And that's one of the reason we used to work hard to pass out, know your rights information to just poor people.
(42:40):
Because at the moment, poor people know that the Constitution says, I'm supposed to have these rights. And many people don't know. The Constitution say that says that. And because there's nothing in our lives that suggests that we have these rights. But if we say, these are rights, the Constitution says, you have these rights. You should have these rights. And then that often is alone is enough to foster resistance to what's happening to us. They say, I'm not taking this. If the Constitution says I don't have to take it, I'm not taking that. So this tendency too often of people to simply vow to the current iteration of a lie that's based on political domination of peoples and extraction of their wealth and their values, this tendency is something that we have challenged and continue to challenge. And almost everything we've done contributes to that. Almost everything is tied to tactics and strategies.
(43:48):
We want to be a free people and for us and the African people, social partner who movement, it means like all dignified people, we want to be self-governing. We don't want foreigners and aliens extracting all the value of being able to say that my laborer should not go toward benefiting my community and my children and their children. We don't want that. We opposed to that, we don't want somebody to be able to start wars, that black people are going to be in front lines fighting and all wars. That could actually lead to nuclear, conation, obliteration of the people on earth. We don't want people to be able to do that, and us simply to be here without having any ability to confront the powers that are making these kinds of choices and without even sharing the ability to do that with those of us who live here, who work for a living, who try to work, et cetera.
Wilmer Leon (44:47):
Well, and also something even more basic than that, you talked about these wars, the wars that we as citizens are paying for.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (44:57):
Yes.
Wilmer Leon (44:57):
And how that money is being wasted, how that money is being stolen. We talk about the military industrial complex in many regards. For example, the United States just authorized almost $600 million to send money for military aid to Taiwan so that Taiwan can turn around and use that 600 million for this year to buy weapons from American arms manufacturers. Well, how many teachers' salaries could you pay with that 600 million? There are so many projects. There are so many things that could be done to truly ensure the safety of this country by improving the standard of living in this country. But unfortunately, those dollars go to Lockheed Martin. They go to Raytheon, they go to the military industrial complex instead of paying people's salaries, providing for healthcare and better education.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (46:07):
Yeah, I mean, it's criminal. It would be criminal if the people had any power.
Wilmer Leon (46:14):
Exactly.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (46:15):
It's not criminal now in the sense that the ones who have the power make the laws. The ones who want to do this stuff, make the laws, or if they don't make the laws, they tweak the law. They manipulate how people perceive law and things like that. And every time we get closer to the goal, they move the goalpost on us. They say, well, the law has changed. It used to be that way, but now it's changed. It's no longer that way. Now
Wilmer Leon (46:38):
The First Amendment doesn't matter anymore. Doesn't
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (46:41):
Matter anymore. Doesn't matter. There's,
Wilmer Leon (46:44):
As we wrap this up, what are the three most important things? First of all, there's going to be a rally. There's a rally coming up very shortly. Your sentencing is coming up very shortly. What are the three most salient things you want this audience to take away from this conversation today?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (47:04):
Thank you very much. I really would like to win people to come to Washington, DC for the Black is Back coalition mobilization. That's going to happen along with support partnership with the hands off of Rural committee. We still fighting this conspiracy charge and what have you. That's going to be on the 16th annual mobilization, Black People's March. But this Black People's March is going to be an anti-colonial march that will see leadership coming from Palestinians, from Africans, Mexicans, Filipinos, you name it. The people coming together. And for white people who can unite with the rights of black people to have free speech and self-determination. So that's on November 2nd, go to black is back coalition.org. Black is back coalition.org for more information on that. On November 25th, we are going to be sentenced and we are going to be in Tampa, Florida for that at the Federal Courthouse.
(48:09):
And I'm really calling on everybody, all of you who were able to put off things and put on your calendar coming to the trial. And some people came several times to the trial, believe it or not, no matter of few days, people like Pam Africa and Cam Howard and others, they came several times to the trial. And we want you to come there because we think it's really important for the court to continue to see that the people recognize the significance of what we do and what we stand for. And then finally, we are engaging. And so to get more information on that, go to HANDS-OFF-UHURU, U-H-U-R-U.org. And then finally, what we are involved in is a letter writing campaign. We are asking people to write letters. This is pre-sentence stuff. So some of this is letters that we want to affect the sentence that's going to be handed out on November 25th, which could be as extreme as five years in prison.
(49:18):
And so we want people to write letters, and you can get more information on that by going to hands off uru.org and continue to support the work that we do because the final analysis, they attacked us because we've been effective in neutralizing or minimizing to some extent the colonial impact in our communities, the economic development programs that we've initiated and things like that. So continue to support us. And again, go to hands off ulu.org. Go to black as black coalition.org, and you can, that will get you everywhere. I'm not going to try to throw out anymore. Yeah.
Wilmer Leon (50:01):
Chairman Omali Yeshitela co-founder and current Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party, which leads the movement. I want to thank you for your work. I want to thank you for your commitment to our people, and thank you for being a guest on my show today,
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (50:18):
Dr. Leon, I will not be able to overstate the significance of being here with you and the work that you do and helping the world to see when the corporate and colonial media does do everything they can to keep us invisible. This is extraordinarily important. I think the victories we have up to now are do in part to your ability to keep us linked to the people. Thank you so much.
Wilmer Leon (50:42):
Well, thank you again, sir. I greatly, greatly appreciate it. I want to thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. And remember, folks, that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on Connecting the Dots. See you again next time: Uhuru - Uhuru - Uhuru... Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
Announcer (51:32):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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The War on U.S. Journalists
19 Sep· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
In this explosive episode of "Connecting the Dots," I sit down with Professor Dan Kovalik to expose the harsh reality of free speech under attack in America. Dan shares his chilling story of being detained for hours at Miami Airport, interrogated simply for telling the truth on RT and other alternative news outlets. He’s part of a disturbing trend—journalists in the U.S. being raided, arrested, and harassed for daring to speak out. Is free speech in America on life support? We dive into Noam Chomsky’s theory of controlled debate, where public opinion is tightly managed, and how today’s media manipulates what we’re allowed to hear. From the prosecution of dissent to the silencing of pro-Palestine voices on college campuses, this conversation reveals the frightening erosion of our First Amendment rights. Don’t miss this urgent wake-up call—are we witnessing the death of free speech in the land of the free?
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Wilmer Leon (00:00):
The linguist, Noam Chomsky tells us the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. Even encourage the more critical and dissident views that gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on. While all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of debate. That's Noam Chomsky. Let's talk about it. Stay tuned.
Announcer (00:43):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:51):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I am Wilmer Leon is this what American mainstream media and those in Western established press are engaging in actually the violation of the First Amendment? Let's discuss this. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which these events occur. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I, we have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue of force is very simple. The first amendment, freedom of speech, and the US government's attack on this inalienable right, and my guest is a US labor and human rights lawyer, writer, author, and activist. His latest book is entitled The Case for Palestine, why It Matters and Why You Should Care. He has been a peace activist throughout his life. He has been deeply involved in the movement for peace and social justice in Columbia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other countries in the global south. He's also taught international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law since 2012. He is Professor Dan lik. Dan, welcome.
Dan Kovalik (02:26):
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. Wilmer.
Wilmer Leon (02:30):
So there are a number of events. We're going to connect a number of dots here, but let's start with the First Amendment and it reads as follows, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of people to peaceably, to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Dan, we take this as Americans, we take this for granted, but as the first amendment of the first 10, this one was very important and made number one for a reason why?
Dan Kovalik (03:18):
Well, because the founding fathers having come from England, where there was a king who was able to prescribe speech arbitrarily, wanted to protect the right of free spree speech, the right of religion. Of course, England had a state religion, the Anglican Church, and they wanted to make sure that Americans had the right to such things as speech and religion and freedom of the press. In England. Those things were not protected even to this day. By the way, great Britain does not have a written constitution and does not protect those types of rights in the way that the United States does.
Wilmer Leon (04:05):
And again, we've taken this right for granted for so many years, but we have found history shows us, particularly during times of war, when the United States feels that it is being threatened, the screws tighten on free speech, hence people get charged with sedition and other types of violations. When the government feels it's being threatened, when there is a perceived threat from outside the country, then the government will tend to tighten the screws restrict speech, and then once that threat is vanquished, then the prohibitions relax. Have you found history to prove that to be true?
Dan Kovalik (04:57):
Yes. I mean, one of the most famous examples, of course is during World War I, people like Eugene v Debs, great socialist from Terre Haute, Indiana. He was put in jail for publicly opposing World War I and famously his persecution and those of others like him was approved by the Supreme Court in a famous case by Oliver Wendell Holmes is one of the most celebrated jurors, and he created the clear and present danger rule. And what that says is that the First Amendment is not, as they often say, the US Constitution is not a suicide pact. He said that in cases of a clear and present danger, Congress in fact could
(05:59):
Limit speech. He gave the example famous example of you're not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater, for example. And he compared incredibly advocating for peace during a time of war as tantamount to claiming there's a fire in a crowded theater. And that remains the law of the day. And so that law or that decision, which is now almost a hundred years old, I think sets the precedent that advocating for peace in the United States is somehow a clear and present danger. And so when we look to how speech is being regulated and limited today, what we often see it being regulated when people are clamoring for peace.
Wilmer Leon (06:58):
There's an interesting piece in consortium news entitled Free Speech in the Department of Political Justice, and it's written by former judge Andrew Napolitano, who was a superior court judge in New Jersey. And he writes in this piece, I don't want to spend a lot of time getting into the weeds of the First Amendment, but I think this is very germane to what we find ourselves dealing with. He writes, the framers of the Constitution, were debating this idea of free speech, and they concluded that expressive rights are natural to all persons no matter where they are born. And natural rights are, as Jefferson had written in the Declaration of Independence inalienable. That's why I refer to them as inalienable rights in the open stated differently. He writes, Madison and his colleagues gave us a constitution and a bill of rights that on their face recognized the prepo political existence of the freedom of speech and of the press in all persons and guaranteed that in Congress, by which they meant the government could not and would not abridge them until now. And he, in his piece, he's referencing some charges that the United States government has imposed against some Americans and some Russians, and it's not even a matter of challenging war as much as it is challenging the established government narrative. Your thoughts?
Dan Kovalik (08:35):
Yes. So again, this is very similar to laws and regulations that have come down before during World War I and also around the same time you had the pomades against socialists and union leaders. Of course you had the McCarthy period, which also really represented an abridgement of peace of speech and of course very, I think relevant to today because of course the McCarthy period, at least ostensibly involved the persecution of communists. Though of course a lot of people persecuted were not communists, though a lot of the people who were persecuted were communists. Most notably in my mind, the great Paul Robeson who went, he and I went to the same law school. By the way, it's a big reason I went to Columbia Law School is because Paul Robeson went there, one of my heroes.
Wilmer Leon (09:31):
He was a few years ahead of you though.
Dan Kovalik (09:33):
A few years, yeah, yeah. I know I look old, but I'm not quite old enough to cross paths with Mr. Robeson. But why is that important? Because of course that involved claims that the communists were somehow how stooges of the Soviet Union. And now of course you have people making allegations that those opposing US foreign policy are pawns of Russia and Vladimir Putin. Right. So it's the same old trope that we've been hearing for years and years, and we see this manifested in the last two weeks with the Justice Department announcing indictments against people associated with rt, formerly known as Russia Today News based in Moscow. You had Anthony Blinken statements over the weekend that RT should be considered an espionage organization that means a spy organization. And of course the implication being that those Americans that work with it are spies. And then you had Hillary Clinton chiming in, I believe yesterday, saying that people spreading propaganda, Russian propaganda should be civilly if not criminally prosecuted. And so again, welcome to McCarthyism 2.0. It's a very scary time for people who, I'll just say like me, I'll only speak for myself who want to advocate for peace, but also specifically advocate for peace with Russia who say Russia's not our enemy who go to Russia. I've been to Russia five times in the last two years.
(11:26):
I've been to the Donbas three times to Crimea once to the Kherson region of what was Ukraine once. And I have worked with RT proudly so, but I and others like me are now in the crosshairs of the US government. And they're not even hiding it. They're being very clear that we are enemy number one at this point.
Wilmer Leon (11:51):
And this is important for people to understand because as you just mentioned, they've indicted two Americans living in Russia who are Russian citizens. They work for rt. The Feds are accusing them of spreading propaganda. And what they are basically doing is they're challenging the narrative of the Biden administration. And unlike what transpired during World War I, as you talked about Eugene Debs, and also what happened during World War ii, right now, last I checked, the United States has not declared war on Russia. So we are not in a war footing or on a war footing right now. These are individuals that, and I am one who is challenging the narrative of the Biden administration as it relates to what's going on in Ukraine as it relates to what's going on with China over Taiwan, what's going on in Venezuela, what's going on in the Middle East. There are a number of areas where I believe, and I think I have historic and current evidence to support the position that the established stated narrative of the administration is flat out wrong.
Dan Kovalik (13:18):
Yes, absolutely. And again, Anthony Blinken was very specific about that. He said that rt, that its alleged propaganda has undermined the cause of the war in Ukraine. But as you say, while the US is defacto at war with Russia, it is not officially at war with Russia. It is not declared war on Russia. And as you know, the US rarely declares war anymore. Only Congress can declare war. And rarely does it do that. We usually go to war again, not officially unofficially with countries without declaring war. So we are not officially at war with Russia, which means that those who work with Russia or Russia related entities are not engaged in sedition of any kind.
(14:12):
But that is what is being claimed. Now, I mean, that is being specifically claimed that we are in fact involved in sedition. And by the way, I know people, Wilmer friends of mine that are fleeing the country. Oh, really? Oh yeah. A number of people and some to Russia, but some to other places, Canada, other places for fear, they're going to be prosecuted because of their work with rt. And no, it's very serious. I know several people, I won't name them. I think I can name one because he's already done it. So he is safe there. And that's Jackson Henkel.
Wilmer Leon (14:55):
Oh, okay.
Dan Kovalik (14:57):
But there's others in the process of doing that. Some people have urged me to do that. So we have a very serious situation, and I understand why people would make that choice, because really the government is signaling that they may go after us. So it makes some sense,
Wilmer Leon (15:21):
And we're going to get to that with you in just a few moments because there, there's another, there are a number of facets of this that if you look at these things individually, people may have a tendency to think, oh, well, this is just a one-off here, or a one-off there. But when you start connecting these dots, what you find out is the government is engaged in incredibly fascist behavior, and they are establishing policies. When Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, former First Lady comes on television and starts talking about people who are spewing propaganda need to be considered for facing criminal charges. What's the difference between her saying that here in the United States and some of the incredibly repressive policies that have been and are in place by some people that she and other members of the current administration label as dictators label as strong men label as fascists?
Dan Kovalik (16:37):
No, I mean, of course there's no difference. I mean, and think about it. The US has voice of America, which again, openly broadcast US viewpoints around the world and in particular in countries that the US is hostile towards. Radio Liberty is a similar one in Europe, but frankly, you don't even have to point to those because now frankly, most of the US media operates like those. They're nothing but mouthpieces For the US government, I would put NPR in that category, C-N-N, M-S-N-B-C, and of course the iron. And if those stations or those broadcasting systems are jammed in other countries or people associated with those entities are arrested or persecuted, of course the US is the first one to claim foul. Right? But of course, the other irony here is that M-S-NBC, which is the station that Hillary Clinton made her statements on, and Rachel Maddow, they have been propagandists themselves in terms of pushing these lies about Russian interference. They've been pushing these lies for eight years now. And Hillary Clinton herself was one of the main origins of that lie, which has been debunked,
(18:02):
Almost entirely and right. So they are pushing propaganda and they're pushing war propaganda again, specifically against Russia. They themselves are guilty of war propaganda, which is by the way, a war crime under international law. But so talk about calling the kettle black, or in fact, they're calling the China, the China plates black when they're the ones that are engaged in propaganda.
Wilmer Leon (18:32):
In fact, there's a, I'm trying to pull it up right now. There's an NBC story from a while ago from 2022 where they admitted to using propaganda to fool American people. And in fact, the author of the story is a journalist, Ken Delan, who by the way I believe had been dismissed from the LA Times because he was clearing stories through the CIA before the stories were being submitted to his editors at the LA Times. That's history. But there was a story back from 2022 where NBC admitted that they're involved in his propaganda war with Russia and that they will lie to the American people in order to get out in front of a story before the Russians can tell the story or to mislead the Russians. And so the United States government em, it does it to the American people itself
Dan Kovalik (19:41):
All the time. We know this happens all the time. Another classic case was Judith Miller at the New York Times, who was doing nothing but writing CIA propaganda at the behest of the CIA, which led it helped lead us to the war in Iraq. And in fact, the CIA credited her reporting for helping pave the way to the war with Iraq. And of course one of the big lies of the war, the weapons of mass destruction was a lie that she promoted and incredibly, she's landed on her feet. She was let go or forced to resign for the New York Times because that came out. But now she works for CNN. I mean these folks, it's really not a negative mark on their career if they do this sort of thing. John Stockwell just mentioned John Stockwell, I don't know if you remember him well, I do. But he was a CIA Bureau chief at Angola. He talked about how the CIA would write stories that they would've published in the press, and he gave one example. He said, we once wrote a story about Cuban troops who were fighting US backed forces in Angola, and who by the way helped liberate Southern Africa and South Africa, as you know, Wilmer.
(21:06):
He said they would claim Cuban troops had raped these women in Angola. Then they'd write a story saying the Cuban troops were killed. And then he said, incredibly, they'd write another story about the same Cuban troop unit somehow revived from the dead doing something else. And yet the press printed it without question. And this happens, and Hollywood's the same way. Hollywood is very much under the sway of the ca. If I can just give one example of that famous interesting example, if you've ever seen the movie, which I like quite a bit, meet the Parents, pretty funny movie. There's a scene in which Ben Stiller, the main character, goes into Robert De Niro's layer for the first time and discovers he's with the ccia. Originally, the script had it that he found he was with the CIA because there was a CIA torture manual de Niro's desk. Well, the CIA who reviewed the script and reviews many scripts in Hollywood, you can't do that. So they ended up just having photos of De Niro with Bin Laden and Clinton and different things. So a lot of what we watch on TV in the movies and reading the newspaper, a lot of that is clear through the ccia, if not utterly based on CIA misinformation that they feed to the press.
Wilmer Leon (22:42):
And let me connect these dots. I found the story and here's the headline. This is from NBC News in a Break with the Past. Now that's a lie. Us is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn't rock solid. It doesn't have to be solid intelligence. One US official said it's more important to get out ahead of them, the Russians Putin specifically before they do something. So this is NBC admitting that they're using less than accurate intel in stories that they're telling to the American public. They're basically lying in order to further a narrative. And we can take this back to the Iraq War with the Office of Special Plans, which was set up in the Pentagon to take intel that hadn't been vetted and spin it into stories that would support the US narrative about why the United States needed the whole idea of weapons of mass destruction. And Dick Cheney's letter about yellow cake uranium coming from Niger, okay, why are we getting into these weeds? Because the United States government is attacking American citizens, independent journalists for telling the truth about stories that are challenging the standard narrative when the United States government admits itself, it's lying to you. And this is in violation of the First Amendment, professor Dan Kalik. Is that a good summation of the issue?
Dan Kovalik (24:38):
It's a very good summation. You often hear, for example, someone like myself will say, oh, there's neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Which by the way, before 2022, even a lot of the mainstream press reported on that, right?
Wilmer Leon (24:55):
I won't say even Barack Obama said, one of the reasons we don't want to send weapons to Ukraine is because we don't want to give weapons to the Nazis.
Dan Kovalik (25:01):
Yeah. Not only did Barack Obama talk about it, there was a law passed by Congress that I think Obama signed saying that the US could not fund neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Well, I don't think they passed the law just because theoretically there might be because they knew there were Nazis in Ukraine, and then in fact, that law was repealed because they later decided, oh, well, we need to support Nazis in Ukraine. Okay, so everyone admitted there's Nazis in Ukraine. Then once the special military operations of Russia began in February of 2022, all of the press all of a sudden pretended, oh, there's no Nazis there. Okay? So now after that, if someone like me who's actually been to the Don Bass, which was part of Ukraine, says, oh yeah, there's neo-Nazis in Ukraine. They're like, well, that's a Putin talking point. Well, the fact it's a Putin talking point doesn't mean it's untrue. If Putin says the world is round, it doesn't mean the world is flat.
(26:00):
But that's what's happening. That is really the claim leveled against people who are trying to give a more balanced picture of what's happening in Ukraine as they're being portrayed as somehow being controlled by the Kremlin, when in fact they're just saying what the truth is. Even though, yeah, it may happen to correspond with what the Kremlin is saying, which I will say, I find the Kremlin a lot more credible on many of these issues than the White House, but other people have to judge that. But again, the fact that my views may overlap with those of the Kremlin at times doesn't mean I'm under their sway.
Wilmer Leon (26:47):
And let me give the reference those who want to look this up for themselves. Again, the headline of the story is in a Break with the Past US, is using intel to fight an in full war with Russia, even when the intel isn't rock solid. And the story is from April 6th and 2022 written by Ken Delan and others. And again, it's important to remember that again, Ken Delan was dismissed from the LA Times for writing stories, for sending stories to the CIA, having the CIA edit the stories, not telling the editors at the LA times that this was being done. So again, this shows you the kind of work and the kind of propaganda that is being sold to you as news. Now, there's another element to this because as we talked about before, there are a number of facets of this, and that is, again, in Consortium News, pro-Palestine students and faculty Sue UC, Santa Cruz, the lawsuit seeks to vindicate the fundamental democratic and constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly and due process against overreach by university authorities. So basically what has happened, and this story came was last week, September 11th, 2024. So if you all remember back in the spring, there were a number of protests across college campuses all over this country in support of the Palestinian efforts, and they were protesting against the genocidal action of Israel against Palestinians at the United States is supporting. And a number of students were arrested, and some students that were arrested at UC, what did I say, UC, Santa Barbara or UC, Santa Cruz
(28:52):
In the spring have now still been put off campus in violation of campus regulation. So they are suing the University of Santa Cruz to have that overturned. And just Tuesday, the University of Maryland now finds that care, the Council of American Islamic Relations, Palestine Legal, they are suing University of Maryland for canceling. And this is who would ever think to do something this horrific Jewish and Palestinian student groups holding an interfaith vigil? Dan Valick, the country is going to hell in a hand basket.
Dan Kovalik (29:44):
Yeah, absolutely. It's outrageous. I mean, what we see is violations of the First Amendment in many different ways. Not only the violation of free speech, of freedom of assembly, but of course freedom of religion because of course, the interfaith vigil would be an expression of religion. I don't see how these actions by Santa Cruz, which by the way, is part of the University of California system, that's a public school system. It means they are subject to the First Amendment. I don't see how those actions can stand if they do stand, if the courts allow them to stand, then we have entered a brave new world, my friend. I mean a very dangerous world by any precedent of the court, at least recent precedent, they should be permitted to have these types of protest in vigils. And I hope they win in the courts. They should win.
Wilmer Leon (30:42):
In fact, I remember saying after September 11th, as we looked at the crackdown that the United States government was imposing upon American citizens, that when a country violates its own constitution in reaction to action taken by terrorists, the terrorists have won.
Dan Kovalik (31:06):
Yeah, well, that's absolutely true. And of course, what we saw after nine 11 was an abomination in terms of the rights, not just of US citizens, but of others that were curtailed. The people put in Guantanamo Bay without charge. It turned out most of them had done nothing. Some died in jail, some died of torture.
(31:34):
It was a huge mark on American democracy. I believe there's still people there. It has not been there. I think there's a couple survivors still hanging on. It's an amazing thing. And of course then you had Barack Obama who decided he could murder American citizens with drones abroad on his own authority. And he killed one man who was claimed to have been a terrorist again, that had never been proven, that he had not been, that had not proven in a court of law. And then incredibly, they murdered his son, his 16-year-old son. And in defense, one of the White House spokespeople said, well, he chose the wrong father.
Wilmer Leon (32:25):
Eric Holder came out and said when he was the Attorney General, that an American president can execute American citizens anywhere in the world without judicial review.
Dan Kovalik (32:37):
Yeah, incredible. An incredible thing. And it's bad enough, frankly, Wilmer, that the government has done these sorts of things. But the sad part also is there's been so little resistance to this, so little criticism. And that's what allows these things to continue and not only continue, but to escalate
Wilmer Leon (32:59):
Quickly going back to the campus issue. So we're told that there has to be this prohibition against protesting in support of the Palestinians because we have to be mindful of the sensitivities of Jewish students, and we can't have these Jewish American students feeling threatened and feeling unsafe on the college campuses amidst these peaceful protests, ignoring the fact that a lot of the protestors are the very Jewish students who the authorities claim their rights are being protected. I believe I submit to you attorney Kovalik, that that is merely a cover or a pretext for the protection of these interests of these students is a pretext, is a cover that is being used by the government to violate our First Amendment rights the same way the Israeli government claims it has to engage in genocide of Palestinians as it attacks Hamas.
Dan Kovalik (34:22):
No, exactly right. Because the other issue, I mean, of course you're right that many Jews are protesting for Palestinians, but also what about the Palestinians rights? There's Palestinian students on campus, there's Arab students. What about their rights? Right?
Wilmer Leon (34:37):
What about my rights? I'm neither Palestinian nor Jewish, and I have this problem, and I know I'm nuts, Dan. I got a problem with genocide. I admit it. I admit America. I admit it to the world. I got a problem with genocide.
Dan Kovalik (34:52):
It's an incredible thing. Wilmer, what we've all been taught since World War II is that the worst crime in the world is genocide, right? It is the high crime. It is the most abominable crime. And even one of the worst things you could say about someone is they're a genocide denier, right?
Wilmer Leon (35:15):
Oh, yeah. Heaven forbid.
Dan Kovalik (35:16):
And now all of a sudden when people are protesting against genocide, they're the bad guys. And yet it's an incredible thing that is happening. It's an amazing Rubicon we've crossed, and no one can really defend it. That's the problem. And that is why there's repression. The universities, including some of the best in the world like Columbia University, which may be the main offender on this, they can't defend their actions. They can't defend the genocide. They can't defend against those saying it's a genocide. So they've decided we just have to shut the speech down because we as an institution, we have no argument. We can't ideologically defend this. We can't ideologically defend the United States. And so we're just going to say, students, you can't talk, which goes against every notion that anyone has about what the university is supposed to be, a space of free speech and free debate. And Zionists should have a right to their views. They should have a right to peacefully protest. And those are against Zionism. And the genocide should also have that right. And that is so obvious and so clear, and the fact that the universities have decided to go the other way and only repress one kind of speech, and that is pro-Palestinian and not pro-Israel. It's abominable. It just shows the corruption of our institutions from the universities all the way to the White House.
Wilmer Leon (36:55):
And it also, I believe, shows the power of the military industrial complex, or what Ray McGovern called the Mickey Mat, in that once you start challenging the narrative via free speech, you now threaten the defense budget. You now start threatening the billions of dollars in weapons that are being wasted in Ukraine, that are being wasted in Gaza, that are being wasted as the United States is trying to foment a Middle East war. And heaven forbid those billion dollar contracts that are going to Lockheed Martin, that are going to Boeing, that are going to ge, Raytheon, heaven forbid, people start asking questions about why is so much money being wasted on genocide?
Dan Kovalik (37:53):
Yeah, no, exactly. That's correct. When we look around our cities, we look around this country, we see so many problems that need fixing, and people are saying, Hey, why aren't you fixing our problems instead of sending money abroad to these wars in Ukraine and Gaza? Those are very inconvenient people to the powers that be, and not just to the military industrial complex, but apparently we know that in the case of Columbia University, that they responded to calls by millionaires in New York City who asked them to repress the protest. So we know the ruling class is very much in the tank for Israel, very much in the tank for the genocide in Gaza, and that they are influencing these universities and how they respond to this.
Wilmer Leon (38:45):
And let's connect another dot. And that is the trial in Tampa, Florida that just wrapped up last week in the Uru, the African People Socialist Party, also known as the Uhuru movement or the Uhuru three. There was an incredibly confusing verdict that came down in that trial. It was alleged that the defendants were doing the bidding of the Russian government by sowing discord in America's political process by promoting political views that were contrary to those of the United States government and favorable to those of the Russian government. Now, I got to reiterate, they're not talking about overthrowing the government. They're not talking about attacking the government sowing discord, their own words in America's political process by promoting political views, not military political views that are contrary to those of the United States government. So well, go ahead, Dan. You want to say something?
Dan Kovalik (40:00):
Yeah. Well, that's exactly what the First Amendment is supposed to protect, are controversial views that go against the government. I mean, right? You don't need the First Amendment to protect speech that is pro-government, right? I mean, that's kind of obvious. If the First Amendment only protected pro-government speech, it wouldn't be much of a protection at all. As people say, you have to protect inconvenience speech and dissident speech. And so it's amazing that this prosecution went forward. Apparently, I guess they were convicted of conspiracy, but not some of the other charges. And by the way, let's say a couple things about it. First of all, I'm not sure they influenced anyone. I never heard of this organization to be totally honest, until this, right, until this indictment came down. And so number one, so they don't have much influence at all. Number two, I think this was over like 500 bucks in a donation they got for some Russian 500 bucks. Meanwhile, APAC is giving over a hundred million dollars in this election cycle to people's election campaigns. APAC owned
Wilmer Leon (41:15):
And Corey Bush Co Bush lost because of those efforts. And Jamal Bowman in New York lost because of those efforts. So not only is APAC donating and it's a hundred million by their admission in the New York Times, they were successful in their efforts.
Dan Kovalik (41:36):
They claim they were successful in every effort, every person, they backed one. And this has been true for years, of course, this type of influence. In fact, John F. Kennedy tried to make APAC liable under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which is the act that the Arru group was prosecuted. And of course, Kennedy was not able to do so, and he was actually killed shortly after. You can draw your own conclusions. APAC has been this huge elephant in the living room, a huge influencer of American politics for many, many years. And yet, who's getting prosecuted for that? No one. No one. They go after these small fish
Wilmer Leon (42:28):
To make a big point.
Dan Kovalik (42:29):
Yeah,
Wilmer Leon (42:30):
Small fish to make a big point. And so this was an incredibly bizarre verdict because they weren't, as you mentioned, they weren't found guilty of failing to register as agents of the Russian government. They were convicted of conspiring to fail to register as agents of the government.
Dan Kovalik (42:54):
Incredible. It's absolutely incredible.
Wilmer Leon (42:57):
So the jury said that Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the other two defendants agreed to become unregistered agents of the Russian government, but didn't actually become agents of the Russian government.
Dan Kovalik (43:15):
They wanted to be agents, but Russian didn't care. They didn't want them to be agents, whatever. It's absolutely bizarre. And that we could talk about this all day. I mean, again, I'm a lawyer. I study criminal law, and that sort of, to get someone on that, that becomes just a thought crime. They literally did nothing they made,
Wilmer Leon (43:35):
Which by the way, isn't a crime,
Dan Kovalik (43:36):
Right? No, you're right. I mean, again, because that would be a First Amendment violation. We were not supposed to prosecute thoughts. And the idea is, oh, I wanted to do something. Well, that's not enough to convict someone. I mean, it's completely outrageous. And I think their case is on appeal, if I'm not mistaken. If it is, I really hope they win. I mean, God bless 'em. They really are the test case here for the rest of us. I mean, I think the government went after this small group that no one heard of because they figured no one would support them. They go after them first, make some bad precedent for the rest of us, then start going after the rest of us, which means it's a very important case.
Wilmer Leon (44:22):
And the prosecution, the government was unable to present hardly any witnesses. They had hardly any evidence because this was 95% fiction. It was just flat fiction. And I think what also the government didn't expect was the attention that this was going to bring. The courtroom was full of supporters for the Uhuru. They've been around since about 1972, and they've done incredible work in the communities that they work in. And so now final data point, as I understand it, you Dan Kalik we're coming back into this country last week.
Dan Kovalik (45:14):
Yeah, Friday. Last Friday, yeah.
Wilmer Leon (45:16):
I'll let you tell the story.
Dan Kovalik (45:19):
Yeah. So I was coming back from the anti-fascist Congress in Venezuela.
Wilmer Leon (45:26):
Yeah,
Dan Kovalik (45:27):
I believe,
Wilmer Leon (45:28):
Oh, wait a minute. See, I knew when I saw that white jacket, when I saw that white jacket
Dan Kovalik (45:32):
Knew something was bad. Yeah, they used to say they were premature. I guess that's what I'm, but anyway, I came back through Bolivia. And to be, make a long story short, I was held for four hours. I was interrogated where, what airport in Miami, which is not the airport, you really do want to come back through. But I was asked about my travels, about who I meet with, about my connections, my political beliefs. They
Wilmer Leon (46:07):
Asked you about your political beliefs.
Dan Kovalik (46:09):
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it was all about what countries do you like? What countries do you not like and do you feel most comfortable? What countries are you most afraid of? I said, honestly, the one I'm in right now because I get treated like this. And then
Wilmer Leon (46:27):
What was their reaction to that answer?
Dan Kovalik (46:29):
Well, they were a little defensive, but tried to continue with the conversation and then, well, even before, so before they got deeply into the questioning, they searched all my bags and took my cell phone and my computer. By the end of the evening, I did get my computer back, but my phone, I did not get back. And I just got it back this morning. So that would've been about three or four days they had it. And we know, I mean, you can Google this. There's a lot of stories about it. They have the right outside New York City. We can get into the exception outside of JFK and LaGuardia. They have the right everywhere else to take your phone and copy the whole thing, copy your computer, which I imagine they've done, which is an incredible privacy violation. As you can imagine. Most people have a heart attack if that happened to 'em. And it was clear, it was motivated by my trips to Russia, Venezuela, other countries. And in fact, I've been subject to secondary interrogation, which is what it's called at the border in the airports a number of times since I first started going to Russia about two years ago, I've been stopped. That was probably my fourth or fifth time being stopped.
(48:02):
I was told in Chicago when I was stopped some months ago, that I have a case number with the State Department that marked me for this type of interrogation. And other people like Danny Shaw, who's a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, he also was stopped
Wilmer Leon (48:21):
Friend of ours. Yeah,
Dan Kovalik (48:23):
Stopped for three hours. His phone was taken. I mean, he's Scott Ritter.
Wilmer Leon (48:27):
That was in Chicago.
Dan Kovalik (48:28):
Danny was stopped
Wilmer Leon (48:29):
In Chicago.
Dan Kovalik (48:29):
Chicago. Scott Ritter's house in New York was raided by the FBI. They took his phone and computer. So look, the hunt is on. There's no question about that. I do want to give one caveat, I mentioned this exception in New York City. There is a judge in New York, the federal court in New York who held in her court district, in her court jurisdiction, which covers JFK and LaGuardia. They cannot take your computer and phone without a search warrant. So people out there, Wilmer, if you're doing international travel, try to come back through JFK because
Wilmer Leon (49:13):
Thank you. I was just going to ask you about the warrant because this seems to be another violation. You're supposed to be secure in your person and your papers. Last I checked, and I'm not a lawyer. I did go to law school and I did stay at Holiday Inn Express. So there seemed to be a number of violations beyond the First Amendment when they start to detain you and they start to seize your property without warrants.
Dan Kovalik (49:50):
Yes. Well, the problem we have, Wilmer is outside the jurisdiction in New York, the courts have held that customs has the right to hold you even up to 72 hours, Wilmer without a lawyer interrogate you and to take your phone computer and copy it. They have held that until you get through the customs and immigration,
Wilmer Leon (50:20):
You're not officially in the country.
Dan Kovalik (50:22):
You're not in the United States of America. The Constitution does not apply to you. That's an incredible, incredible thing. Most Americans have no idea of it, and most Americans won't experience the repercussions of that.
(50:36):
But what that means, until you go through passport control and get your bag and go through those double doors and push on those double doors and go into the main terminal, they really have the power of God over you. And again, most people have no idea about that. And so what the government's decided to do is, okay, we're not going to even worry about getting a warrant. We won't even send the FBI to Dan Aleks home. We don't have to do that. We wait until he leaves the country. He comes back because he travels all the time, and we'll do things to him and take things from him. We could never do without a warrant and without an attorney being present if he's interrogated, et cetera. It's an incredible violation of our rights, as you say, Wilmer. But it is totally sanctioned, at least at this moment by the courts, except for that court in New York City.
Wilmer Leon (51:33):
So and where did they approach you? You're coming through the jet way. You're coming off, you're deplaning, you're coming through the jet way. So when you come out of the jet way to the terminal, what happened?
Dan Kovalik (51:51):
Well, so just as almost every time, so only one time this happened to me in Chicago recently. They were waiting for me off the plane. Right outside the plane. In theJet.
(52:05):
Yeah. The only time that happened, in fact, as we were descending, they announced in the plane is we were descending. Please have your passports ready when you exit the plane. They checked everyone's passports. When they got to me, they stopped checking because they had their guy and they took me to be interrogated. Now, there was only time that happened every other time, including this time in Miami. I get off the plane, I walk all that way. Usually it's a long walk all the way to passport control. I get in the line, I get up to the passport agent, she checks my passport, had a few questions, and I'm thinking maybe I'm going to be okay this time. And then she said, please stand over there. And I knew what that meant.
Wilmer Leon (53:00):
Did you say, go stand in the corner
Dan Kovalik (53:02):
And face the wall, basically. And she put a little orange slip over my passport and another guy comes out, he takes my passport and says, come with me. And I'm brought into another room with a bunch of other people, and I sat there for probably an hour. Other people were getting processed very quickly. After an hour, a customs officer came and said, please come with me with your baggage. And she said, now she begins, I'm sorry, Wilmer. She lied. Okay. She begins to make up this story. She says, you're subject to a random drug search from Bolivia because a lot of people are bringing in drugs. So we're going to check your bags and then I'm going to ask you a few questions. We'll let you go. And this is just a random, but she checks all my bags that she does, but she doesn't have a sniffer dog and she doesn't check my prescription pill bottles, which could have drugs in them. She didn't check my coffee I brought in, which could have drugs in them. Clearly this is theater.
(54:08):
And she says, as part of our search, we can take your phone and your computer. We're going to do that, but we're only going to search for issues related to drugs. Whether you told someone you have drugs or you swallow drugs. But then when she takes me to another room for interrogation, there's no questions about drugs. It's all about what countries do you visit? Do you meet with government officials? Do you know government officials? Do you know presidents of other countries? Again, what countries you feel comfortable in? What countries do you not feel comfortable in?
(54:45):
That sort of thing, which indicates that was the real reason for me being pulled over was my travels and political beliefs, not the drug stuff. That was just a lie, I think, to get me feeling comfortable enough to talk to them. So there you go. That's what happened. Again, it took me days to get my phone back again. You can read about it. The customs now copies thousands of phones a year. They put 'em on a database. All of that information is on the database for 15 years, and all 3000 customs officials have access to it. So some guy in whatever Oklahoma's board during his lunch can go eat his sandwich and look at my data. I mean, it's an amazing thing. Wilmer again, most Americans have no idea this is happening.
Wilmer Leon (55:48):
Wow. The land of the free and the home of the brave. So it's also important for people to understand this is happening during a democratic administration.
Dan Kovalik (56:00):
Yes. And especially because it's democratic. We know from the New York Times, an article about three weeks ago, talked about the FBI, investigating people for connections with Russia and rt, and they said specifically that this was ordered by President Joe Biden. So this is not an accident. This isn't just the bureaucracy doing what they do or the deep state. This has been ordered by a democratic president to happen.
Wilmer Leon (56:30):
And we also know that more whistleblowers were prosecuted during the Obama administration than any other administration in history.
Dan Kovalik (56:40):
Indeed, indeed.
Wilmer Leon (56:44):
Dan Kovalik, professor Dan Kovalik. Man, thank you so much for your time. I truly, truly appreciate. First of all, I'm very sorry that you as an American went through this. I'm even more aggrieved that you as a friend went through this. Thank you. But thank you for joining me today,
Dan Kovalik (57:04):
Wilmer. It's always a pleasure and you are a friend, and I admire you a lot, and I look forward to the next time we talk.
Wilmer Leon (57:11):
Well, man, appreciate it. And folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting to Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wiler Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can see all the links below in the show description. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge, talk without analysis is just chatter. And we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
Announcer (57:51):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Polling Myths vs. Facts
12 Sep· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
In this episode of Connecting the Dots with guest former Governor L. Douglas Wilder, we cut right to the chase: forget the polls, the hype, and identity politics—what really matters in the 2024 race is what the candidates have done and what they’re going to do. Former Governor Wilder doesn’t hold back as we dive into the hard truth: track records and real actions are what voters should care about. From public safety to education, we tear through the noise and focus on what’s truly at stake. If you're not asking what these candidates have delivered, you’re missing the point. Buckle up for a no-nonsense conversation that flips the script on political analysis
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:00):
The 2024 presidential race is shaping up as we sit here in early September. The Hill reports Harris v Trump polls Harris has a 4% lead based upon 162 polls. If you're a Harris fan, that's great for the popular vote, but the number that matters is 270. What's behind these numbers? Let's find out
Announcer (00:31):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:39):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue of force is what's the layout of the domestic political landscape and for some invaluable insight into this and some other issues. Let's turn to my guest. He continues to be one of the most astute political minds of our time. He's the 66th governor of Virginia, the nation's first elected African-American governor, former mayor of Richmond, Virginia, and he's the founder of the l Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. And a man that I am very proud to be able to a governor L. Douglas Wilder. Welcome to the show.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (01:56):
Thank you Wilmer, and it's always good to be with you and always learn from you as well and share opportunities for us to spread to others who would look to what we say for guidance or correction or whatever it is they feel. I'm always privileged to be with you.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (02:19):
Well, sir, the privilege is mine. Thank you so much for those compliments. Before we get to your analysis of the upcoming election, talk a little bit about the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at VCU. It's my opinion that of all of your historic and significant accomplishments, this one is historic and significant.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (02:43):
It is, and we have an excellent dean, Dean, Susan Gooden, who understands the importance of what we call government and public affairs. They understand what government is and as you and I discussed and have discussed on any numbers of occasions, that government, which is closest to the people is that which most affects the people at local government. Yes, we're concerned about who's going to be president, but who's going to pick up the trash, who's going to provide housing, and so we connect those dots between national elections, national government and local government and we involve the issues. We have a measure that she calls rise, a research Institute for social equity and it's very important, and that's distinguished from DEI talking about America and Wilmer. I don't have to tell you, you have no idea how many people are not aware of the history of America. Not just black history, but American history, which improves all of America's people. That's what we try to do at our school. We're critical, we're analytical and we hope to improve.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (04:07):
Your point about people not being aware of American history, and I'm going to get to the Wilder bite in just a minute because you did some surveys on some of those issues, but just the overall idea of teaching government in school, that is becoming harder and harder to find middle schools and high schools that are going to teach government in school.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (04:36):
You'd be surprised or maybe not surprised to know that our governor, governor Glenn Young requested Syl from our schools as well as a couple of other schools in Virginia as to what is being taught relative to this history. The governor of the state of Virginia most will be able to approve himself singularly, not the boards of visitors, not the people who are the historians, but he wants to do it and we projected it. People have rejected it, and I think one of the reasons is people want more of a corrective history. Tell it all the good, the bad and the ugly, and then we can improve upon it. We can see what it is we may have done wrong. When I ran for office, I never ran as a black person. I ran as a person entitled to run because I fulfilled the obligations of the need to run for office age, residency, et cetera. And then I never have considered myself a black governor. The vast majority of people in this state are not black. Matter of fact, Virginia, when I ran, was the lowest concentration of black voters or black population of any of the southern states, but for whites voting for me overwhelmingly to the extent that they did not overwhelming in terms of the numbers, numbers but overwhelming in terms of precedent. I wouldn't be here talking to you today as the former governor or the former mayor or the former.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (06:27):
One of the things that I find incredibly invaluable is I get that you have a publication Wilder Policy Bites
(06:36):
And the most recent, which I think was released on the 25th of August is entitled Commonwealth Poll. Most Virginians agree, history of race should be taught in schools. One of the issues of education, I'm sorry, on the issue of education, 75% of respondents think the history of race should be a subject In K through 12, there were three bullets. That's the first one. The second one is about Gaza and Israel's military action. 39% said Israel was justified in taking action in Gaza. And the third point, a high percentage of Virginians agree that VCU President Michael Rouse should provide public accounting of money. I highlight those three because that's quite a diverse area of information and polling that you all are doing with your Wilder policy bites.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (07:33):
Well, thank you very much. And policy bites put on by our school Dean Gooden and Dr. Robin McDougall handles the polling that we have put forth, but what you just cited was the illustrative of what the governor obviously doesn't know. The people want the things that you just described. They want to know about education, they want to know about the history. They want to know about what should or should not be taught. They're not asking the governor to tell teachers what to teach. Let the teachers who are trained to do the instruct our youngsters to let them know who we are as a people. And so in policy base, we also want to, and our polling, when you see the numbers of people, we, as I said, are not a purple state nor a blue state or a red state. We're a people state and that's why I've always been a little weary of polls because I wonder why no one ever call me. I thought of a poll and yet involving now with policy base and polling and knowing how fair that this poll is being conducted. Listen to the people and they'll tell you what you might not want to hear, but they'll tell you the truth.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (09:07):
I said, now let's turn to the current landscape. And I said in the open that the Hill has reported that Harris now has a 4% lead based on 162 polls, and we understand polls are no more than just a snapshot in a moment of time. But I also said that said, if you're a Harris fan, that's a very encouraging number, but the number that matters is two 70. So just give me first of all your overall thoughts of the political landscape as it stands before us right now.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (09:50):
Well, as you know, there are those who vacillate from day to day in terms of what this group says, what this person says, as I see the political landscape now, it's a turnout election. By that I mean not notwithstanding what the poll says. Who's going to vote, who's going to get up, who's going to feel motivated, who's going to feel inspired? That's why even in our state, our last poll showed plus or minus three to four, and that was with Harris leading. But are those people going to get out? Are they going to go out? Are they going to vote supposed it rains? Suppose you're not having childcare, suppose any numbers of the things, how important is it for early voting
(10:48):
Were going to do that, so I wouldn't pay any attention to those polls as it relates to being comfortable. I would consider them in terms of being inspired to say, look, we can win. This is what I think it takes to win and go to the people. And I think in this case the debates do matter and this next debate or this first debate between Trump and Harris, it's going to be very telling. It depends on which one of them is going to be appearing to be presidential, which one speaks for a voice for the future and which one speaks for the people.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (11:30):
I was asked a couple of days ago for my opinion about the upcoming election and my answer was, well, we have two troublesome candidates. We have a former president with a well-established and horrible record. We have a sitting vice president with very little to show for her efforts up to this point, neither side up to this point is really articulating substantive policy. Trump continues with his personal attacks and invectives and running on this project 2025 agenda that he now wants to run from, and there's still no policy tab on the Harris-Walz website.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (12:12):
It's one thing to tell us what you're going to do, but I say this to all of the people who tell me they want to run for office or that they want to be promoted further in office. What have you done? What have you fought for? What is your unfinished agenda? What will you continue to fight for? What is it that would make me want to vote for you? Give me some idea of the things that you tried to do that you haven't been able to get done, but that if you got elected you feel that you need more favorably inclined to do so because you'd have a greater following. Those are the kinds of things the public wants. They don't want to help get any sound bites of people coming out, I support this person or that person. What will you do to make me say that I can support you? That has to be an individual decision and that's why those who are running office, particularly this election, this is going to be a very trendsetting election because as you pointed out, you've got a history maker in the process with Kamala Harris and you've got a troublemaker who has been the president of the United States, which means don't take anything for granted, don't take these polls for granted because the only one that counts is the one that's taken on election day.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (13:38):
So the takeaway, one of the takeaways that I have from what you've just articulated is the fact that Vice President Harris is an AKA part of the Divine nine, which both of us are. The fact that she went to Howard, which both of us have done, and the fact that she can do the electric slide, which I can't do, but I know you're a pretty good dancer, none of that really should matter.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (14:06):
No, the introductory, the question is the same thing we've been talking about here. What have you done? What are you trying to do? What will you be able to do that is of an interest to me and mine? What about public safety? What about housing? What about health or what about the expenditure of money, the high cost of living, the economy and all of those things? Tell me where you stand on those issues so that I can determine what's best for me and mine. And once that happens, then I'm in a better position to say, I've got to only vote for you, but I've got to get out and get others to do so too. See, enlisting my vote is one thing enlisting me to encourage others to vote is something else. That's what has to be done.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (15:06):
And this issue around Project 2025, a 900 page document, I read that about 140 people tied to the Trump administration helped to write the document and the former president wants to throw up his hand and say, Hey, I don't know anything about this. I don't know where this came from. This has nothing to do with me, and we know the power of the Heritage Foundation, so now all of a sudden, these 900 pages don't mean a thing.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (15:44):
Well, it doesn not only not pass the smell test, it doesn't pass any test, and so I would think that disclaimer on behalf of the president would be something that he would be better advised to forget. Don't disclaim it if you claim that up to this point. Best thing you need to do is to say the things within that that you would change even now that it's been criticized or that you would stick to now that it's been criticized, but the disclaimer is not going to work.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (16:19):
One of the things that I've been saying about this document, because in some circles it seems to have just come up out of nowhere, I say to those who want to run around with their hair on fire, it's old wine in new bottles For the most part. It's not new. You go back and read Newt Gingrich's contract with America, go back and read Bill Clinton's reinventing government as we know it. The Democrats have played a role in a lot of this as the Republicans have, so I don't say that to diminish how horrific the document is, but history is very important and I think people need to understand the reality in which this document has come from.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (17:14):
I agree with that, but I go back again to what I said earlier. People wan't plain and talk.
(17:23):
They're not interested in documents or treatises or platitudes or slogans, plain talk. They don't need what you are going to do about immigration. What are you going to do about the high cost of living? What are you going to do about our economy? How threatening is the situation in to immigration as it relates to what could happen to American interests in the Middle East? What is the status of America's continuing pouring money into the Ukraine when we don't see the results that we would like to see? These are not questions that need to be documented to death. They need to be answered simply.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (18:16):
I wrote a piece a while ago called You're with Her, but is she with you? And the point of the piece, and I say this very clearly in the piece, it has nothing to do with Kamala Harris and everything to do with us. What are we demanding of her and up to this point, again, all I get is she's an AKA, she went to Howard and she can do the electric slide, but we aren't demanding policy, and I've even had people tell me, policy doesn't matter.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (18:55):
Well, again, I agree with you and I hate to keep saying that.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (18:59):
I don't mind it. Go ahead.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (19:00):
I like saying it because it's good to hear somebody finally make some sense. Your question really is not what you're going to do for me or for you. What are you going to do for the people? Where have you derived that impetus? Where have you gotten what I would call the thriving interest to say change has to be made? What needs to change? What do you see as it relates to what you did as mayor of the city or what you did as senator? Rather what you did and what you're doing is vice president. That's another thing that Ms. Harris has got to be very careful of. You are a sitting vice president with a sitting administration. What has your administration been successful in doing? Yes, you've made some tie breaking hopes, but in breaking those ties, what have they done and accomplished to the extent that they need enrichment, they need restructuring or are there more things that need to be put on that table? Forget to pass as it relates to what has been done in terms of what you promised. Fulfill those promises. Show us what you can do, and if you had my support and support of the people in Virginia and support of people in all of the states, it could make a difference.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (20:34):
What do you say? Going back to the fact that there's not even a policy tab on her website, and I've had some people tell me, well, it's too early for that, that the sooner that she articulates policy, that gives the Trump side more time to attack it, to which I've said, well, if you articulate policy, if you understand the policy that you're articulating, then you should be able to defend what you've stated. You should welcome that attack because that'll give you the opportunity to expand the conversation.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (21:18):
Couldn't agree more, couldn't agree more. Whenever I've taken a position as to an issue that I stand for, I prepared to defend it. If I had taken any one gun a month, we passed in my state and I was told I was crazy. We couldn't get it passed. We got it passed. We reduced crime, we reduced this proliferation of handguns, and even though I was criticized, we got it done and we set a model for the rest of the nation, those kinds of things. Second chance giving people who went to high school didn't get that degrees, give them a chance to come back to high school even though they might be 35, 40, come back and get your degrees. Those are the kinds of things that people see that make a difference. And don't try issues in sound banks or highfaluting language. Make it simple, make it plain, make it understandable, and if it is not defensible, then you shouldn't put it on the table and the sooner you put it on the table, they'll attack it. That's what you want, so you can defend it and defend it to the extent that it is a counter attack. They'll have to keep defending, defend
Dr. Wilmer Leon (22:40):
And in your defense of it, then if you are on your game, that enables you to expose them for what they, especially somebody like Donald Trump who doesn't understand power.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (22:54):
Well. What it does further is to say, since you've attacked what I've said on this issue,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (23:01):
What are you going to do?
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (23:03):
Where do you stand? Where have you stood? Then why are you all of a sudden now going to do something when all of this time you haven't?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (23:14):
You mentioned one gun a month in Virginia, and that brings me to the most recent shooting Appalachia High School. Colt Gray, a 14-year-old murder is accused of four counts of felony murder from a shooting in his school, and it's now reported that his father has been arrested and for having purchased the firearm for him, and the Republicans primarily still stand on these, to me insane opposition to simple common sense gun legislation.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (24:06):
Well, some Republican representatives might feel that way, but I think the people in the communities, Republican, Democrats, independents and all, they want sensible legislation. They want reasonable controls. They want the right to defend themselves, and I think government constitutionally has to afford people that, right, but this doesn't mean you open the flood gates. There is no excuse in the world for this 14-year-old to have done what he did without the knowledge and the consent of his parents, and that's why the father is in court and he should be.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (24:56):
You just mentioned the people want sensitive, sensible gun law. An overwhelming number of Americans want the genocide in Gaza to end. An overwhelming number of people in the United States are tired of their hard earned tax dollars being wasted in Ukraine, but the legislators don't seem to be listening to the people
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (25:27):
Couldn't agree with you more. That's why it's very important for those people who are in office, and that's why Ms. Harris, she has a difficult problem in dealing with that issue because the president of the United States is her partner.
(25:48):
She is his partner to that extent. So whatever is going on in Ukraine, whatever's going on there, look how we got out of Afghanistan, $85 billion worth of property. We left, left it. We left Americans. We didn't do it right. Now, having said that, if you didn't do that right then what makes people believe that you still have the expertise or the willingness to do what's right as it relates to those same issues in that part of the world? That's why Ms. Harris has got to step it up. It's difficult because she's inheriting a problem that has to be resolved.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (26:36):
One of the issues or one of the influences that many will say that she has particularly as it relates to Gaza, is APAC and apac. There was an article in the New York Times, I say it was around April that said they were boasting about committing $100 million to influencing the outcome of the primary elections. They were going to invest money to ensure that they deemed to be progressive Democrats. They that took anti-Israel policies for stances would not be reelected. Jamal Bowman fell victim to that and co bush fell victim to that. I didn't hear anybody from the cbc. I didn't hear anybody from the NAACP crying foul on the front end. Now they want to cry foul on the back end, and I say, you can't compromise for political expediency on the front end and then try to clean moral high ground on the back end. Your thoughts, sir,
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (27:54):
I think you need to go where the problem is. Go to Israel, look at the demonstrations that are taking place there. Look at what people are saying in Israel, Toya, we don't like your policies. They must change. Now, it's very difficult for us to sit back in America and to say, we're going to support this, that, or the other. When the prime minister of Israel is saying, we don't care what you say, I'm going to do what I want to do, even with some of his cabinet officials, sometimes more than just a handful of them, when you see the people in Tel Aviv, when you see them in Jerusalem, when they're saying, we cannot continue along the path, we're gone because this continuing unrest, this continuing wall, this continuing lack of safety is something that we cannot abide, and so that has to be resolved in Israel, but to the extent that we support the lack of resolve is not fatal,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (29:10):
And that point about how much we are contributing to the effort, and then Netanyahu tells us that, well, he's basically ignoring what's being said. My dad used to say, son, you can't ask me for my money and then ignore my advice. If you're going to take my money, you got to take my advice. And I just thought I'd, that just reminded me of something that my father would say to me, all smart man. There are a lot in the community that when we try to have a conversation about Kamala Harris and Donald Trump or Jill Stein in the Green Party or Dr. Cornell West, a lot of folks will say, well, if you don't vote for Kamala Harris, that's a vote for Donald Trump. I wrote a piece a while ago, the dangers of binary thinking in the African-American community that we've got to start to broaden our analysis and broaden our perspective. What do you say to those who will say, A, don't challenge her now because all you're doing is opening up the opportunity for a Donald Trump victory and to those who say, oh, well if you don't vote for her or if you're challenging her, then you're obviously for Donald Trump.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (30:36):
Well, I've always looked at it as I've tried to describe today I vote for issues. I vote for who's the best on this, who's the best on that?
(30:50):
Who's the best on public safety? Who's the best on housing? Tell me not what you're going to do. Tell me what you have done. What have you tried to do? If you failed, why did you fail? What did you need more support for? You cited the losses of some of the people who've articulated certain issues, and yet by the same token, when they were articulating those issues that sometimes they were considered popular and they were victorious. They were leading the pack, but the Pack sometimes turns, and that's what we see on a regular basis in politics, so it's not a surprise, but you can never lose if you stay with the people, listen to them. It's a continuing thing. You don't listen today at election time and then again, until reelection time, listen and respond on a regular basis.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (31:57):
We seem to have lost an understanding of the idea of elected representative That seems now people don't seem to understand what the word representative means.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (32:14):
Yes, they do. In too many cases it means represent yourself and that's what they are doing. In too many cases, I cite the example. In Virginia, particularly when I ran for the state Senate, the salary was $1,500 a year. We had no office, we didn't have a secretary, and we got I think $50 a year for stationary. That's changed Now in the representatives themselves, they can raise millions of dollars for their campaigns and put millions of dollars in their own pockets through artifacts, through indirect means, but all legal and so many people run for office for that reason to become further bettered or enriched personally and lacking the concern of the people. That's why I keep going back to it. I know it's like an old song. Listen to the people are ahead of leaders
(33:32):
Because they know where the rubber history road, they know where it doesn't hit the road. The rising cost of healthcare, the tremendous amount of money that's wasted in drug research, the amount of time it takes for the government agencies to approve drugs, and it is huge. It's big. It's money, money, money, and we finding that out. And so when you start saying Medicare for all, you're talking about a whole bunch of money and some people who will benefit from it and might not just be the people, it'll be some of those others who could say, I've got your Medicare in my pocket.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (34:19):
To your point in talking about the people, I think it was a French politician led Rollin, Alexandra drew Rollin who said, there go the people I must follow them for I am their leader. Yes,
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (34:42):
I thought it was. It made it very well been
Dr. Wilmer Leon (34:45):
Okay.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (34:46):
The crowd charging the Bastille,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (34:50):
Right,
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (34:50):
And he said, where are those people going? After all, I'm their leader.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (34:59):
You also mentioned, you said you want to know from someone that's running for office. What have you done and what have you tried to do? And for me, in many instances, it's the tried to do that can be as important if what were you willing to fight for? I say that about Barack Obama all the time. People tell me, oh, well, Wilmer, you don't understand what he was up against. Wilmer. You don't understand all the opposition. I said, well, wait a minute. What did he go to the bully pulpit and demand? What was the hill he was willing to die on? I never understood that. I don't know that that was ever clearly articulated. Am I off base?
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (35:53):
Well, I think to the extent that you don't try to do things just because you're going to be successful in doing it. It took me eight years, eight long years to get a national, to get a state holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Virginia was the first state in the nation to have a legislative holiday set aside for Dr. Martin Luther King. It wasn't New York,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (36:28):
The Commonwealth of Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia, the bastion of the Confederacy. They told me I was minute, lemme throw out one more data point. I think the largest slave holding state in the country.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (36:40):
Exactly.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (36:41):
Okay.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (36:42):
Okay. Presidents of Virginia owned slaves.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (36:46):
Well, presidents of the United States own slaves.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (36:48):
Yes, presidents of the United States, right own slaves, but they were from Virginia. Right, right.
(36:57):
People said, when I put that bill in, they said, well, we didn't elect him to do that. No, you didn't. But I felt I was elected to do what I considered that was right and now old people, they cited all the time. Virginia was the first state to have a legislative holiday for Dr. King, and as I said, it wasn't the northern states, it was Virginia and I didn't do it. What would I benefit from it? What do I get from it? But King sacrificed so much he spoke to the need for people to come together to recognize that their differences could be set aside. And one of the things that I always remembered about him, he said, adding additional numbers is one thing, but you must remember in the column numbers will eventually end up at zero and you have to go to the next column.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (38:02):
Give me a little background on the process for the King holiday because I know for example, former congressman, the late Congressman John Conyers, he put a bill in every year to get a federal holiday for Dr. King. Did Congressman Congress come to you? Did you just decide for yourself, Hey, I'm going to do this? How did that process?
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (38:26):
I did this on my own.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (38:28):
Okay.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (38:29):
King and I separated by two days and birthday mine's the 17th, he's the 15th, and we separated in Age by very little, and I was just so impressed in terms of reading the kinds of things that he had done and what he was doing that I said, I'm going to put it in. So when I put the bill in, it said I was crazy. I would get the bill passed in the Senate and I said, wow. And then the House of Delegates would kill it. I then would get it passed in the Senate and the house a governor vetoed. I had to wait two years because you got to wait until another session before session that the Senator comes in. I got it passed in the Senate and the House again and another governor, Vito, that King holiday bill was vetoed by two governors in Virginia and all of this was taking place when I was a state senator. Yet I got it done because the people wanted it and now that we've got it, I don't want credit for it, but understand what King was involved with and what he meant. Not just parades and marches, but betterment of mankind and the lifting of the veil of ignorance and making certain that we had a better life for all.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (40:08):
As we wrap up this conversation, and thank you, you are always so gracious for me when I call you understand we're spiraling closer and closer to the 5th of November. What are the three most important things stand out in your mind about this upcoming election? If someone walked up to you as you're stepping out of ECU today and said, governor, I'm not going to vote in November. What are the three most important things?
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (40:45):
Well then obviously you don't consider yourself a citizen. You don't consider yourself worthy of being considered a citizen and whatever's going to take place, you deserve it notwithstanding what happens to you. So you should never be in a position to complain about anything and so that extent don't vote. You're not doing me a favor. If you don't vote, you're not doing anyone else a favor. If you do vote, you do yourself a favor if you vote, if you don't understand that now you might know.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (41:31):
We're very fortunate in this country to where the transition in government doesn't result well, except for the last time with Donald Trump in the 6th of January usually doesn't result in public unrest. The transition of government is usually calm, so folks will say, well, my trash is going to get picked up. The stoplights are still going to work, and there's going to be milk at the grocery store when I go to get it. So there are those who say, it doesn't matter. It doesn't impact my daily life. And this is the last question. Your response to that mindset.
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (42:08):
You just described the three reasons why you should go. How does your trash get picked up? People have to make a decision and to put all those in place to pick your trash up food in the grocery store. How does it get there? Somebody has to decide that the store can be located there and zoned there for you to get invited and the other things spoke. Of the third one, the same thing local government is that which is closest to the people. National government is that which forms and shapes the local government. But if you don't vote, you hurt yourself.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (42:51):
Well, with that being said, sir, governor L. Douglas Wilder, thank you again. You are always so gracious. I greatly, greatly appreciate your joining the show today,
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (43:04):
Wilmer I'm always glad to be with you I count you as my friend.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (43:08):
Thank you, sir. Thank you folks. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You'll find all the links below in the show description. Remember folks, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis is just chatter and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out!!
Announcer (43:50):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Are the Democrats Secretly Fueling U.S. Militarism? The Shocking Truth with Jeremy Kuzmarov
5 Sep· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Get ready to rethink everything you know about the Democratic Party! In this explosive episode of Connecting the Dots, I sit down with historian and author Jeremy Kuzmarov to reveal how the party’s messaging has quietly embraced militarism—and what it means for America's future. This isn't just another political chat; we’re diving deep into the hidden history behind today’s headlines, exposing the bipartisan grip of the military-industrial complex on both parties.
Jeremy and I break down how Democrats have shaped U.S. foreign policy, fueling wars and global interventions that have real-world impacts on immigration and international relations. If you’re ready for a raw, eye-opening conversation on how our political system prioritizes power over peace, you won’t want to miss this!
Tune in for insights that challenge the status quo and uncover the urgent need for a more balanced, humane approach to politics, both at home and abroad. Watch or Listen now to join the conversation!
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Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:00:00):
Hey, here are a couple questions. Has the messaging from the Democrats changed over the past few years? Is the messaging more jingoistic, more saber rattling, have they become the party of militarism? Let's find out
Announcer (00:00:22):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:00:30):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which they take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur, thus enabling you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode. The issue before is militarism and messaging. My guest is a man who holds a PhD in American history from Brandeis University. He's the managing editor of Covert Action Magazine. He's the author of five books on US Foreign Policy. He's the author of a piece at Covert Action entitled DNC Convention Features former CIA director who was in charge of drone programs that killed thousands. He is Dr. Jeremy Komaroff. Jeremy, welcome to the show.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:01:39):
Thanks so much for having me. Great to be with you.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:01:41):
You open your peace in covert action as follows, Leon Panetta was drowned out by anti-war activists when he spoke at the 2016 convention, but not this time. Former CIA director, Leon Panetta, who was the director from 2009 to 2011, was among the featured speakers on the final day of the DNC in Chicago on August 22nd when Kamala Harris accepted the party's nomination as its presidential candidate. Jeremy, does this represent just a shift in rhetoric, or is this a shift in policy and a shift in direction?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:02:25):
Well, I think we see a lot of continuity. I mean, Panetta was there in 2016. He's giving the same kind of speech eight years later. In 2016, he was really promoting these anti-Russia themes, anti Putin. This was the forerunner of the Russia gate. They were already attacking Donald Trump as a Russian agents. And his speech in 2024 was the same kind of thing. It was really very jingoistic militaristic in that speech. He was invoking the glory of the Obama administration assassination of Osama Bin Laden or alleged assassination because there are a lot of different theories about what really might've gone on there. And the official story was shown to be a lie. Seymour Hirsch had a piece that was very good, and he compared it to Alice Wonderland, and their rhetoric was so far out there as to what really is known to have happened. And yeah, there are a lot of question mark or they dumped the body at sea, so there are no autopsy and some question if that was even Bin Laden.
(00:03:31):
Some people believe he died years earlier from renal failure. But in any event, that's the kind of thing they were doing just touting the War on terror. The US military Panetta said something that America made mistake of trying to be isolationist in the 1930s. And there's this kind of insinuation, you can't appease Putin as if he the new Hitler and America was not really isolationist. It was a global empire starting the late 19th century when it acquired the Philippines and Puerto Rico and Cuba and function as a global empire from that time period. So it never really isolationist. And FDR had this major naval buildup in the Asia Pacific that essentially provoked the Pacific War. It was a horrific war. So I mean, he obviously doesn't know his history that well, but this is just theater. Yeah, it's a very hawkish theme. He's a dancing and his speech echoed Kamala Harris' speech, anti-Russia themes, pro-military themes.
(00:04:36):
So that's what you get nowadays out of the Democratic party. And yeah, I mean there were booze of Panetta in 2016, but it was quiet this time around. It seems that people are just trying to mobilize around Harris and the EM of the anti-war movement. I mean, there were protestors outside of the convention. A lot of that centered exclusively on Israel Palestine. So I don't know. I mean, I think the protestors in 2016 were part of the Bernie Sanders faction. Maybe they had some hope in the party then, but now I think anti-war people have no hope in the Democratic Party. So they left or somewhere outside protesting.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:05:21):
Well, in fact, that was really the crux of my question, Panda's rhetoric versus the convention's response. And does the convention's response, or some might say lack of response, indicate that there's a serious shift in the party, particularly as we look at how easily war mongering legislation gets passed through Congress, through the democratic elements of Congress as it relates to funding for Ukraine and funding for Gaza and more jingoistic rhetoric as it relates towards China?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:06:01):
Absolutely, and I think it's telling that Robert Kennedy and Tulsa Gabbard are considered more peace candidates and they've made a lot of statements critical of US foreign policy, especially regarding Ukraine. Less so for Kennedy, and I think also Gabbard, Israel, Gaza, but definitely Ukraine. They've both been very critical and called for easing of relation with Russia. And they've warned about the threat of nuclear war and that we're in an era and new Cuban missile crisis, they've compared it to, and they were booted out of the party. I mean, Tulsa, they were treated horribly beyond just debate. I mean, Gabbard, she was in one of the CNN debates or televised debates in 2020 as she was running in the primary. And she was viciously attacked by Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and others who dominate the party in kind of Neo McCarthy I term, and they called her a Putin stooge.
(00:07:01):
And a Bashir saw theologist because she wanted to, she was against the covert operations in Syria and the escalation of conflict. And somehow they called her all these kind of names and really treated her in the way that Joseph McCarthy would recognize or victim of McCarthyism with reminiscence of that. So she was totally driven out of the party. Now you find they're more on Fox News. I mean, I think the Republican, they're trying to capitalize on the disinfection of many pacifists and peace oriented people with the Democrats, and they're trying to recruit them and draw them into the fold. And that's why they brought in Kennedy and gather. But personally, I think that they're just, they're very cynical operative and their Republican party are just trying to get that vote. But they're not really peace oriented party either. And Trump's foreign policy was very bellicose and aggressive in many ways, certainly toward Latin America.
(00:08:00):
The drone war, Trump escalated the drone war, escalated war in Somalia, and he's very aggressive and very xenophobic and threatens a major escalation, I think with China. So I think it's just a cynical ploy by the GOP to try and get these disaffected people are disaffected with the Democrats and by recruiting Kennedy and Gabbard to create this persona as a new peace party. But I don't think they really are a peace party. And so those of us who are really committed to pacifism, anti imperialistic politics really have nowhere in the mainstream American politics, and I think we should work on developing our own independent parties.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:08:47):
Before I get back to your piece, you mentioned in your earlier answer a reference to people trying to compare former President Trump to Hitler. And I was at the RNC when JD Vance was, his name was placed in nomination and he accepted the nomination. And I was doing my standup after the nomination. And I was saying as I was closing my analysis, I said, I find it very interesting, if not ironic, that a guy who just a couple of years ago was comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is now his vice presidential nominee, and we'll be standing next to him on stage. I said, how does that happen? And when I said that, there was a guy standing next to me who turned to my cameraman and said, you guys have to leave. You have to leave right now. He was allowing us to use his space, so he was able to tell us that. But my point is, as soon as I said that, you guys got to go, you got to go right now. Explain that because I find it amazing. And only now would something like that happen in our politics.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:10:11):
Yeah, well, I think it is increasingly out of the Twilight Zone. I mean, well, firstly, I think a lot of the rather is a bit overblown. I mean, I think Trump, there are a certain fascist theme in the GOP and there are concern about ascendant fascism and authoritarianism both among both parties. I mean the scapegoating of immigrants in the GOP, the extreme nationalism, ultra militarism like veneration of the military, that bears fear that the GOP leaning the fascist direction. I mean, I think some of the rhetoric about Hitler may be overblown, but yeah, it's totally ironic that he was calling him Hitler, as you say, and then he's the nominee. So that's just insane. But why did they kick you out? I mean, you were just repeating a fact that is known to be a fact, and that goes to the growing authoritarianism we see that can't, the kind of conversations we're having are not tolerated in the mainstream. And just a journalist doing his job and just reporting on something is being removed that
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:11:22):
And can get you arrested and detained in airports and have your home raided by the FBI, as with Scott Ritter and O'Malley Yella and the three,
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:11:37):
Yes, this is, yeah, I think what we're seeing is, yeah, more overt form of authoritarianism. And I think it's showing the flaw of American democracy. I mean, on paper there has been a democracy, but in reality for years and generation dissidents have been ostracized and marginalized and faced a lot of persecution, maybe not physical violence, although I mean under FBI Cual Pro, there were a lot of victims of state repression, people who were unjustly incarcerated sometime for decades, there were people killed. I mean the FBI infiltrated leftists in radical groups with the goal of destroying them and creating divisions. And in the Black Panther, they orchestrated murders. So I mean, there very violent, undersized underbelly of American politics. And that's coming more to the surface more and more. And I mean, you see, look, mark Zuckerberg said that Biden administration told him to censor
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:12:45):
The Hunter Biden laptop story.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:12:47):
Yeah, well, the hunter bought laptop and relate to COVID-19. And without your view on that, people should have a right to express it, but Zuckerman was told to censor viewed that criticized the government position. And then yeah, you have these raids going on
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:13:04):
A minute, a minute, a minute because it's important. I think that people really clearly understand that the point that you just made about Zuckerberg, that's not your opinion. He stated that in a letter that he wrote to Congressman Jim Jordan. And so those who want to wait a minute, what is Jeremy talking about? Right? Google it. You can read the letter for yourselves. It was sent last week and Zuckerberg made those very clear statements and was apologetic for having done what he did in censoring those stories on Facebook because he has since come to understand that contrary to, as he was told, those were not Russian propagandist talking points.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:13:56):
Exactly. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. And another fact is that Tim Waltz made statements supporting censorship if it was related to misinformation, and that seems to be the line in the Democratic Party, but they use misinformation. Could be anybody who's simply critical of the government. They call it somebody who criticizes government policy in Ukraine or vis-a-vis Russia. They say he's promoting misinformation or Russian propaganda, or the same for the Covid narrative. They question the dominant narrative. And I found the review of waltz's statements. He promoted misinformation. So for instance, he claimed that carried out chemical attacks on his own people, and that was refuted by scientists like Theor Postal did a very detailed scientific study, and I did an article and I interviewed postal and he showed me his data and this guy, the top flight MIT scientist, and he repu these claims, his analysis, and he was very neutral.
(00:15:02):
He wasn't really on any side of the war, and he wasn't even particularly political. It was a very objective scientific study that based on the angles, those attacks had to have occurred from certain areas that were controlled by the rebels, not the Assad government. And that other attacks didn't think that there were chemical attacks, one of those bombing of a fertilizer plant. In other case, some stuff may have been planted like dead animals to make it look like an attack because people would've been dead. He said, he showed me photos and he had images of photos where people who were on the scene would've immediately been killed if there was actually a chemical weapon attack the way they described it, and they weren't affected or sick in any way. So in any event, that's just an example of waltz can be seen to have promoted misinformation.
(00:15:57):
So based on his own statements, he should censor himself. But the broader point is the American constitution and the American Republic was founded on the deal to free speech, and that's what we should have. And this cancel culture. I think too often on the left, people support censorship under the GU of a cancel culture. And I think that's very dangerous, and I think people are smart enough to see which ideas are good or bad for themselves. They don't need to have this censorship. It serves no purpose, even for somebody who is promoting bad things or false information, you don't have to censor because people are smart enough to see there's no evidence behind what he's saying, which is often true, sadly, of the US government, and that's why they lose credibility.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:16:45):
I've asked this question of a number of guests, Caleb Moin and I think Dr. Gerald Horn and a few others that talking about censorship in the United States, engagement in censorship, that if you look over history, particularly since World War I, this whole idea of censorship really comes to a height when the United States feels threatened. And then once the perceived enemy is vanquished, then the whole focus on censorship tends to wane if not go away. And so I'm wondering if now because we're seeing heightened censorship, if that's an indication to you how threatened the United States empire feels?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:17:34):
I think so. Yeah. Censorship goes hand in hand with war. War is the enemy really of democracy. And we've been in a state of permanent war since nine 11, and I think they've manufactured this new Cold War for sustaining the military complex police state, which has to go hand in hand with censorship. And we've seen more authoritarian forms of government, even toward the domestic population, heightened militarized policing in inner cities. We've seen the government stripping funding from vital social programs, and that's automatically going to generate more and more dissent and dissatisfaction with the government and living conditions. So they have to ratchet up censorship and more authoritarian, greater authoritarianism, and that's the only way they could sustain their power, and they've really lost their governing legitimacy. People, if you talk to people from all walks of life, whether in liberal areas, conservative, you find almost universally people distrust the government and they're not happy with the direction of the country, and more and more are speaking out. So they have to censor them and try and control the media and channel any descent they want to channel it and co-opt it. And that's why a lot of the media has been co-opted their CIA or FBI, infiltrators and media, even alternative media.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:19:06):
In fact, to your point about people being dissatisfied with the direction of the country, if you go to real clear politics, those polled 26.9% believe the country's heading in the right direction. 63.4 believe that the country's on the wrong track. So again, I try my best to give as much data as I can to support the positions that are being stated so the people can understand that this is substantive analysis that we're providing because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here. Let's go back to your piece you write, Panetta said that Harris would fit the bill as a tough commander in chief to defend the USA against tyrants and terrorists, according to Panetta. Harris knows a tyrant when she sees one and will stand up to them, unlike Donald Trump, who Panetta suggested had coddled dictators such as Putin and effectively told them they could do whatever they want. Why is that exchange or that recounting by Panetta troublesome to you?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:20:18):
Well, firstly, yeah, and the statistics you're citing indicate that many Americans are increasingly seeing their own government as tyrannical. And this is the kind of tired rhetoric we've seen over and over to justify these foreign adventures and unjust and unnecessary wars that further divert our treasury away from actually solving the problem in our society. And yeah, we see,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:20:45):
Wait a minute, and many will tell you, because I've been having this conversation for at least eight years, that that's the intent, that the objective has always been to heighten the sense of insecurity within the country so that social program funding social safety net funding could be shifted away from the public to the private military industrial complex. And they talked about this when Obama came into office, they talked about this, I know I have it backwards. When Clinton came into office, they talked about this when Biden came into office, they said the narrative is more subtle with the Democrats, but the objective is still the same.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:21:32):
And the rhetoric, as you see, they're really attacking Trump from the right and they're positioning themselves as more hawkish. And that's why a lot of the neoconservatives have moved into the Democratic party. And William Christol, who this neo-conservative, intellectual, and a great cheerleader for the Iraq war, he sent out a tweet, Leon Panetta quoting Ronald Reagan at the Democratic Convention. This is my Democratic convention or a CIA director quoting Ronald Reagan. And yeah, you see from that statement you read, Trump is somehow soft on the Russian, but if you actually look at Trump's policy toward Russia, he pulled out of the INF treaty, which is a very good arms limitation treaty. He ratcheted up these sanctions from hell on Russia. He ratcheted up arm sales to Ukraine, for instance. He sold javelin anti-tank missiles, which Obama had up to that point hadn't sold. So he would not soft at all.
(00:22:31):
And he was plotting regime change. I mean, there's a lot of continuity in foreign policy. You see a lot of continuity among administration. So Trump's approach really was not very different from Obama. He's just kind of expanding on things Obama was doing. And then Biden takes it to a further level of provoking all out war and attacking Russia directly. So the rhetoric is meaningless, but yeah, it's designed to inculcate fear. I agree with your analysis that they just try and make us fearful and on edge whether it's of the next disease pandemic or the next threat. I mean, they're always playing up the threat of North Korea or Iran. I mean, look at North Korea. I mean North Korea was bombed back to the Stone Aid by the United States during the Korean War and the US pumps South Korea with weaponry and stores nuclear weapons there. I mean, obviously North Korea is going to respond.
(00:23:27):
I mean, developing a nuclear weapon is their only way to save their country and survive as a nation. I mean, they see what happened to Libya, but our media doesn't present it in that way, or our political elites, they present it like North Korea as some major threat to us led by this crazy dictator. But they give no context for why North Korea would invest in nuclear weapons or missiles and how a lot of their weapon development is just designed to protect themselves from the threat of renewed invasion and being destroyed again, that they were in the Korean War, but they never give the history of the context. So the public who believes that rhetoric as in fear of North Korea one day, Iran, another day, Putin is presented in the most demonized way, conceivable a totally kind of cartoonish way as this evil Hitler type figure. So we're supposed to fear him one day, and that's how they do it, and that's how they justify this huge military budget that's approaching a trillion dollars now. And yeah, I mean the government spends a pittance on social welfare programs and education and healthcare infrastructure. I mean, that's what the government should be doing, should be helping to create a better society, better living conditions here at home. But instead, they spend a trillion on weapons. And that comes back. And now you have the law like the USA Patriot Act and 1290 D program where all that Pentagon weaponry gets put into our police forces who become more like occupying armies in inner cities and their mistreatment minority groups. So it's an ugly picture. Yeah.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:25:13):
You mentioned Libya, and I think we can tie this to your piece. You mentioned Libya, and people need to remember that the execution of Libby and leader Muammar Kadafi took place under the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton was his Secretary of state, and it was Hillary Clinton, and I believe Samantha Power that convinced then President Obama to execute Kadafi. And so if we understand a lineage of thought from Hillary Clinton, her predecessor Madeline Albright, she was a student of Brzezinski who was a Russia phobe. And so there's a lineage of thought within the State Department, and now we have to understand that Vice President Harris is an acolyte of Hillary Clinton.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:26:18):
And Hillary Clinton is a very dangerous figure. And I wrote a book on Bill Clinton and I did a lot of research on their career bill's career as the governor of Arkansas. So I learned a lot about Hillary, and even from that time, she's very corrupt individual. Clinton was tied with the national security establishment. He oversaw a major covert operation in Arkansas to the Nicaragua and Counter-revolutionaries, and they laundered a lot of money through illicit Proceed, and they were bringing back drugs as part of these arm smuggling operations. And Hillary worked for the Rose law firm and was representing clients who were involved in money laundering in Arkansas banks. And she was always known as a hawk. So she very unprincipled corrupt person who was involved in also all kinds of shems to raise money for Clinton's campaigns that should have put her in prison.
(00:27:16):
And then she was always known as a warhawk. She evolved into a major warhawk. There was a very good article in the New York Times, the Rare Good article, New York Times magazine called Hillary the Hawk, and it surveyed her career going back to the Kosovo War. She was a big proponent of the bombing there. She supported the Iraq war, every war she supported, and her hawkishness came out on Libya where she was gloating after Kadafi was lynched. She gloated, we saw he died and she was so happy about it and giggling. And I mean that was a disgrace comparable to Iraq. I mean, Libya was a well-functioning country under CA's rule. I mean, he may have had certain authoritarian features, but he used Libya's oil resources to develop their economy to invest in education. I met a number of Libyans who were able to get free education abroad that Libyan government paid for their education abroad, and they came back to work to develop their country.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:28:20):
Wait a minute, wait a minute. To that point, I was teaching at Howard University at the time, and I came across some Libyan students and I asked them who was paying their tuition and they didn't understand the concept of tuition. They were saying, well, wait a minute. Why would you pay to go to college? Help us understand. They could not put their head around
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:28:50):
Paying
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:28:51):
For tuition. And I believe, I don't think it's a stretch for me to say that at the time that Kadafi was the leader of Libya, that Libya was the most one of, if not the most stable country on the continent. It had one of the strongest economies on the continent. And Kadafi was developing his country, developing his agriculture. He was, as they called it, greening the desert. Libya had some of the purest water in the world, some of the deepest water, the water table. And one of the big issues was he saw himself as an African, not an Arab.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:29:36):
And I visited Zambia, my ex-wife was from Zambia, and I visited there in 2007 and Kadafi came during my visit and he was greeted as a hero because he was using Libby as well, resources to promote development projects across the African continent. And he was seen as somebody who stood up for African and was carrying on the tradition of Pan-Africanism figures who revered in Africa like Kwame Nama and Nelson Mandela. And he was seen an heir to that tradition. And then he was overthrown and treated worse than a dog. And Libya has now seen the return of slavery, violent extremism has come into the country, just pure chaos. And a lot of Libyan have had to flee to Europe and then the European under perilous conditions in these boats. And then Europeans complain about immigration. I mean, they turn Libyan to a hellhole and the cost in lives, and it's just sickening.
(00:30:38):
And Clinton was just laughing all about it and thought it was funny. And I think Kamala Harris seems to be on that intellectual level. She laughs at inappropriate moments. I've seen her. She doesn't seem to have a good grasp of world affairs, and she's close with some terrible leaders around the world, like the Washington Post report that she has developed as vice president, an unusually close relationship with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. And he's the son of one of the worst dictator of the US support in the Cold War Fernan Marco Sr. Who looted the Filipino treasury and killed who knows how many dissidents. And his son seems to be picking up where the father left off. He jailed Walden Bellow, who's a great intellectual in the Philippines, who is running for an opposition party, and they're building up US military bases in Philippines to confront China. And Harris went to ink some base deal a couple of years ago, and there were a lot of protesters for her visit. But yeah, this is one of the dictators she's very close with. So she's following this imperialistic tradition, and yeah, there should be, well, again, a lot of people have left the Democratic party. They see no hope in it, but it's troubling when this is supposedly the more liberal and humane party and this is what they're doing.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:32:07):
And folks, we're connecting the dots here. That's the purpose of this podcast, is connecting, linking dots, linking historic events so that you can see the trend, you can see the pattern, you can understand what's really going on behind the scenes. Let's go to Vice President Harris's speech at the convention. She says, as commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world, and I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families. She'll always honor their sacrifice as she should, but the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world that now Jeremy seems to be really throwing good money after bad because the issue now, at least in terms of the geopolitical landscape, is economic. It's not militarism. It's the United States that seems to be using militarism as its only weapon. And I use that euphemistically against this unipolar to multipolar shift with the rise of bricks and the Chinese cooperation organization, their fighting an economic war with militarism.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:33:40):
Yeah, and actually it was ironic that she made those statements and that week the New Yorker published these photos from 2006 Haditha Massacre where the US military massacre, all these Iraqi civilian, and there were these horrible photos you may have seen of children who had been shot by us Marines or soldiers. So having the most lethal military force in the world, what does that mean? You go into a country like Iraq and shoot up women and children. I mean, is this something to strive for? And then as you say, this military force is getting us nowhere. I mean, it's just causing backlash against the United States. I mean, yeah, look, in Africa, all these new governments have come in and they're kicking out the US military. They don't want the bases in their country. Like in Niger, for example, a huge drone base that was removed. And I mean Ukraine
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:34:40):
Just recently, a couple of soldiers within the last couple of days were harassed Incaa. And Dr. Horn was saying that this is not an isolated incident, that when you see something like this happening on the streets of tur or as many still know it as Turkey, that this is an indication that the people are rising up, not the leadership, the people.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:35:08):
Absolutely. And we see, yeah, the United States is a paper tiger. I mean, look at Ukraine, billion and billion, the weaponry and Russians are gaining more and more territory every day. It's reported that even as Ukraine is taking the war into Russia, Russia's taking more territory in Eastern Ukraine every day than they were before. Israel is doing nothing in Gaza. They just leveled the place killed. According to the Lancet report, now it's about a month ago, 186,000 civilians. Now they're attacking people in the West Bank, but they've achieved nothing militarily and the United States wars were all failure in the last generation. You have Libya. I mean, they turn countries into chaos, but it's ultimately they don't achieve the broader goal they set out. I mean, look at Afghanistan 20 years and they achieved nothing, and the Taliban came back in and it's just
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:36:04):
Money. Well, Lockheed Martin and McDonald Douglas made a hell of a lot of money in Afghanistan. They achieved something.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:36:10):
Yeah, that's all they
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:36:11):
Achieved. Stock value went pretty high.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:36:15):
And I think the public needs to channel their revolt against those company in the military industrial complex. Their hard-earned taxpayer dollar. They're getting absolutely nothing for it. People are getting killed around the world that weaponry has coming, being sent to us police forces after the military used equipment. It's creating a more authoritarian environment here. And a few fat cats, what they used to call merchants of death are getting rich. And there should be a revolt against those people because they've grown rich off the misery and death of other humans. And it's not a way to run an economy or society rooted in violence and just the wealth of tiny number off the misery of everybody else. And horrific weapon we've never seen in human history, the kind of horrific weapon they're developing now. It's unfit for humanity, and there is movements to try and get universal bans on certain kinds of weapons, and that should certainly be supported as well
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:37:17):
In her speech. She also said, let me say, I know there are people of various political views watching tonight, and I know you know, I promise. Oh no. And I want you to know, I promise to be president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self to hold sacred America's fundamental principles from the rule of law to free and fair elections to the peaceful of power. Well, when you look at the data and you look at the polling, an overwhelming majority of Americans, even Jewish Americans, want an end to the United States involvement in the genocide in Gaza. Now, she's saying that she promises to be the president of all Americans, but she and I put this on her because this was her convention, would not allow a Palestinian spokesperson, a representative of that position on the stage. Is that tone deaf or is it evidence that she's a Zionist and she's down with the,
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:38:37):
Or both? Well, I think it's an illusion. They were trying to claim at the convention that she was working tirelessly for a ceasefire and for peace in the Middle East. And that's simply a lie the Biden administration has. It's been a joint US Israeli operation in Gaza. And we should recognize that Israel is basically a proxy of the United States empire in the Middle East that the US has used Israel. The reason they've given all those weapons to the Israelis over years now is that Israel has served the key function for the US Empire in the Middle East and accessing Middle East oil. Israel provides US military bases, and it does a lot of the dirty work for the US Empire going back years. For instance, in the six day war, the Israelis humiliated the US nemesis, Kamala del Nassar, who was like Kadafi, started as a pan arabist, and he was in the mold of Nassar who had moved to nationalize the Suez Canal and nationalize the oil resources and was forged alliances with Syria and forged the United Arab Republic with Syria and was promoting Arab unity so the Arab states could go strong in the face of Western imperialism and reclaim control of their chief natural resource oil.
(00:39:58):
And obviously the CIA tried to overthrow Nassar. They even sent in Kermit Roosevelt, a coup master who had been in Iran, but he failed. But Israel did the job in the sixth day war. They humiliated Nassar. And by that point, Israel was getting a lot of the US weapons already starred in the Kennedy administration where he basically opened the spigots. And Johnson was a huge supporter militarily of Israel. And Israel also carried a lot of covert operations in Africa that have served US interests, including countries like in Congo where they help access the mineral wealth of the Congo. So Israel has gone after the Assad dynasty was an enemy of the United States and West because they were more alive with Nassar in whose day and the Soviet Union, and they're more nationalistic so that the regime the US doesn't like and they've used Israel to Israel has been bombing Syria for a long time now and has tried to gone after Asad.
(00:40:57):
So these are just examples of how Israel does some of the dirty work of the United States and functions as a proxy of the United States. So the country basically are arm in arm together, and they may pay for public relations purposes. If Netanya has seen a bit extreme among some of their base or among some of the electorate, they may try and take a public distance or say they're trying to moderate his behavior, but I think that's more for public relations. They continue to provide him the weapons he needs, and they're not going to do anything. The last president who had a kind of even handed approach in the Middle East was to some extent with Dwight Eisenhower, who when Israel and Britain and France invaded Egypt, and after Nassar nationalized the Suez Canal, Eisenhower imposed sanctions on Israel and threatened why their embargo and even to punish Israel and the United Nations, but they would never do that today.
(00:41:55):
They're just giving cover and the weapons and diplomatic support in the UN for Israel's conduct and ethnic cleansing or genocide, whatever you want to call it. And I think they support the US imperialists support the project of a greater Israel, the Israeli far right that their goal is to expand the Israeli polity to basically remove the Palestinian and to use their land for broader projects, canal building to increase the water resource in Israel, access offshore oil. And the US supports that. Could they want a stronger Israel because that's their proxy in the Middle East and the US wants to dominate the Middle East and its oil resources for the next several generations, and they need Israel for that.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:42:46):
We could spend a whole nother hour on this next question, but if you could just clarify a point that you made that you just made. You mentioned Kermit Roosevelt, you mentioned the United States going in and overthrowing Nassar, and you said they failed in, oh, you said they failed in Iran.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:43:09):
Sorry. They failed in Egypt. They succeeded in Iran.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:43:12):
See, okay, see that. Okay. Kermit Roosevelt and Norman Schwartzkoff Sr went in and overthrew Muhammad Ek and installed the S Shah. That's why I wanted clarification. I thought you said, and I could have misunderstood you. I thought you said they failed in Iran.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:43:32):
No, and my point was they succeed in Iran, Kermit Roosevelt with a coup master. Then they sent him to Egypt to get rid of that thorn in their side, Albu master, because his pan-Arabism. But there he failed. Nassar was very popular, and he couldn't work the same magic, or they didn't have the right people to get rid of him. So that's when Israel stepped in and it was beefed up by us armed supplies. And in six days, they humiliated him and they provoked that war. It's been admitted by top Israeli leader than generals that they provoked that war. They humiliated Nassar, and three years later he died. And he was replaced by Anmar Sadat, who was much more west and abandoned his Pan Arab ideology.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:44:16):
And also, again, this could be a whole nother show, but just quickly, you were talking about Israel being a US proxy, and you've mentioned this before, but I think it's folks, we're connecting the dots here, pay attention. We're connecting the dots. Ukraine is operating in a similar fashion as a US proxy in that part of the world as Israel is acting in the Middle East. And so because look, folks, the Ukraine war is lost. It's lost. And people say to me, Wilmer, you said that the war would be over in two years. And I was right as Putin wound up negotiating with, I'm drawing a blank on the Ukrainian president's name, Zelensky, vmi Zelensky. And he holds up the paper and says, we negotiated a settlement. The US sends in Boris Johnson to say, we're not going to accept this. The West will not. Hence the war is ongoing. Ukraine has no tanks of its own. They're now having to go into their prisons and empty their prisons to send convicted murderers to the frontline. They don't have an army of their own anymore. They don't have artillery of their own anymore. They don't have jets of their own anymore. Everything they're using comes from NATO and comes from the West. And it's a very same situation in Israel. Again, that could be a whole show of itself, but I just wanted to quickly connect the dots between the proxies in Israel and the proxies in Ukraine.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:46:05):
And I would add the point that the United States and the people of those countries should understand, and I think this is American Jews should understand that the United States doesn't care about the people. They're using them for their own agenda. And look, Ukrainian has suffered terribly through their lines with the United States. They never would've gone to war with Russia, Ukraine and Russia got along. They had some issues, but they resolved it. And maybe the Ukrainian felt slight in some way toward the Russians, but they weren't stupid enough to take up arms against the Russians and annihilate themselves. But they thought because they had the United States and all these weapons that they could take on the Russians, and they made the same mistake as Napoleon or Hitler. I mean, the Russians are, I spent time in Russia. They're very patriotic people, and they will defend their country.
(00:46:58):
And this was a war provoked by the United States that basically used, and the Russians know this, that the US was using Ukraine, a battering ram against Russia, and they're going to defend themselves. And the Israeli case, look, the Israelis Israeli security has suffered tremendously. Now they're inviting attacks from all their enemies and they've shed so much blood, they're going to invite vengeance and retaliation against them, the security situation, very poor in Israel. I would not want to live in Israel, and they could invite one day their own destruction. Already, they've compromised the moral of their society. Israel was founded as a haven for Jewish people, and a lot of the very idealistic people were part of the original Zionist movement. I mean, the kibbutz was a concept of a cooperative model of an economy. But look at Israel today. It's this armed military state that is pariah around the world because of the atrocity that's carried out with support by the United States doing the United States dirty work.
(00:48:05):
And it's eviscerated its own democracy. I mean, it's become very repressive there. Journalists who are trying to report on what's going on in Gaza have been, I don't know. I think they've been certainly blacklist, if not jailed or shot. I mean, it's just a evolved, a violent authoritarian state. That's king of assassination. Mossad carries out assassinations around the world. It's hate and fear. It has an extreme right-wing government, this is not the ideal of a lot of the original Zionists. And a lot of American Jews are very uncomfortable the direction of that society they should be, and it could invite their own destruction one day. So I mean, that's a lesson you can take. If you lie with the empire, they'll use you for their own purpose and ultimately they'll spit you out. I mean, ask the Kurds, ask the Hmong and Lao, they've used proxies in other countries, and those proxies got totally destroyed like the Hmong and Laos or the Kurd, and they'll abandon them when it doesn't suit their agenda. They may find somebody else. And Ukrainian society has been destroyed. 500,000 youth have been killed. They don't even have enough people. How are they going to run their economy when all the youth of the country have been killed? Others had to flee. They don't want to fight the front lines. Yeah, they've sacrificed them as ponds in this war. It's sad. And
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:49:29):
Lindsey Graham, Senator Lindsey Graham goes to Ukraine and encourages the Ukrainians to fight and to continue to fight. And let me just give you a quick analogy. Imagine a boxing match, and one of the cornermen is getting paid not for the win, but for the number of rounds his fighter engages in. And so that's Lindsey Graham, he's the corner man, his guy. Both of his eyes are damn near shut. He can't breathe. His lips are swollen. His head has all kinds of knots on it, and he keeps sending his guy out there to get slaughtered because he gets paid by the round instead of the knockout. Is that a fair analogy?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:50:20):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I studied the history of the Vietnam War, and one thing I remember and I used to show students the TV history of the Vietnam War, and they had one, it was made in the eighties. They had one segment on the Secret War in Laos, like what I was saying with the Hmong who they used to fight the left-wing, Beth Lao and William Colby came on, was interviewed some years later. He was the CIA director. And he said, oh, well, that was a great project for us. The Hmong lasted 10 years is exactly what you're saying. Yeah, they lasted 10 round, but then they got killed. All of them. The Hmong were decimated, and they had to send, that's what the Ukrainians are doing, the hm. Had to send 14 year olds to the front lines. And a sea operative said, started to feel bad.
(00:51:06):
He is like, we're sending these 14 year olds on these planes to be killed, and I know they'll be killed. And I'm telling their parents, I'm patting them on the back and they'll be killed next week. And that's what's happening with Ukraine. And Graham won't send his own kids. I mean, if they're the real reading the fight, fight a war, you have to fight. If you're a real man, you'll fight it because there's a real reason your community's under attack or there's a real threat of Hitler. But instead they manufacture these wars and cowardly send and manipulate other people to fight and die. And that's the worst form of cowardice and manipulation I could think of in human society
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:45):
As we wrap this up and folks we're connecting dots. And if you don't like what we're saying, if what we're saying makes you angry, as Malcolm said, if my telling you the truth makes you angry, don't get angry at me. Get angry at the truth. And you can look all of this up. I want to get back to your piece you quoted, and you mentioned this earlier, but Panetta quotes Ronald Reagan at a speech at the DNC, and he emphasized the isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to government. You write, Panetta ended his speech by highlighting that Harris was a good choice to reinvigorate American world leadership as she worked with 150 foreign leaders as vice president served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, worked closely with VMI Zelensky of Ukraine to fight against Russia. And you go on a number of things. You say that Panetta provided a litany, my word, not yours, of misinformation and disinformation in that part of his speech. How so?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:53:00):
Well, I mean, the whole speech is disinformation because he has this mythical, romantic view of the killing of bin Laden that's not rooted in the reality. And then, yeah, he's claiming the US was an isolationist in the thirties, but the US was a global empire starting the late 19th century. And in the 30, the FDR had been the head of the secretary. I forget his position, but it was with the Navy, and he headed the Navy and he was a big naval enthusiast, and he initiated a massive naval buildup in the Asia Pacific. And then he historian believed that the key factor that provoked a Japanese counter response and led to the Pacific War. So where's the isolationism? I mean, it's not the accurate history, but I mean these conventions just about political theater. But I mean, yeah, quoting Reagan. I mean, Reagan is the icon of the Republican. That's not even your party. So what is he doing quoting Reagan? Reagan?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:54:04):
Well, he's
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:54:05):
The thing that bar a right wing extremist.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:54:07):
Barack Obama said that Reagan was his favorite
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:54:09):
President. I know. And it shows how far to the right the whole American spectrum has been because Reagan, when he came up in the sixties, was viewed as a right wing extremist, certainly by people in the anti-war and countercultural movement. And his whole theme was to attack the mess at Berkeley. And the student, how dare they question the Vietnam War. And then when he came in, he veered American politics sharply to the right. He cut the corporate tax rate and he ramped up us militarism in Central America, and he wanted to avenge the Vietnam War. They call them Rambo Reagan. And you can't get, this is like an icon of militarism and fascism, and they're quoting him. So I mean, what kind of party is this? And we have two right-wing parties in our country. The political spectrum has shifted so far to the right, and it's created dystopia.
(00:55:04):
We're discussing here where we invest trillion dollars on warfare, these morally bankrupt wars. And our own societies is filled with pathologies and majors, social ills, and we never address them. So they grow worse and worse. And we're not investing in our youth and education. I mean, where I live, the teachers are so poorly paid, it is just a disgrace. And you have third world conditions like the schools. They were protests in my state a few years ago, and I covered those protests for local newspaper. And there were people showing me on their phone who taught in schools in rural areas. I traveled in Africa and third world country. Then what they're showing me is from a third world country. There were no proper sanitation in their school. There were not enough seats for the students. And these are high school teachers trying to keep them in school. So I mean, the government is failing its citizens, and this is Reaganomics 1 0 1, so we've got to get beyond that. But they're touting this guy as a hero. That's terrible.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:56:06):
And again, I think this will be the final question, but the longer we talk, the more questions because of your insight, you mentioned that we're dealing with two right wing parties. Are we dealing with two right wing parties that are representing different interests of the right winging elite?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:56:30):
Yes, absolutely. The GOP has always been rooted in the oil industry, the extractive industry, because their environmental policy is very favorable to big business and extractive industries and big oil. I think the military industry that hedged their bets now with both parties traditionally, like in the Reagan era, the Republican and the Reagan Republican got a lot of support in states that had big military industry. Like California used to be a center of the Republican domination and states like Arizona and the Southwest. But I think the Democrats under Clinton started courting the military contractors, and now they hedge their bets on both parties. I mean, there are a certain cultural issue, the right wing, the evangelical churches who were very gung-ho about things like against abortion. That's a certain spectrum that supports the Republican party. The Democrats go for this diversity, and they court the African-American vote, but they do so really based more on symbolism than actually delivering for the black population.
(00:57:45):
I think something that the black population, I think we'll see more and more than maybe leaving the Democrat. They're not getting anything. They're just getting the symbolism of some black elected officials, but they're not getting benefits to their communities. And there have been studies about this, and I heard Michael Eric Dyson, who was it? Yeah, it was Michael Eric Dyson came to where I live, and he gave a talk. He had done a study, it was him, it was, sorry, TVIs Smiley who used to work for PBS. He did a big study on black America in the state of black America, and he found it got worse under Obama, a certain core thing like income and business ownership and education because the Democrat weren't delivering on concrete social program that would benefit their community. So it's more of the symbolism and that's how they get votes.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:58:38):
And as we get out, I want to read this quickly because again, folks here on connecting the dots, we connect the dots, we provide data to support statements made. You talked about the defense industry funding both parties and Dave Calhoun, who was the CEO of Boeing. When asked in July of 2020 who Boeing would prefer Trump or Biden Boeing, and this is from CNBC, Boeing CEO. Dave Calhoun said that he was confident that whoever wins the White House in November, whether it's Donald Trump or Vice President Biden will continue supporting the defense industry. I think both candidates, at least in my view, appear globally oriented and interested in the defense of our country. And I believe they will support the industries. They'll do it in different ways and they'll have different terms, different teams for sure. But I don't think we're going to take a position on one being better than the other. And Dr. Jeremy Komarov, that I think is clear evidence of the points you made that we're dealing with two wings on the same bird.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (00:59:56):
Absolutely. And viewers can go to open secrets.com and look at, well-known politician where they get their money. I mean, look up Joe Biden because I've done it. You'll see he gets a ton of money from Lockheed Martin. And yeah, the Democrats in some, I think they're getting more, Democrats now are getting more from the military contractor because they're even more hawkish, especially on Ukraine. That's been a big boon for a company like Boeing and Lockheed and surveillance industry. So I think they like Democrats even more now. And Democrats are positioning themselves to the right and more hawkish on foreign policy and even the border. I have an article next week on the border issue. Democrats are more to the right than Republican as far as spending on border surveillance. And that's a big, big industry, border surveillance drones, and that's part of the military industrial complex.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (01:00:53):
So I said, this was the last question. This is the last question, and you can just answer this, yes or no, all this conflation of the border, whether you're Donald Trump or whether you're Kamala Harris, whether you're Joe Biden or whoever, all of this talk about the border building, the wall security systems, drones a lot of money on the border. They don't talk about the US foreign policy that is driving people from Columbia, from Guatemala, from Mexico to the border because the United States policy is decimating their economies. And quick point people, you can look this up. About three weeks ago, Chiquita Brands was convicted in federal court in Florida of sponsoring death squads in Columbia. And now Chiquita Brands has to pay millions of dollars in reparations and damages to these victimized families in Columbia. Kamala Harris isn't talking about that. Donald Trump is, you want to deal with the border, deal with the decimation of these. Why are, ask the question, why are Haitians coming here? Because the United States is trying to rein, invade Haiti again, Jeremy, that in and of itself is another show. 30 seconds, am I right?
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (01:02:16):
Yeah, absolutely. And there's no debate about that, and it's been a bipartisan in foreign policy that caused that vast immigration. And also you have to look, that caused the wreckage in those economies and societies, and you have to look at the free trade agreement. The Clinton administration promoted the nafta, and that helped decimate Mexican agriculture and forced a lot of the Mexicans to come to the United States. So nobody questioned the free trade laws. That's a big factor inducing immigration, including, especially from Mexico. So they ought to address revising those laws and creating a fairer world economy, but that might erode us primacy and the primacy of dollar, and they don't want that. So it's better to beef up the border, boost the coffer, the Lockheed Martin, instead of doing that,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (01:03:10):
Dr. Jeremy Komarov. In fact, here's one of the books. War Monger. I got it.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (01:03:17):
Oh, great. Thank
Dr. Wilmer Leon (01:03:17):
You. Oh, hey, man. Great. Great work. Great, great work. Dr. Jeremy Kumar, thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov (01:03:25):
Thank you. Great conversation.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (01:03:28):
Hey folks. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge, talks without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. We're out
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Is America Really the Empire of Freedom? Maupin Challenges Everything!
29 Aug· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Get ready for a game-changing episode of Connecting the Dots! Dr. Wilmer Leon and Caleb Maupin dive into the seismic shifts happening worldwide—where the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower and what that means for our future. They explore a growing movement challenging America's global influence and break down what the 2024 election could mean for the future of U.S. politics. If you care about where our country is headed, this is a must-listen. Don’t miss out on insights that could change how you see the world!
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Wilmer Leon (00:00:00):
As we are living through a pivotal moment in world history, the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world, anti-imperialism is at the core of this global movement as the US is at the center of this global shift. How did anti imperialism take hold in the us? Let's find out
Announcer (00:00:27):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:00:35):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which these events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historical context in which they take place. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode. The issue before us, the issues before us, are the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world. How is this happening and what does it mean? As well as the developing 2024 US presidential political landscape to help me work through these issues. Let's turn to my guest. He's an author, independent journalist, political analyst and reporter for RT, and his latest book is entitled “Out of the Movement to the Masses, Anti-Imperialist Organizing in America”. And he's also the author of Kamala Harris and The Future of America, an essay in Three Parts. He is Caleb Maupin, my brother. Welcome back!
Caleb Maupin (00:01:53):
Sure. Glad to be here.
Wilmer Leon (00:01:55):
So first of all, your thoughts on my introduction, is that a hyperbole or is that a fairly accurate description of the dynamics that we find ourselves dealing with?
Caleb Maupin (00:02:13):
Trying to stop the rise of a multipolar world would be a lot like trying to stop the sun from rising in the morning, maybe trying to stop gravity. That's the way the world is moving. But our leaders are committed to trying to keep the world centered around Wall Street and London and they are going to fail. The question is how much of a cost in terms of human lives, in terms of the economy, in terms of political repression, are we going to have to endure before they come to the terms of reality, which is that we're going to have a world where there are other centers of power and countries trade with each other on a different basis. So I would agree with you,
Wilmer Leon (00:02:54):
And so as we look at this changing dynamic from the unipolar to the multipolar, we've got China, we have Russia, we have India. There are a number of countries that over the years have been targets of American sanctions, regimes and all other types of pressure from the United States. With all of that or from all of that, we now have the rise of the BRICS nations, we've got Brazil, we've got Russia, we've got India, we've got China, we've got South Africa, and now what about how many, I've lost track now about 15 or 17 other countries that have joined this organization, this economic organization, which also seems to be an anti imperialist organization.
Caleb Maupin (00:03:49):
Sure. I mean, if you understand imperialism in the economic sense, imperialism is a system rather than a policy, right? Kind of layman's terms imperialism is when one country is mean to another country or attacks another country. But we're referring specifically to imperialism as an economic system when the world is centered around financial institutions, trusts, cartels and syndicates centered in the Western countries that dominate the world through the export of capital, sending their corporations all over the world to dominate the economies of developing countries, to hold back economic development, to keep countries as captive markets and spheres of influence. That process whereby countries are prevented from lifting themselves up, from electrifying, from building modern education systems, developing modern industries, developing their own economies, and just kind of used to dump the excess commodities of Western countries and have their economy dominated by a foreign country and a foreign monopolies and big corporations from another country from the west.
(00:04:55):
That process refers to, that's what I mean when I say imperialism. I'm referring to a global economic setup, and that economic setup is on its way out. And that's been pretty clear and a lot has gone on, went on in the 20th century to kind of erode imperialism. And in the 21st century, imperialism continues to be in the decline, and there is this new economy rising around the world, centered around the two U superpowers, Russia and China. They are kind of at the center, the linchpin of a global network of countries, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba. But then there's even other countries that are willing to trade and are kind of on the one hand friendly to the United States, but on the other hand are happy to work with Russia or China if they give them a better deal. The shape of global politics is changing, the world is changing, and this is just something we need to embrace. The world is not going to be centered around the West as it was for so long during the age of colonialism and sense.
Wilmer Leon (00:05:54):
In fact, what we're finding out is that on the 27th and the 28th of August, Moscow is hosting the sixth annual, the sixth International Municipal BRICS Forum. And what might surprise a lot of people is there are delegations from 126 countries that are expected to take part, more than 5,000 participants from 500 cities around the world. This isn't getting very much attention or coverage here in the western media, but folks need to understand, as we talked about the shift from the unipolar to the multipolar, this is a perfect example of that shift isn't happening, that shift HAS happened.
Caleb Maupin (00:06:45):
Sure. When I was at the Valdi Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia in the mountains near the city, I saw Ael Togi, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and he pointed out that in the Eurasian subcontinent and outside of the Western countries, this is like a golden era. The amount of electrification that's going on, the amount of roads and railways that are being constructed, I mean, there is a whole exploding new economy happening in the world. And I saw that when I was at the Yalta Economic Forum in Crimea in 2018, and other people have seen it when they go to the Vladi Stock Economic Forum in the Russian Far East. People have seen it with the Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that China is building. There is this whole new economy in the world now that is focused on development and growth, building power plants, building schools, building universities, building hospitals, and it's a really, really big part of the global economy. And our leaders are being very foolish by trying to just barricade it and blockade it and oppose it because they're locking the United States out of that economic growth. When somebody's growing economically, they have more money to spend, they have more products they can buy, and we could be benefiting from this new economy that's rising, but instead, our Western leaders are committed to maintaining their monopoly at all costs. And so we are getting locked out of an explosion of growth. It's just a very, very mistaken approach.
Wilmer Leon (00:08:18):
And I want to, with that intro shift to shift to your book out of the movement to the masses, anti-imperialist organizing in America, because as I said in the intro, one of the major elements I believe of this shift from the unipolar to the multipolar is anti imperialism. And you write in the second paragraph of your introduction, what made the Communist party USA important was that it was the first anti-imperialist organization to take hold in the country. There were certainly anti-war organizations such as Mark Twain's, anti-Imperialist League. There had been pacifists and socialists like Eugene Debs, who opposed War on a Class basis, but the Communist party of USA was founded on the ideological breakthroughs of the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia specifically the teachings of Vladimir Lenin. So I wanted to use this book out of the Movement to the Masses, which is a textbook, and wanted to start the conversation with what motivated you to write this book and what motivated you to write this as a textbook?
Caleb Maupin (00:09:33):
Well, it's important to understand that I think the ultimate interest of we the American people is in a society free from imperialism. I don't think that helping ExxonMobil and BP and Shell and Chevron dominate the global oil markets really benefits American working people in the long run. There might be some short-term bonuses, but those things are fading and that there is a long
Wilmer Leon (00:09:57):
Short-term bonuses such as,
Caleb Maupin (00:09:59):
Well, we've had a higher standard of living at least in the past, but that standard of living is in decline, and the future of the United States is not in this decaying western financial system. It's in a new order where we're trading with countries on the basis of win-win cooperation. And the reason I wrote the textbook is because I wanted people to be aware of the fact that there has been a strong anti-imperialist movement in this country, and that we can learn from these struggles of the past and these organizations that existed and what they achieved as we figure out in our time how we can build an anti-imperialist movement to rescue our country from the nightmare of the emerging low wage police state and the drive toward World War iii. And I mean, really, you don't have anti imperialism as we understand it, right? You don't have the rise of Russia and China.
(00:10:50):
You don't have the bricks. You don't have any of that without the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. That was a pivotal moment. That was a country that broke out of the Western imperialist system during World War I and started on an independent course of development. And it came out of the Bolshevik started out as part of the Marxist movement. Marxism was the ideology of the labor movement, right? The worker versus the employer. But there was a division in the labor movement increasingly between wealthy labor union bosses and higher paid skilled trade jobs that increasingly became supporters of empire and supporters of their country, colonizing countries in Africa and countries in Asia, et cetera. And the lower levels of the labor movement of more oppressed workers, the American Federation of Labor, the A FL was the big labor federation in the United States. And the people who started it, like Samuel Goer's, they were socialists or Marxists, but they were not anti-imperialist.
(00:11:55):
And by the time World War I came along, the A FL was a union that largely was for whites only. Most of the unions that were part of it banned black people from joining, banned people not born in the United States from joining, banned people who did not speak English as their first language from joining. And they were big supporters of World War I when it happened. And there was a divide in the labor movement and Marxism that had been the ideology of the labor movement got very much divided. And you had parties like the British Labor Party, the ruling party of Britain today. It originated as a Marxist party of labor organizers, but it became a pro imperialist party. Well, Bolshevism and the people who took power in Russia, the Bolsheviks, they were a breakaway from the Marxist movement that had developed this new theory of imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism.
(00:12:48):
And they said, we're not just fighting against regular capitalism. We're fighting against the monopolistic capitalism of Britain and France and Germany and America, and that means that we support nations, right? Originally, Marxists and the labor movement said, there are no nations workers of the world unite. It's just the workers versus the bosses. No borderers in our struggle. Well, Lenin says, actually, we do support nations in their fight against imperialism. And after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, one of the first things they did is they called a conference in Baku in Azerbaijan. And at that conference, they invited all kinds of people from all over the world and they said, we will support you as long as you're fighting imperialism. And one of the people that came to that conference and was given military support by the Bolsheviks was the Amir of Afghanistan. And the Amir of Afghanistan was a conservative monarchist.
(00:13:40):
He was not a Marxist, not a socialist of any stripe. He was a conservative monarchist, a very conservative Muslim, but the Bolshevik said, you're fighting imperialism and so and so, we support you. And he gave them support. And many people around the world were inspired by the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist message that the Bolsheviks had, which was kind of a breakaway from the standard Marxist movement. The understanding was we're not just fighting capitalism, we're fighting against imperialism, and we support nations and colonized people of all different classes, workers, capitalists, whoever who are struggling against imperialism. That is the basis of this new movement that we are trying to build. And the Communist Party of the United States was the incarnation of that movement, and that's why it was embraced by many different sections of the population, most especially the black community in America, because they viewed black people as a colonized people, an oppressed nation within US borders. Marcus Garvey had been leading the black nationalist movement in the United States, the Back to African movement, and many black people saw African-Americans as a colonized people within the US borders. And the Communist Party agreed with that, and that was a winning point that they had with many people in the United States. And the Communist Party was supportive of anyone around the world who was struggling against British American or French imperialism.
Wilmer Leon (00:15:04):
And as we look at that history and we bring it forward to the current moment and the Russia phobia that we find ourselves subjected to, I submit, and please if I'm wrong, correct me that one of the things that's at the crux of this Russia phobia is the fact that America is an imperialist nation and a neo-colonial power, and Russia has the Soviet Union and then into Russia has been anti-colonialism, which is one of the reasons why we find now Russia gaining so much traction with countries on the continent of Africa.
Caleb Maupin (00:15:53):
Well, I got to tell you, just a few weeks after the special military operation in Russia began a couple of years ago, I was in New York City with Tanner, 15 of my friends, and we were marching around with American flags and Russian flags chanting, Russia is not our enemy, Russia is not our enemy. And we chanted this in Union Square, and then we went up to Grand Central Station, we marched around Grand Central Station chanting that, and while we were doing that, we got thumbs up from a lot of different people. Now, many people did not agree with us, but the people who did give us thumbs up, many of them were people that were not from the United States. New York City is a big international center. You have the United Nations that's there. You have Wall Street that's there. And I would say the majority of the people who gave us thumbs up and gave us support were from the continent of Africa.
(00:16:40):
They were people from West Africa, from Nigeria. They were people from South Africa. And that the economy of Africa is very tied in with the Russian economy, and Russia provides fertilizer to many countries. Russia has partnerships with many countries to help them develop their state run mining industries or their state run oil and natural gas industries. So support for Russia on the African continent is widespread. Now, this doesn't match the narrative of liberals. Liberals would have us believe that Russia is a white supremacist country, and that's why they rigged the elections in 2016 to get white supremacist. Donald Trump elected, and that just does not match reality. The Soviet Union, which modern Russia is built on the foundations of the Soviet Union, was the best friend of anti-colonial and liberation movements on the African continent, and those relationships still exist. When I was in Russia, I sat down with people from various African countries.
(00:17:43):
I sat down with people from Namibia. Well, the ruling party of Namibia is the Southwest People's Organization, which was a Soviet aligned, Soviet funded organization that fought for Namibia to become independent. The ruling party of South Africa, the African National Congress was armed and funded by the Soviet Union. If you go to Ghana, the man who created modern Ghana was Kwame Nkrumah, who was a big friend of the Soviet Union and was called himself an African socialist and developed his own interpretation of the Marxist philosophy that was specific to the African continent. I mean, there was Julius Nire, there was Gaddafi who built Libya into the most prosperous country on the African continent. There are just so many examples of how Russia is intimately tied in with the struggle against colonialism on the African continent with the struggle of African countries to pursue their own course of development.
(00:18:43):
And that is rooted in the foundation of the Bolshevik Revolution. And the Bolshevik ideology, which I will emphasize was a break with the standard Marxist view. Marx himself, he believed that the first communist revolution would happen in Germany, and it would be the European countries that had the communist revolution first because they were the most advanced. And it was Lenin who came along and said, well, actually, that's wrong. The center of revolutionary energy is going to be in the colonized and oppressed countries of the world. And the working class in the imperialist homeland is largely being bought off, and it's going to be the division between what we now some academics talk about the global north and the global south. It's going to be that division that brings socialism into the world. And that is kind of the defining aspect of what Lenin taught. And as much as the global anti-imperialist movement is not explicitly Marxist Leninist in the Soviet sense, they don't exactly follow that Soviet ideology. That understanding of imperialism and what happened in the 20th century with the Soviet Union, with later the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese revolution, the Cuban Revolution, all of that laid the basis for what exists today. And that understanding is important, and that's why I wrote this textbook.
Wilmer Leon (00:19:55):
And to your point about all of these myths and stories and fictions about Russia being involved in our election and all of this other foolishness, mark Zuckerberg just wrote a letter to Jim Jordan saying that he apologizes for having purged stories from Facebook regarding the Hunter Biden laptop and some of the other stories, because he has now come to understand that that whole narrative was not Russian propaganda as the FBI had told him, he now has come to understand that those stories are true. And I bring that up just as one data point to demonstrate how so much of this rhetoric that we've been hearing, so much of this propaganda that we've been hearing about China being involved in our elections and Russia being involved in our elections, and Iran, mark Zuckerberg, the head of Facebook, just sent a letter to Jim Jordan laying all this out, that it was bs. It was a fiction created by the FBI, Caleb Moin.
Caleb Maupin (00:21:14):
Well, we've been through this before, right after the Russian Revolution, just a few years later in London, in Britain, there was a scandal called the Enovia of letter. And the British people were told, oh my goodness, the Russians are meddling in our elections. They're trying to get the Labor Party to win the election. And Lloyd George, who was the conservative military leader, was playing up the idea that the Labor Party was being funded and supported by Russia, and they held up this piece of paper they said was the smoking gun. It was the proof, the Enovia letter, this letter supposedly from the Russian government official of Enovia to the Labor Party. Well, it was later proven to be a complete hoax. It was fake, right? But that was happening back in the 1920s. And we've been through this over and over and over again. When Henry Wallace ran for president, he was the vice president under Roosevelt, and then when Truman was president, he ran against the Democrats as they became a pro-war party, the party that was leading us into the Korean War, et cetera.
(00:22:12):
He ran as an independent candidate in 1948, and they acclaimed his campaign was a big Russian conspiracy, and it was a communist conspiracy. There's a whole history of this and the FBI, if you look at the number of investigations they've done into supposed Russian influence in American elections, it's endless, but it's always a hoax, right? American elections happen because of events in America, not because of Russia. However, there is no question that many people in the United States do want peace, and they do want peace with the Soviet Union or with modern Russia, and they may vote for candidates who they think are more likely to bring about that peace, but that's not a conspiracy. That's doing what you're supposed to be able to do in a democracy expressing yourself at the ballot box. And what they're really worried about is Americans thinking wrong. They're really worried about not having a monopoly over the information that we receive. They're really worried about us questioning what we're told and not marching in lockstep behind their agenda of war and dividing the world into blocks and isolating certain countries. And this story has happened over and over and over again in American politics. We've been through it so many times.
Wilmer Leon (00:23:25):
Final point on this, I don't want to get back to the book. As you just said, events happen in American elections due to America. Well, all of this chicken little, the sky is falling and the world is interfering in our elections. Well, there was a story in the New York Times about what, three months ago, about APAC spending $100 million to unseat what they consider to be left-leaning Democrats, whose position on Israel was not consistent with the Zionist ideology. I'm going to say that again. This was in the New York Times. I'm not making this up. This is an anti-Semitic dialogue. It was in New York Times APAC spending $100 million on primary campaigns to remove Democrats that they consider to be anti-Israeli. What happened in New York with Jamal Bowman? That's what happened in Missouri with, what's her name? I think she's in St. Louis, the Congresswoman. I'm drawing a blank on her. Anyway, and they were successful in a number of campaigns. So we're running around chasing ghosts, chasing Russian ghosts, and Chinese ghosts when the real culprits are telling you right upfront in the New York Times what it is they're doing and why it is they're doing it. With that being said, you can either respond to that or how did you organize your textbook and why is it organized in the manner in which it is?
Caleb Maupin (00:25:16):
Well, I went over like case studies of three different anti-imperialist movements or organizations in the United States. I started with probably the most successful, which was the Communist Party of the United States, which at one point had a huge amount of influence During the Roosevelt administration, they entered an alliance with Roosevelt, and in the late 1930s, the Communist party controlled two of the city council seats in New York City. They had a very close ally in the US Congress representing Harlem named Veto Mark Antonio. They also had a member of Congress in Minnesota who was their friend and ally and read their newspaper into the congressional record. They had meetings at the White House with President Roosevelt. On multiple occasions, members of the Communist Party or the Young Communist League were brought to the White House to meet with Roosevelt, and they led the CIO, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which was a new labor federation they had created as an alternative to the American Federation of Labor.
(00:26:14):
And they were a very influential group in the labor movement among intellectuals in Hollywood. And they put forward an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist message, and their successes are worth studying. There were certainly mistakes that were made, and they were very brutally crushed by the FBI in the aftermath of the Second World War with the rise of McCarthyism. But there were studying then from there, I talked about the Workers' World Party, which was a Marxist Leninist political party that really came into prominence in the late sixties and really kind of peaked in its influence during the 1980s. And they were a party that took inspiration, not just from the Soviet Union, but from the wave of anti-colonial movements that emerged. They were sympathetic to Libya and Gaddafi. They were sympathetic to North Korea and others, and they did a lot of very important anti-war organizing, building anti-war coalitions. They were very close to Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney General who left the Lyndon Johnson administration and became an international lawyer and an opponent of the International Criminal Court in his final years and such.
(00:27:17):
And then I talked about the new communist movement of the 1970s, which was a number of different organizations that emerged during the 1970s that were trying to take inspiration from China. They wanted to take guidance from the Chinese revolution. China had argued that the Soviet Union had kind of abandoned the global anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle. They felt it was holding back revolutionary forces, but China was at that point presenting itself as a bastion of anti imperialism. And so there were a number of new political parties formed during the 1970s that modeled themselves on China. And all three of these case studies, all three of these groups made big mistakes, but also had big successes. The most successful was the Communist Party prior to it being crushed by the FBI during the McCarthy period. All of them had big successes and were able to do big important things, and I studied all of them.
(00:28:08):
And then from there, the fourth chapter talked about divisions in the ruling class, and why is it that we see, at this point, we're seeing a big all-out fight between Donald Trump and those who oppose him. And when you talk about the Watergate scandal and you talk about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, what was really going on behind closed doors? And then in the final chapter, I tried to kind of take from all of that what we could take and what we could learn when trying to build a movement in our time. One thing I made a point of doing in the book is that every chapter is accompanied by a number of original texts from the period discussed. I have a number of texts from the Communist Party, from the Workers' World Party, from the new communist movement of the 1970s, so that we can hear from the horse's mouth, so to speak, what these people were preaching and what they believed as they were building their organizations.
Wilmer Leon (00:29:01):
So how does this history, how relevant is this history you just mentioned Donald Trump? How relevant is this history to where we find ourselves today with our politics?
Caleb Maupin (00:29:15):
I would argue it's extremely relevant. And if you look at Roosevelt and who opposed him, and if you look at the Kennedy assassination, and if you look at the Watergate scandal, there has always been a divide among the American elite between what you can call the Eastern establishment, the ultra rich, the ultra monopolies, the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, the Carnegies that are now at this point aligned with Silicon Valley, the tech monopolies, bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and others. There's always been a divide between these entrenched ultra monopolies and a lot of lower level rich people who are not part of the club and feel that those entrenched monopolies are kind of rigging things against 'em. And I quote, there's a very good text called the Anglo-American Establishment by Carol Quigley that talks about this divide. I think he was one of the first people to talk about it.
(00:30:06):
But then from there, you also have a great book by Carl Oglesby called The Yankee and Cowboy War that talks about this and specifically applies that analysis to what went on with the Watergate scandal, with the assassination of JFK and the political crisis in the 1960s and seventies. And I would argue that in our time, this is the fight that kind of defines things when we talk about trying to build a movement against colonialism and imperialism in the United States, these lower level capitalists would gain if America had paved roads, if America had a stronger economy, and if we were doing business with the countries around the world that are growing right now in alliance with China, right? If we were trading with them and some of that wealth was flowing into our economy, we would be benefiting. However, it is the ultra monopolies that are very much tied in with the intelligence apparatus, the people who brought us, Henry Kissinger, the people who brought us z, big new Brozinsky.
(00:31:01):
They are determined to keep the United States at the top and keep Western imperialist this financial system at the top of the world at all costs, even if that means kind of playing a long geopolitical game and if it means dramatically decreasing the standard of living and kind of collapsing the domestic economy of the United States. And so when Trump talks about America first and his supporters rail against globalists, this is really what they're getting at is the lower levels of capital are fighting against the Eastern establishment. And that creates an opening for those of us who want to build an anti-imperialist movement in this country to intervene. And I talk about that, and unfortunately, it seems like really since the 1970s and since kind of the end of the 1960s and seventies, political upsurge, much of the left has kind of just deteriorated into being the foot soldiers of that Eastern establishment.
(00:31:56):
They see those lower level capitalists as being the most hawkish and warlike as being the most anti-union and the most authoritarian. So they think, okay, we're going to align with the Eastern establishment against them. And I argue that that's not the correct approach because right now it is those lower level capitalists who feel threatened, and it is among them that you found support for Julian Assange that you find interest in being friendly with Russia and with China and anti-establishment sentiment, you find opposition to the tech monopolies and their censorship. And that really we're in a period where those of us who are anti-imperialist need to pivot into trying to build an anti-monopoly coalition. And that's what the Communist Party talked about at the end of the Second War as the Cold War got going, as they were being crushed by the FBI, they said their goal was to build an anti-monopoly coalition to unite with the working class, the small business owners, even some of the wealthy against the big monopolies in their drive for war.
(00:32:54):
And I would argue that's what we should be aiming to do in our time, is build an anti-monopoly coalition. And that's what I've pulled from that textbook and from that history going over what has been done and what has been successful and that the Communist Party really gained from having an alliance with Roosevelt that was very strategic on their part. And I would argue that similar alliances are necessary, but the main thing is that there needs to be a network of people that are committed to building anti-imperialist politics in America. We need a network of people who can work together, who can rely on each other and can effectively carry out anti-imperialist operations. And there are examples of this. I'm about to go to Florida to support the Yahoo movement, the Yahoo movement, the African People Socialist party. They are an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist organization, and they're doing it. And if you go to St. Louis, Missouri, and if you go to St. Petersburg, Florida,
Wilmer Leon (00:33:50):
Who, Cory Bush, I'm sorry, her name you said St. Louis, Cory Bush, sorry, is the other congresswoman that was defeated by the, sorry, I had to get it out. Go ahead. Okay.
Caleb Maupin (00:34:01):
But you'll see the huge community centers that they've built, the farmer's markets that they've built, I mean, they have built a base among the African-American community in these two cities where they are providing services to people while teaching an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist ideology. Now, I don't necessarily agree with their entire approach on everything, but I see why they're being targeted because they are laying the foundations of building a broader anti-imperialist movement. And what they are doing is a great model to look at. They are building a base among the population. The title of the book is Out of the Movement to the Masses. I've been going to anti-war protests, and I've been going to socialist and communist spaces, and very rarely did I ever encounter the African People's Socialist Party, but they were organizing where it counted not in these kind of obscure academic bohemian spaces.
(00:34:54):
They were organizing in communities and they were providing real services, and they were building community centers and having classes for pregnant mothers and having organic farmer's markets. And they were doing things among the masses of people, not among the, so-called movements of people that like to read books about communism or whatever. And that is why they're being targeted, because they are actually building the kind of movement that needs to be done. They're doing what the Communist Party did during the 1930s. They're doing what the new communist movement of the 1970s attempted to do and was pretty unsuccessful because of global circumstances, et cetera. They are doing what needs to be done to build a real anticolonial movement. And that's kind of what I'm in the text is we have to have a reevaluation and we have to figure out how we can reach the bulk of the American people and not confine ourselves to kind of left academic and intellectual spaces.
Wilmer Leon (00:35:50):
Is it too simplistic to, when you look at this battle between the elites, is it too simplistic to categorize it as the financials versus the industrialists?
Caleb Maupin (00:36:01):
Yes. It's a little bit too simplistic because there is a lot of financialization, a lot of the lower levels
Wilmer Leon (00:36:07):
Of capital.
Caleb Maupin (00:36:09):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not exactly right, but you're pointing to a certain trend that there is one faction that favors economic growth because economic growth will mean more money for them. There's another faction that is not concerned about economic growth so much as they're concerned about maintaining their monopoly. And in order to maintain their monopoly, they need to slow down growth around the world, and they're actually pushing degrowth or slow growth economics. So that's probably the primary divide is pro-growth and anti-growth, right? You would think that every businessman would be pro-growth, but the ultra monopolies that are heavily involved in finance at this point, they're blatantly talking about degrowth as a way to stay at the top.
Wilmer Leon (00:36:51):
In fact, one of the ways that they maintain their position is through consolidation. One of the ways that the banks control their monopoly is by buying smaller banks and bringing the or. So that's just one example.
Caleb Maupin (00:37:10):
Sure, sure. I mean, we live in a time where at the end of the day, the issue is technology is that it is human labor that creates all wealth, right? It is only human labor that creates value at the end of the day, and it is the value that workers create that lays the basis for the profits that capitalists can make, et cetera. And we are in a period where the technological revolution is reducing the role of workers at the assembly line. There's a lot of jobs that are no longer in existence because of technological advancement. And in a rational society that would be great. But in our society where profits are in command, that's leading to an economic crisis. Great example is self-driving cars, self-driving cars should be a great thing. It should be great that this job called driving this chore, this human labor of driving cars is no longer necessary.
(00:38:02):
But if they introduce self-driving cars, you would immediately in this country have millions of truck drivers unemployed, millions of Uber drivers unemployed, millions of traffic court employees unemployed. You would have riots in the streets. And Andrew Yang talked about how if self-driving cars came to the United States, we would have a society-wide crisis of unemployment and chaos like we never seen. How is that rational? Why should technological advancement lead to greater poverty? And that is the problem that we are facing. Human creativity and brilliance has outstripped the narrow limits production organized to make profit. We need a rationally planned economy so that economic growth can continue and technological advancement leads to greater prosperity for all
Wilmer Leon (00:38:46):
That sounds like China.
Caleb Maupin (00:38:47):
Yeah. And China, by controlling their economy and by having the state assigned credit based on their five-year plans and having state controlled tech corporations that are in line with the Communist party's vision, they're able to continue having growth despite having technological advancement. And that's ultimately what we need to have. And that is what Marx wrote about. One of the writers I quote extensively from is a brilliant thinker from the new communist movement named Nelson Peery and his autobiography, black Radical, which is very good, talks about his involvement in the Communist Party and then getting kicked out of the Communist Party and FBI infiltration of the Communist Party and then starting the Communist Labor Party during the 1970s. But also his very important book that he published before he died, I believe in 2004, called The Future Is Up To Us, which really gets into this contradiction of technology leading to impoverishment.
(00:39:42):
And he's saying this like during the Bush administration before ai, before any of what we're saying now he's laying out how this is going to lead to a big economic crisis that's going to necessitate a new economic system. Nelson Period is a brilliant thinker who had this kind of understanding. I also draw from Fred Goldstein, from Sam Marcy from some of the other writers who said the same thing. But this has always been kind of the understanding is that technological advancement should not lead to impoverishment, it should lead to greater prosperity. I often quote, there's an old story called the coal miner's riddle, the coal miner. He's sitting in his house with his son. The son says, father, why is it so cold in the house? And he says, because I can't afford to buy any coal. And he says, well, why can't we afford to buy any coal?
(00:40:30):
And he says, because I lost my job at the coal mine. I was laid off. And he says, father, why were you laid off from the coal mine? Why did you lose your job? He says, because there is too much coal. That's capitalism, but that's not rational. It's poverty created by abundance. I keep hearing our politicians talk about a housing shortage. Have you heard this? A housing shortage in America, there's no housing shortage. I live in New York City, there's four empty apartments for every homeless person. There's millions of empty housing, there's no housing shortage in America. There's a shortage of affordable housing black, because the national economic system,
Wilmer Leon (00:41:06):
BlackRock bought up a lot of the housing stock and instead of putting those houses back on the market, they held those homes off the market and then put 'em out for rent. So in many instances, it's not a matter of oh, $25,000 credit to those first time home buyers allegedly to lower the price of housing or to make housing more affordable. No, all that's going to do is raise the price of houses by $25,000. What you need to do is get that housing stock that BlackRock has as bought up and put that on the market, make that available. Because if you look at the Econ 1 0 1 supply and demand, you put more houses on the market, chances are the price of houses is going to decline.
Caleb Maupin (00:42:02):
Absolutely. Absolutely. When we talk about imperialism and we talk about anti-imperialist movements, one great example is the situation with Yemen, right? Yemen right now, this is one of the poorest countries in the world, and right now, this country that has a big movement called the Houthis or Anah, they're shaking the world. But if you go and listen or read the sermons or the founder of the Houthis movement, Hussein Al Houthis, what he's fighting for is economic development because he points out that Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, but yet it has a huge amount of oil. It has a huge amount of arable land to grow food, but the people there are very, very poor. And the Houthis movement that is now at this point, stopping ships in the Mediterranean and standing with the Palestinians and sending drones to the Indian Ocean and just shaking the world.
(00:42:56):
That was a movement of very, very poor people in one of the poorest countries in the world that demanding to take control of their natural resources and take control of their economy. My understanding of imperialism and such very much had a lot to do with the fact that in 2015, I participated in a humanitarian mission attempting to deliver medical aid to Yemen after the upsurge of 2015 when the Houthis movement and their revolutionary committee took power, I went on a ship from the Islamic Republic of Iran with the Red Crescent Society, and we tried to deliver medical aid to Yemen, and we were blocked in doing so. And reading about this anti-colonial movement that was formed in Yemen, a very religious Shia Muslim movement, demanding economic development, demanding, taking control of their resources, reading about that was very inspiring in the aim of building an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement in the United States.
(00:43:54):
Now to see what the Houthis are doing as they're blocking ships to support the Palestinians as they're withstanding us attack, this is a movement of impoverished people fighting for their economic development and fighting to build a new country. This is a mass anti-colonial movement that is worth studying. And the fact that they align themselves with Russia and China, they're not blocking ships from Russia, they're not blocking ships from China. They are blocking ships from Israel and any country that trades with them, that shows you that this global anti-imperialist movement that is about mobilizing millions of people to fight for their rights, this global movement has a real strength.
Wilmer Leon (00:44:34):
Let's shift now to the 2024 presidential election. We've come out of the Republican Convention, we've now come out of the Democratic Convention and the Democratic Party convention, and Donald Trump was shocked when Joe Biden stepped down, Kamala Harris stepped in. That has changed the dynamic, at least in terms of the dialogue, and we're starting to see some shift in the numbers. Your thoughts on where we are now with this landscape.
Caleb Maupin (00:45:09):
I think that Kamala Harris is a completely manufactured candidate. She was created by the people who brought us the Hillary Clinton State Department when it was made clear that Hillary Clinton couldn't run for president once again in 2020, all of Hillary Clinton's financial backers put their money behind Kamala Harris. She was not popular with the American people, but yet powerful forces twisted Joe Biden's arm and put her on the ticket as vp. She has not been popular or successful as vp, but she is the candidate that the forces that are committed to regime change and all out efforts to oppose Russia and China at all costs. She is the one that they have invested the most in supporting. And I don't think she's going to win. I think that Trump will win the upcoming election. And that doesn't mean everything about Trump is good or I endorsed Donald Trump.
(00:46:03):
I'm just telling you that I think Trump is going to win. But I also believe that there are very powerful forces that see Kamala Harris as their best bet at getting what they want, which is more regime change wars, more destabilization around the world. I did write a book in 2020 about Kamala Harris four years ago, and I thought it was very odd that right after she got the Democratic nomination, this book that had been on sale for four years on Amazon suddenly got removed from Amazon. And for seven days my book was banned from Amazon and then restored with no explanation seven days later. I thought that was very, very odd. It raised a lot of eyebrows, but it also points to the amount of power the tech monopolies really have. It seems like everything was being done to support Kamala Harris. What I also thought was interesting is that in my book, I talked about Tulsi Gabbard and how Tulsi Gabbard kind of represents forces in the Pentagon that are really worried about another Arab Spring and what Kamala Harris and the Hillary Clinton State Department forces people like Samantha Power, people like Anne-Marie Slaughter, what they might engineer if they come back to office.
(00:47:11):
My book highlighted Tulsi Gabbard as being kind of a faction that is opposed to Kamala Harris. And the very same day that my book was pulled from Amazon, Tulsi Gabbard was added to the Quiet Sky's terrorism watch list by the American government. When she tried to board a plane, she found out she was accused of being a terrorist. And I thought that was interesting as well. And it just kind of points to, and there was all kinds of weird stuff going on in terms of social media and Google searches that was being manipulated around that time. But the book that I wrote about Kamala Harris and who has backed her and the ties that she has getting pulled from Amazon, it was interesting to see the timing,
Wilmer Leon (00:47:52):
The position of the Democratic Party as it relates to Gaza. And I was at the DNCI was also at the RNC conventions, but there were protestors in Chicago demanding a change in the US policy as it relates to the genocide in Gaza. Then you had uncommitted delegates that were able to have a sit-in at the DNC right outside the front door of the entrance to the United Center, demanding that a pro-Palestinian spokesperson be added to the speaker's list. And none of that was agreed to. In fact, it was basically dismissed summarily. So your thoughts on the dangers that the Democrats are playing with taking that position as it relates to the general election?
Caleb Maupin (00:48:55):
Well, if the Democrats are going to win this election, they're going to need lots of votes in Minnesota, lots of votes in Wisconsin and lots of votes in Michigan. And what do all three of those states have in common? Those swing states,
Wilmer Leon (00:49:06):
Large Arab populations.
Caleb Maupin (00:49:08):
That's right. Lots of Muslim Americans, lots of Arab Americans, and with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris giving a blank check to Israel to do what they're doing. I think it's very unlikely to see those folks lining up to vote for them. Now, Kamala Harris has made some noise about this or that, but she's basically the president already. If she was going to do something, she could do it right now. I mean, she's the vice president, but Joe Biden doesn't seem to be as actively involved in the political running of the country as some people might expect. That said, I will say that Donald Trump, I mean his position on Israel Palestine, I mean, is pretty reprehensible, and he continues to play up the idea that Kamala Harris and the Democrats are somehow anti-Israel, which they are not. What I think is interesting though, and I noticed that it seems like anti-Israel voices in the Trump camp, they may not be on the front stage, but they do have a lot of influence.
(00:50:03):
And I'm not saying all these people are doing what they're doing for necessarily good reasons, but I noticed when Elon Musk was interviewing Donald Trump in the chat, it just exploded. And all over Twitter, it exploded. The phrase, no war on Iran that came from Nick Fuentes. Now, Nick Fuentes is somebody that I don't agree with on many, many things and find a lot of his views and just his presentation style to kind of reprehensible and gross, but he, for his own reasons says no war with Iran. I also noticed that Candace Owens, who is a conservative and was very pro-Israel at one point, she was not pro-Israel enough. Now she's kind of moved for interesting reasons that are very different than anything I would say. She's moved into an anti-Israel direction and she has also got a lot of people in the Trump camp who listen to her and she is making noise, no war in Iran and urging Trump supporters not to support Israel. And this points to the fact that opposition to Israel, I think is much more widespread in both parties than anyone wants to recognize.
(00:51:07):
It's an element of the emperor has no clothes. Both parties pretend that everyone in their camp just supports Israel. But anyone who talks to a typical Democrat, you were at the Republican Convention and the Democrat Convention, and you could probably confirm that opposition to what Israel is doing is boiling beneath the surface, amid both political parties and amid all sections of this country. And that there is a lot of growing outrage about the influence and power of Israel and American politics, even among people who might support Israel otherwise, but just don't appreciate the arrogance and grip that they seem to have over policymaking.
Wilmer Leon (00:51:46):
And some people just help me understand why, but some people just have a problem with genocide. It's a bit os there are growing groups, Republicans for Harris, and there are those who are positing that this is because she's a stooge of the elite and this represents how she who's truly backing her. What about the argument that many of those in those types of organizations see her as an opportunity to reclaim the Republican party by getting rid of Donald Trump? And it's almost a any port in the storm kind of mentality, they see her as the stalking horse. If they can back her, if she can defeat Trump, they then can, the old school, the traditional Republicans can regain control of their party. What say you Caleb Opin?
Caleb Maupin (00:52:58):
Well, I would say that the Bush era Republican party is gone. It's never coming back. And Donald Trump is a symptom of that. And that's very clear. And that Donald Trump's recent embracing of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, that indicates that Donald Trump is taking his campaign in an anti-establishment direction. Now, that doesn't mean that he's going to necessarily do good things as president. That just means that he's increasingly realizing that his appeal is to people that are opposed to the establishment. And I think that means the establishment is going to fight him a lot harder. There's no question about that. And that there are your regular traditional neo-conservative Republicans, my country, right or wrong, if you don't like it here, move to some other country, support the military, support the wars, support America dominating the world, and showing the world about our great American way of life.
(00:53:51):
Those folks are increasingly finding the Republican party to not be their home. And this is all very interesting. I noticed in Kamala Harris's DNC speech, she attacked the Republicans for denigrating America. And that made me smile because it reminded me of what I always heard about the far left, right? It was the far left. They hate America. They're always saying things are bad. Why are you always running down our country? And a lot of things that Kamala Harris said in her speech almost sounded like Neoconservatism. She attacked Donald Trump for meeting with Kim Jong-Un. She said he was cozying up to tyrants and being friendly with tyrants. And it seemed to me like there was very much the Republican Party, I believe over time is going to become more of a catchall populist, anti-establishment party, whereas the Democratic party is more and more becoming the party of the establishment of the way things are supposed to be. I think that what I would call the late Cold War normal in American politics is being flipped. It used to be the Republican party was the party of the establishment, and the Democrats were the party of opposition. Not very sincere opposition in many cases, but they were the party of, if you didn't agree with what you're supposed to think necessarily, if you're a little more critical, you become a Democrat. Well,
Wilmer Leon (00:55:05):
If you were proc civil rights, if you were pro-environment, if you were anti-war, that's where you went.
Caleb Maupin (00:55:12):
Yeah. And I think it's being flipped. And that doesn't mean that Republicans and the MAGA base that are talking a certain way are sincere at all. That just means who they're appealing to. The Republican party has an anti-establishment appeal more and more every day. The Democratic party has a ProE establishment appeal. And I think this Republicans for Harris is a great example of that.
Wilmer Leon (00:55:32):
So as we move now, spiraling towards November 5th, you've already said you believe that Donald Trump is going to win the election. One of the things that I find very, very telling, and I check it every day when you go to the Harris website, there's still no policy positions stated. There's no policy tab. In fact, when I asked that question a couple of times at the DNCC, I was told, oh, you don't understand. She hasn't had time. There hasn't been. I said, wait a minute. She ran for president four years ago. So she had to have, we hope she had established some policy positions as a candidate. She was the vice president going on four years now, we hope during those four years she could have figured out some policy and it's now been almost a month. You can't tell me that she couldn't pick up the phone and call a bunch of people in the room and say, Hey, I need policies on education, on defense, on the economy, on these five positions. I need policy in 10 days. Go get it done. Caleb Opin.
Caleb Maupin (00:57:00):
Well, I think there are three possible outcomes for the election. In my mind, probably the worst case scenario would be Kamala Harris winning. And I think that would be followed by a number of, there'd be chaos in the streets. A lot of Trump supporters will not accept it as a legitimate election. And I expect there will then be a big crackdown on dissent, and I expect there'll be a lot of provocations, et cetera. And that will be used by the establishment to crack down on dissent.
Wilmer Leon (00:57:26):
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And people need to understand the crackdown on dissent has already started by looking what's being done to who's being platformed from social media sites. Look at what's happening to folks who are getting arrested, the guy that started Instagram and all of these folks, the three Scott Ritter, your book taken off of taking all of these things are data points to support your position that the crackdown on descent has already started?
Caleb Maupin (00:58:02):
No, I mean the Biden administration has already indicted. Sue me, Terry, who was the top advisor to Obama and Bush on South Korea. And I mean the fact that she's been indicted as a foreign agent of South Korea just because South Korea wants to have mattered negotiations with North Korea. I mean, it looks like blatant retaliation.
Wilmer Leon (00:58:22):
And South Korea is an ally.
Caleb Maupin (00:58:23):
Yeah, their closest friend in Washington dc Sumi Terry has now been accused of being a foreign agent. She's facing decades in prison. I mean, this is craziness. This is a top CIA person who's been a top advisor on career matters. So that would be kind of what I think the worst case scenario would be. The most likely scenario is that I think Donald Trump will win. But all the negative things about Trumpism will amplify. I think the pro-Israel stuff, the pro-police stuff, the anti-immigrant stuff will amplify
Wilmer Leon (00:58:55):
Project 2025.
Caleb Maupin (00:58:56):
Yeah, the government will try to, the powers that be will try to ride the wave of Trumpism to push forward their own agenda, which is not good But I do think there is a third possible scenario, which is a real long shot. It's a real long shot, which is that Donald Trump takes office in a completely defensive position. And under those circumstances, he may be compelled to do a lot of good things because he's just at odds with the establishment and needs popular support. So much so we shall have to see. But those are my three predictions. But in all of those circumstances on anti-imperialist organization, a network of people that are committed to anti imperialism and building a new America beyond the rule of bankers and war profiteers is going to be vitally important. And at the end of the day, what really matters is not so much who is in office, it's what the balance of forces is in the country and around the world, and what kind of movement exists, what kind organizations.
(00:59:58):
There are people that are involved in the political process and to change the world and taking responsibility for the future of their country. And I wrote the book as a textbook for the Center for Political Innovation. My organization as we try to do just that, as we try to build a network of people who can rely on each other and build an anti-imperialist movement in the United States to support the Hru three, to study these ideas to be out there. That is one thing we aim to do. If Donald Trump wins the election, one thing that we aim to do is and intend to get that picture of Donald Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong-un and get it everywhere and say that this election is a mandate that the peace talks on the Korean Peninsula should continue. And that could be a way to nudge the discourse toward a more peace oriented wing of Trumpism.
(01:00:46):
That's one thing that we intend to do. We have other operations that we intend to carry out with the aim of nudging the country in an anti-colonial direction. One thing that I think is very important is Alaska, right? Alaska is right there close to Russia and there's the bearing Strait that separates Russia and Alaska and Abraham Lincoln had the idea of building a bridge to connect Alaska to Russia. And a lot of great people have had the idea of doing that since. And I think popularizing the idea of building a world land bridge to connect Alaska to Russia and pivot the US economy toward trading with the Russian Far East and with the Korean Peninsula and with China that could nudge the world and a direction of Multipolarity pivot away from Western Europe and towards the World Land Bridge and the bearing Strait and all of that.
(01:01:36):
So there are various things that we can do to try and influence discourse, but I must say the explosion is coming, right? I mean, you can feel it rumbling in the ground. The avalanche is going to pour, the volcano is going to go off. It's only a matter of time. Those of us who study these ideas and understand things, we have the job not of making the explosion come, but rather of trying to guide it in the right direction. The conditions in this country are getting worse. Americans are angry at the establishment. Things are going to change. But what we hope to do is guide that change and point it in a good direction toward a better world. And that's all we can really hope to do. I quote Mao the leader of the Chinese Revolution. He said The masses are the real heroes and at the end of the day, it will be the masses of the American people and their millions who determine what the future of this country will be. I think they are going to awaken and take action. The question is only what type of action will that be? And I think guys like you and I have a role to play in shaping what kind of action they might take when they do awaken.
Wilmer Leon (01:02:39):
Well, thank you for putting me in that group. And if we are able to build a bridge across the bearing strait between Alaska and Russia, I'm sure Sarah Palin will be the first one. Should be operating the toll booth. My brother. Alright, my brother Kayla mopping. Man, thank you so much for being my guest. Thank you so much for joining the show today.
Caleb Maupin (01:03:05):
Sure thing. Always a pleasure
Wilmer Leon (01:03:07):
Folks. Thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Woman Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, follow us on social media. The Patreon account is very, very important. That helps to support the effort. You can find all the links below in the show description and remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis is just chatter. And we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
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Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:34):
Wilmer Leon here at the Democratic National Convention 2024 coming to you from the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, in the house that Mike built. And we thought we'd just go inside, go down to the floor of the arena as they're preparing for the event to kick off tomorrow, Monday with Joe Biden going to be the primary speaker at the event opening up the event. And let's get a little behind the scenes look, see how they're setting things up, listening to some of the music. The DJs are preparing for the introduction of the states and all kinds of different roll calls. Votes are going to take place, all kinds of things that they're doing here. Let's go inside and get a peek behind the scenes here on the floor at the 2024 convention and just wanted, again to give you a little insight, the behind the scenes as things are setting up, they're testing out the musicians, the temps are playing as we're here. And you can see you've got CNN, you've got the NBC news, Fox News, PBS, all of the channels and all of the networks that you're used to seeing from the other side of the camera. We can see as they've got the stage set up, it's a really, really beautiful backdrop that they've created here for the convention, the
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Democratic Party, the 47th President of the United States
Tiana Thomas - Volunteer (01:50):
I am here to be politically aware and to be civically engaged in what is going on with the Democratic Party and this nation's politics.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (01:57):
So as a volunteer, what are some of the things that they have you engaged in?
Tiana Thomas - Volunteer (02:01):
So I'm serving as a foreign press liaison, and so I'm working with the foreign press and making sure that they get to where they need to be and that they're educating Americans abroad about what's going on with the DNC.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (02:11):
Yes, we do have a special guest here. We have the former governor of Virginia, Terry McCullough. Thank you so much for joining us, governor. Well,
Terry McAuliffe - Fmr. Gov of MD (02:18):
It great to be with you, man. Excited.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (02:20):
Why are you excited?
Terry McAuliffe - Fmr. Gov of MD (02:22):
Well, let's see. This is my 13th convention. Okay. I've run a couple of these. I've chaired them, chaired the National Party. Usually when you have these events, it takes a day or two. The warring factions got to come together after the primaries. None of that. This time everybody's together. There's joy, there's happiness. Record amount of money's been raised, record amount of grassroots supporters have signed up to knock on doors. We've never experienced anything like this. It's extraordinary. So I'm pretty fired up. Got a long way to go, but I'd much rather be us than them.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (02:53):
My guest, rear Admiral retired Mike Smith. He is the president and founder of the National Security Leaders for America. Admiral Smith, thank you so much for joining us.
Ret. Admiral Mike Smith (03:03):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (03:05):
Many would say we didn't expect that this would be the National Security Year, that it has become a lot of things going on out there. What do you see the immediate future looking like?
Ret. Admiral Mike Smith (03:18):
I think the immediate future, given how close the race is, is potentially frightening.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (03:27):
I'm joined by Ashanti Golar, president of Emerge. Yes. And you are building a woman led America, one woman at a time.
A' shante Gholar, President, Emerge (03:34):
Yes. We are so excited to be here talking to you today.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (03:38):
Thank you for joining us. So what type of training program do you provide?
A' shante Gholar, President, Emerge (03:42):
So what we do is break down and demystify what it takes to run for our elected office for women. We do this through our signature training programs, our bootcamps, our step forwards. But most importantly, we let women know that they already have what it takes. We just give them those tools, the skills, the resources, but most importantly, a network of support so they don't have to do it alone.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (04:08):
Politics and color was able to catch up with Senator Bernie Sanders as he was entering the floor of the Democratic National Convention here in Chicago, Illinois. And here's what he had to say.
Reporter (04:18):
Senator Sanders, how does it feel to be here at the Democratic National Convention?
Bernie Sanders, US Sen. Vermont (04:22):
Well, it feels great. Nice to see that Michael Jordan statue.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (04:25):
He was obviously happy to see the statue of Michael Jordan and was expressing the increase in energy that is being now demonstrated and felt throughout the entire party. Politics and color was also able to catch up with California Congresswoman the Maxine Waters here at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Rep. Maxine Waters CA (04:42):
Well, I want to tell you, I'm a friend of politics. I stuck with him until he made his decision. I think he said to some of us a long time ago, you have not back and I'll have, he's done everything that he says he would do. He's an honorable man and he did the most historic and fantastic things when he and endorse
Dr. Wilmer Leon (05:03):
Congresswoman Maxine Waters was expressing the appreciation that chief feels for the service provided by President Joe Biden. And that is felt throughout the entire Democratic party. Senator, I'm joined here by Malcolm Kenyata, Pennsylvania State representative. My first question, there's a lot of enthusiasm here that the gears have shifted dramatically over the last three weeks. What is in it for communities of color?
Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta - PA (05:28):
Everything. Everything. I will say it this way. America is great, but everybody hasn't benefited from its greatness. And a part of what we know is that there are far too many families who are experienced in life the way that I did. I grew up in a working poor family in North Philly. My dad was a social worker, my mom was a home health aide. I spent a lot of my life moving around five, six different places by the time I graduated high school, got my first job at 12 years old, washing dishes at a little restaurant. And a part of what I learned very early on is that for far too many families, it doesn't matter how hard you work, you get up every single day working your heart out, and yet you can't look your kid in the eye with a straight face and say it's going to be better for you than it is for us right now or than it was for me.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (06:24):
Congressman Glenn Ivy, fourth District of Maryland. Prince Georges County, prince
Glen F. Ivey - US Rep, MD (06:28):
Prince Georges County.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (06:29):
Thank you so much for joining me.
Glen F. Ivey - US Rep, MD (06:30):
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (06:32):
One of the questions that I've been asking most of my guests, why is this 2024 election so important to communities of color?
Glen F. Ivey - US Rep, MD (06:40):
Well, two sets of reasons. One is that there's a lot of positive things that are coming out of the Biden Harris era from the legislation they put in place trying to keep the cost down on prescription drugs. Insulin was the first one, but there are others coming now, trying to continue expanding internet access so everybody has the opportunity to use it because it's not optional anymore. You need it for homework, you need it for doctor's appointments, you need it for all kinds of things. So they're trying to build that out as well. And abortion rights and reproductive rights.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (07:10):
Why is that so hard to do? People would think in this country that internet access would be a given...!
(07:20):
Wilmer Leon live from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois at the United Center for Politics and color.com
Announcer 1 (07:26):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Don't Miss Out: Exclusive DNC Content and 2024 Election Preview
22 Aug· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Brace yourself for exclusive, insider access! I’m Dr. Wilmer Leon, and on my "Connecting the Dots" podcast, I’m taking you straight into the heart of the Democratic National Convention. I’m sitting down with America’s most powerful voices to uncover the strategies and stakes behind the epic showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. These are the interviews and insights you won’t find anywhere else. Don’t miss out—stay tuned for a sneak peek of what’s coming in this can’t-miss series!
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Announcer (00:06):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:15):
Hey folks, Dr. Wilmer Leon here, coming to you from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, in the United Center, the house that Mike built here for the Democratic Convention. Whole lot of energy. Really, really great energy. Much more than one would've thought if Joe Biden were still the nominee. We've done some tremendous, tremendous interviews. You can see them at Connecting the Dots, connecting the dots with Dr. Wimer Leon. You can also go to Politics and Color. Go to politics and color.com. You'll be amazed at the folks I've been able to talk to, the information I've been able to get and the things that you're going to learn. Stay here with Connecting the Dots with Dr. Wimer Leon. I'm out
Announcer (01:04):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Free Speech Under Fire: The High-Stakes Trial of the Uhuru Three
15 Aug· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
In this episode, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Chairman Omali Yeshitela to explore the fight for free speech as the Uhuru Three face charges for opposing U.S. government narratives. Together, they uncover the shocking connections between the trial, colonialism, and the global struggle for freedom.
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Wilmer Leon (00:00:00):
The first amendment of the Constitution reads as follows, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. With that, here's a very simple question. If Congress cannot make a law abridging, which in law means to diminish or reduce in scope the freedom of speech, then why will the Yahoo three have to go on trial on September 3rd, 2024 in the federal court in Tampa, Florida? If you want to know the answer to that, let's find out
Announcer (00:00:53):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:01:03):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the much broader historical context in which most of these events take place. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events and that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is or are the indictments of the Uru three are the indictments of the Uru three a test case for the federal government. If Chairman Yella, penny Hess and Jesse Neville are convicted in this political attack, will free speech as we know it in this country, no longer exist for anyone. Let's talk with my guest. He's a political activist and author. He's the co-founder and ker chairman of the African People's Socialist Party, which was founded in 1972, and he also leads the Uhuru movement and he's one of the Uhuru 3 Chairman, Omali Yeshitela. Welcome back to the show.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:02:23):
Thank you so very much. It is good to be with you again. This question of free speech is something that reverberates so many means, and this you give me access to speak with your show, and that's extremely important because some people recognize that how people who want to speak affect it negatively if they cannot speak. But many people do not recognize that a free speech attack does not only prevent me from speaking, it prevents people from hearing what I got to say. So it's an assault on people's ability to hear something that the government might not want heard or any other source. And so it's a critical question and it's one of the things that gives such significance being able to be here with you Brother Leon.
Wilmer Leon (00:03:19):
So the three of you are being charged with a violation of statute 18 USC, section 3 71, conspiring to commit an offense against the United States and acting as an agent of a foreign government and foreign officials to wit the Russian Federation without prior notification to the Attorney General as required by law in violation of 18 USC 9 51 A. With that as the technical description of what you all are charged with, what does that mean and what is the basis of these baseless charges?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:04:00):
I think it's a really important question because what the government is doing is using some facts to obscure truth, to hide truth. The fact is, I did not register with the United States government as a foreign agent. That's a fact. But the truth is I'm not a foreign agent, never have been one, and I've always only worked for African people. They said that we ran candidates for office in 2017 and 2019 because the Russians wanted us to do that and paid for it. It's a fact we ran candidates for city council and mayor in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2017 and 2019. But the truth is the Russians did not pay for this. The Russians was not the idea of Russians, and we've been involved in Micropolitics and have been teaching other Africans how to be involved in Micropolitics for decades. They used the fact that we participated in a tour that was actually hosted by Fran fan's daughter throughout the United States, a committee of the United Nations checking on the conditions of African people, and we collected petitions on the question of genocide and fact.
(00:05:29):
We did go on that tour, we called it a winter tour, went to Jackson, Mississippi, Washington DC I think New York, and one or two other, Chicago, Illinois. That's a fact. We did those things. But the truth is that we did not do this for Russia. We did it because we wanted the United Nations to deal with this issue of genocide and reparations for African people in this country. So what they've done is take these facts and then construct a false conclusion for people, and it's extremely dangerous. And they do this at the expense of First Amendment because everything they've charged us with has to do with us speaking with us utilizing the Bill of Rights or utilizing the First Amendment that you just mentioned in the opening of this show. But they cannot say that we are attacking them because they use speech. They cannot say they're attacking us because just because we ran for office, which is something that we are supposed to have a constitutional right to do, it says not because they spoke.
(00:06:35):
It's because they spoke because the Russians wanted them to speak. The Russians wanted them to sow discord. The Russians wanted them to run for office in St. Petersburg, Florida as a stepping stone to somehow Russian interfering in the election, the national elections in this country. So that's dangerous because that means that anybody, oh, and it's a fact that I went to Moscow in May and September of 2015 at the invitation of a non-governmental organization, anti-global movement of Russia to participate in discussions with other people around democratic rights and around self-determination for peoples from various places around the world. So those are facts. I did that, but it is a lie that I was a Russian agent and I did it in the service of Russia. I did it because Zuckerberg and because the New York Times and because the Washington Post and because the Democratic Party and various other entities refuse to give access to black people so that we can speak independently about what our situation is. And you got to remember what was happening in 2014, 2015 with Mike Brown uprising because of the police murder of that young man in August of 2014, I think it was because of all kinds of police murder right before that one, the brother who was choked to death in New York, just all kinds of things were happening and the story of our people from our own initiatives could not be heard. And so I wanted to be heard, and I've been struggling for our story to be heard all around the world for the longest period of time.
Wilmer Leon (00:08:35):
Well, everybody knows that if you are planning to conspire against the government, if you're planning to bring down the American empire, the City Council of St. Petersburg, Florida is where you're going to start. That's the underbelly. That's the soft spot. That's the weak link in the American Empire is St. Petersburg, Florida. So I can see where the government would get the idea that, oh my gosh, the City Council of Florida and then the world, you mentioned that when you said you were brought to Moscow on behalf of an NGO, A non-government organization that made me think about the myON coup in Ukraine and Samantha Power and the NGOs that the United States has used to overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine. How the United States has been trying to overthrow Venezuela through NGOs.
(00:09:48):
They've got a playbook as it relates to non-governmental organizations. They've got a playbook and they understand very clearly how that game gets played. So that's one of the hypocrisies that immediately jumps out at me. And another one is they, they're claiming or they're charging you with running people for elected office. When apac, it was published in the New York Times back in April, that APAC came out and said they are committing 100 million to the 2024 election to unseat democratically elected officials who they deemed to be operating against the interests of Israel. And Jamal Bowman has been a victim of that. And Co Bush became a fell victim to that in Kansas City.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:10:48):
She's from St. Louis, Missouri. So
Wilmer Leon (00:10:50):
St. Louis, thank you. Thank you. I get my Kansas City and my St. Louis mixed up. I got you. Yeah, in St. Louis. So here we have APAC operating on or for the interests of the Zionist government of Israel saying publicly we're spending a hundred million, I think they spent 7 million to 1C Bowman. So there seems to be some inconsistency if not in the rule of law, at least in the practical applications here.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:11:22):
Yeah, and that's true. I mean, especially APAC is a splendid example, and it doesn't have to register as the people who accept that money as foreign agents. They don't have to register anything like that. And tremendous amounts of money, as you said, are involved in that. And there are corporations who do the same thing who work for foreign governments and it's well known and they haven't had to file as foreign agents. And the thing is that they claim that our movement took, I think they said either $6,000 over seven years or $7,000 from the Russians over six years. And they have taken, you talk about how they use facts to obscure truth because we do forums and we do events online and people make contributions to us online. And the A GM, the Russian anti-globalization movement may have made some contribution to us online, but you're talking about they say that over six years or seven years, we got something like $6,000 from that movement.
(00:12:52):
But even if we had, it would not have been illegal. But the point is that we raised $6,000 in a few hours. We raised 300 and some odd thousand dollars just to defend ourselves in this case that we are involved in. So they would take this poultry sum of money compared to the millions and billions of dollars that come from groups like APAC and from other kinds of, and from corporations funnel into this country and to employ people, corporations from other places around the world. And so this is just a fabrication, and they play upon the ignorance of people. They say, for example, there are someplace in this indictment, they said that we went to Moscow in 2015 or 16 and with all expense paid trip, this gives some impression of some great luxury that we, what was afforded to us. And by all expense, they mean that they paid for the air flight there.
(00:14:05):
They paid for where we stayed and for food. Now, I've gone on events, I've gone to international events sponsored by NGO, close to the government of Spain, and they spent a lot of money. They spent money to bring me there and two other people, one of whom was from England into Spain, they paid us, paid me for coming as well. But they would take this thing with Russia because the plot there is they've done so much work demonizing Russia saying Russia is the key. That's why Donald Trump, they say, Hillary Clinton didn't lose the election. Trump the Russians won the election. This is the kind of stuff that they're feeding the public. And so it doesn't matter. That's why it's so important for us to have this kind of discussion because they don't want this kind of stuff to get out even in a courtroom. They will place restrictions on what we can talk about in the courtroom. And that's why it's important for us to recognize that the trial has already begun. And this is some of the testimony that we are involved in at this very moment.
Wilmer Leon (00:15:14):
From what I understand, you have gone and spoken and gone to conferences in Ireland, in France, in England, in Spain, but all of those countries are European countries. And so long as Europe is paying the tab, then everything's fine. I've gone to Iran twice, similar types of programs, been brought to peace conferences and human rights conferences in Iran, and they pay my airfare, they pay my hotel bill, they pay my meals while I'm there. That's standard operating procedure.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:15:58):
But you're talking to them and
Wilmer Leon (00:15:59):
They give you an honorarium. Many of them will give you
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:16:02):
An honor, but we didn't even get an honorarium from Russia. But you think about this, you're talking to a jury that many of whom never even leave the United States, don't have an understanding of how this stuff is. And so that sounds like some real esoteric can thing to people, local people here in the Tampa Bay area or in this district where they intend to put us on trial, they intend to lynch us.
Wilmer Leon (00:16:31):
In fact, I don't know the events that you attended, but when I went to Iran, I was there for the first trip. I was there for 10 days, and not only did I participate in this human rights conference, I lectured at 13 universities throughout the country. I was in constant motion. It was not a vacation. In fact, I even got to spend two hours with former President Deja while I was in Iran. But I'm saying that traveled all over the country by car, by plane, man. It wasn't easy work. The honorarium, for as much as I appreciated receiving it, if you broke it down to an hourly rate, no. When I say it wasn't worth my time, I don't mean that it wasn't worth my time. I mean, it didn't equate to a decent hourly rate. So
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:17:37):
I just thought it was really important and I think it is important. And every time I get an opportunity to tell the world about the conditions of African people in this country, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to say even when you are involved with the United States to other countries, because it's designated almost the entire world, its enemy. And I'm saying that the United States accuses other countries of these egregious kind of things that you have to hold the mirror up to the United States and force it to look at the treatment of African people, forced it to look at the situation that they've had. Mexicans in cages at the southern border forced it to look at the fact that 2024, now you've got a situation where there are concentration camps just like Gaza, so to speak, that they refer to as Indian reservations.
(00:18:30):
This is the reality of the United States. And I want people to be able to recognize that the condition of African people are similar and that we want support. I've told them we are not looking for pity. We are not looking for charity. We want solidarity in the struggle that we are involved in. We believe that we have the right to be a self-determining people, and we believe that there's nothing in the Constitution of the United States that should prohibit us from saying that we have that right. Even if we say it in Russia, even if we say it in places like Venezuela or in Nicaragua where I have been, or Ireland, as you mentioned, we have the right to be able to say that by the Constitution. So either you got to burn it up, tear the Constitution up, and this is the conundrum that they have. And as you know that since they've attacked us, we've seen charges all across the board on so many people. Similarly charged being agents for foreign government, Scott Riter, et cetera. Yes, Scott Ritter just the other day,
Wilmer Leon (00:19:37):
Scott. Scott Ritter is a friend of mine, and I just had Scott Ritter on another show that I do. And the FBI just raided his house last week, took his computers in talking to Scott, what they really seemed to be after in his case, because he was a weapons inspectors and he had all the evidence that proved there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iran. They took that trove of evidence from him and we'll have to wait and see. And his point was because they want to rewrite the historic record and they want to, no, I'm not going to put words that he didn't use. They want to rewrite the historic record and they want to cleanse the record of the information that he possesses.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:20:30):
Yes. And of course we see Assange just getting out of prison right now for, I've forgotten how many years he was locked up,
Wilmer Leon (00:20:39):
His
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:20:40):
Speech, it's Freedom of Press, some of the charges against us attack assaults on free press. They had chat us because we did an interview on burning spear.org. That's our newspaper, that's the.org. We did an interview with the Russian saying that the people have a right to know the position that's coming from Russia. We, Zuckerberg, Facebook, everything had blocked anything that people were trying to talk about that represent the position that might be coming from Russia just like they do now about Palestine. And so we did an interview, and so they said that was evidence of the fact that we worked for the Russians. So I mean, this is the kind of stuff that they've done, but it's a real treacherous situation because they're at a place where they say that if you have a position that is the same position of another government, another country, and what have you, then they can charge you with working as an accomplice of that government in some crime that they claim that government is creating. And that's a dangerous kind of thing. I mean, you talked about your trips and stuff to Iran, and that's especially true when you look at Iran because they've identified Russia, Iran, Venezuela,
Wilmer Leon (00:22:01):
China,
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:22:02):
China, Korea as these enemies that they're contending with and they don't want anybody to know a truth that's independent of what it is that they have to say.
Wilmer Leon (00:22:15):
And when you peel back the layers of the onions, whether you're talking about Russia, talking about China, talking about Venezuela, Iran, what we're dealing with is anti imperialism. What we're dealing with is what's really at the crux of this issue. It's not communism, it's not socialism, it's not any other kind, ofm, anti-fascism, colonialism and anti imperialism at the crux, because that's what the empire sees as being the greatest threat.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:23:02):
It is the question. And from our analysis, the whole emergence of the Soviet Union, things like that came about as a consequence of the Communist Party. The Bolsheviks at that time refusing to participate with the rest of the colonial powers in the world in that first imperialist world war to redivide the world. And that was a world that was an extreme crisis for the whole social system. That's the timeframe. You look at this 1917 being the Russian Revolution, you're looking at the time of World War I, as they call it, a timeframe that saw a struggle even happening throughout this country bombing of Tulsa, Oklahoma. People everywhere resisting this colonial domination and Russia became a serious factor because unlike the rest of the colonial powers, Russia refused to participate in that world war, to Redivide the world. And that turned all of them against Russia too. So the Russian revolution happens in 1917, and by the way, much of some of the law that we have been victimized has its origin in that timeframe as well. Russian Revolution in 19 17, 19 18, all the colonial powers, including the United States and Japan invade Russia. They invaded Russia to crush it. And that struggle that they talk about with Ukraine and what have you, some people are able to see a beginning in like 2014 when the
Wilmer Leon (00:24:47):
Maidan coup
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:24:49):
Maidan coup. But I'm saying even
Wilmer Leon (00:24:50):
Before, thank you, Samantha Power.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:24:52):
Yeah, but even before that, they've been dealing with Russia going back, like I said, a more than a hundred years. And even the NATO that they use in Ukraine and NATO that they use to kill Gaddafi, this NATO has its origin. It was created for the purpose of containing a crushing Russia. So this is not a new phenomenon. This is something that's been going on for a long time because they saw at one time Russia being aligned with the colonized peoples of the world and with the working peoples of the world. And this was a system that could not tolerate that and could not tolerate it spreading globally.
Wilmer Leon (00:25:40):
In fact, if you fast forward to the late fifties and the sixties, and you look at the anti-colonial movements in a number of African countries such as South Africa, such as Angola, which you find is the Soviet Union was involved in providing funding, training weapons to freedom fighters, supporting anti imperialist, anti colonial movements in those countries leading to the freedom of a number of those countries along with Cuba and some others. So people really need to understand the broader, they need to connect the dots here and so that they can understand the broader, in fact, historic context in which these events take place. People need to ask themselves, where is Patrice Lumumba University folks who was Patrice Lumumba? Where is Patrice Lumumba University? It's not in Nigeria, it's not in Swaziland, it's in Moscow.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:26:49):
And I spoke at Patrice Lamu before an organization of migrants that were located in Russia. That was one of the things I spoke for. And I think it's really important to say that they intend to provide some kind of Russia expert who will testify that Russia has a history of creating foils, creating forces like our party and our movement to undermine the United States and undermine Western powers, et cetera. And they will use the kind of stuff that you're talking about as evidence of complicity of Russia in being in control of us, because Russia did support the struggle in Angola and various other places and trained and funded and supported. Then they go back all the way to that to show that there's this historical trend coming from Russia, even though it was the Bolsheviks that they're talking about, that was for the purpose of corrupting, undermining the United States and the Western powers, the democracies.
(00:28:04):
They would show that that's the typical thing that we are typical of dupes of Russia, if not dupes cooperatives of Russia based on the stuff that you just mentioned, which you and I think is right on you, and I think is glorious. I mean, that puts them in a situation. Have they saying Mandela, who they love, he is the Negro. They love that. Mandela took support from the Soviet Union and was refused along with other African countries to condemn Russia around the Ukrainian question precisely because of the history of Russia as it relates to people who are struggling for freedom.
Wilmer Leon (00:28:45):
And the Palestinian question as well
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:28:47):
Palestinian Question,
Wilmer Leon (00:28:49):
Nelson Mandela was very clear that as he was fighting for the rights of South Africans, he was on record as saying, even when we win this struggle, we will not have completed our mission until the Palestinians are free.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:29:08):
Yes, yes.
Wilmer Leon (00:29:09):
So in fact, a lot of people don't know the first person, the first head of state that Mandela went to see when he was released from Roobben Island was Fidel Castro. A lot of folks don't know that history, but in fact, Mandela said, and I'll paraphrase, your enemy is not my enemy, and I am not going to allow you to select who my friends and who my enemies are.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:29:37):
Sure, sure, sure. That's the thing. 60 years ago, African people in this country initiated the freedom summer in Mississippi, and we dealt with the freedom summer in 1964. It was revolving around just democratic rights for black people been murdered, especially in Mississippi, which was the headquarters of much of the terror being murdered, African people being denied access to the ballot just as what's happening with us as quiet as Kept, I fought for the Civil Rights Bill, I fought for the Voting Rights Act, and now I'm being charged because of participating independently in the electoral process. But 60 years ago, freedom Summer student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was the key force in creating the freedom Summer. And people came from all around the country into Mississippi, a lot of white people came, and this was something that SNCC did deliberately in part because they knew that if white people came the ruling class media that was no longer paying attention to the Civil Rights movement, just as they don't in this movement, if white people came, then the media would come with them because some of them children of media owners and big shot white people, and also the white people who came would face some of the same threats that Africans were facing in Mississippi.
(00:31:06):
And as you know, on the first day of Freedom Summer 1964 and Mississippi, three people died, two of whom were white.
Wilmer Leon (00:31:15):
Goodman and Cheney. Right.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:31:19):
And that brought a lot of attention to it. But off of that movement in 1964, that 1964 that pushed the Civil Rights Act, that pushed them to have to in 1965 passed the voting rights legislation. But 1965 is also the year to kill Malcolm X, so that even though now you can vote that they're doing things to eliminate what you would vote for, they killed Malcolm X 1968. They killed Martin Luther King, 1969. The war against the Black Panther Party was clear to everybody around the whole world that you had the head of the FBI declaring that the Black Panther Party represented the greatest threat to the internal security of this country. They arrested 21 members of the Black Panther Party on a conspiracy charge in New York on a more than a hundred charges, including threats to blow up the flowers in the botanical garden, that thing that lasted for two years, and they beat every one of the charges, and they were ridiculous charges in the first place.
(00:32:22):
But you had this period. So what we've done is we are now engaged in the Freedom Summer, summer Project, freedom Summer in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is right across the bridge from Tampa, Florida, where the court that we will be going to is located and we are inviting everybody. We've already begun. We're going door to door, talking to people, educating the people in the community about this case and about other things that's happening in the world. We are having forums and discussions of people are doing street corner stuff with banners, et cetera. We are calling people to come in the same Peterburg Florida now. And then of course, on August 31st, we have a massive mobilization that's going to be happening where people again will be coming from. We've got commitments for participation from Cornell West, from Jill Stein, from Charles Barron, from just a host of other people. Everybody's going to be in St. Petersburg, Florida for Freedom Summer. And the Freedom Summer is going to have similar consequences from this, that the freedom summer of 1964 had that gave rise to the civil rights bill, that gave rights rise to the Voting Rights Act. That gave rise to the Black Power Movement in 1966. All of these things came out of that. And we are rebuilding a whole movement, but with this attack on us, we are reestablishing the legitimacy of the entire struggle against colonialism and against imperialism.
Wilmer Leon (00:33:52):
We're talking about the First Amendment, we're talking about the right of freedom of speech. And there's a whole campaign, as you've mentioned Zuckerberg a couple of times, and there's a whole campaign against social media access and freedom of speech on social media. The United States government is using Zuckerberg, they're using some of the others to assist them in platforming people. And what this really comes down to is the power of the narrative, whose story is going to be told
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:34:32):
That's
Wilmer Leon (00:34:32):
It, and by whom?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:34:34):
That's it!
Wilmer Leon (00:34:35):
So it's not so much that what you are advocating is seditious. No. The problem the government has is the narrative you are telling, the facts that you are providing is counter to that narrative, and then that threatens the empire.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:34:58):
Yes. Yes. That is the truth. And I'm reminded of this movie, I forgot the name of it, but you had these two characters. Tom Cruise I think played some kind of lawyer and Jack Nicholson and Oh, you
Wilmer Leon (00:35:14):
Can't handle the truth. Yeah, I
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:35:16):
Want the truth. I want the truth Say you can't handle the truth. That's essentially the case with the United States. Now,
Wilmer Leon (00:35:24):
Let me quickly jump in, because there's a reason that your narrative about Ukraine and my narrative about Ukraine and Russia's narrative about Ukraine are basically the same because we're telling the truth, the truth. And all you have to do is Google what we say about it. Google the Maidan coup Google. Now I'm drawing a blank on the agreement that they reached the Minsk courts. Yes, Google the Minsk courts, Google the Midon coup. Go back and look at when Joe Biden met with Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, and Putin told Biden, I'm giving you my security demands in writing. That's, and I expect your response in writing. And Joe Biden ignored him. You can Google Secretary of State Baker meeting with Gorbachev and promising Gorbachev, NATO will, if you agree to the reunification of Eastern West Germany, I guarantee you NATO will not move any further eastward towards Russia, towards the Soviet Union. That's all fact.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:36:43):
Yes. But fact, you can't handle fact. You see, because what they've done, first of all, just think about who controls the narrative. I've seen Kamala Harris, she is just thrown this thing out about, the slogan is We won't go back. Now, that's our slogan. Not one step backwards, not one. That's no retreat.
Wilmer Leon (00:37:08):
No retreat. Not one
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:37:10):
Step back, not one step backwards. So what happens is Zuckerberg won't let anybody hear what I got to say. I go on Facebook or on social media, and there are fewer people who see me than there are members of one of our local organizations. They won't let that happen. But so Kamala takes this because it resonates, because it speaks to the reality of black people who say, we won't go back. We're not going backwards, not going to let you push us back in the back of the bus. We're not going to do any buck dancing and shuffling and this kind of stuff. Not one step backwards, right. That's our position. And so now Kamala, because it resonates with black people, Zuckerberg won't let the people hear that from us. So Kamala comes forward, we won't go back. This is a part of the process that they're trying to solve a particular problem of the Democratic party to reenergize it among African people, many of whom are even going to the Republican party and Trump and others was just discussing not going to vote at all. So that's the controlling of the narrative, how that narrative gets out. That's a critical question. And that's the question of free speech as well. And that's why it's so important again, that we are having this discussion now.
Wilmer Leon (00:38:24):
In fact, there's another slogan that if folks knew the true origins of it, it would have an impact on the narrative that is from the river to the sea, from the sea that is now being described, or it is being used as this racist trope by Palestinians who are using it to say they want to cleanse historic Palestine of Jews. No, actually, folks, and look it up, because it's fact. That was the Zionist slogan.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:04):
It was
Wilmer Leon (00:39:05):
Back in the thirties.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:06):
It was, they wanted it all. That's what they were saying. They wanted it all from
Wilmer Leon (00:39:10):
The river to the sea,
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:11):
From the river to the sea.
Wilmer Leon (00:39:13):
And what they don't tell you about the slogan now is what do the Palestinians say from the river to the sea? Palestine will be free. They're talking about democracy. Yes. They're talking about one person, one vote.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:31):
They're
Wilmer Leon (00:39:32):
Not talking about genocide and removing people from their homes, killing their olive trees
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:39:39):
And taking come back home. They're saying, let the people come back home. Because the truth of the matter is, the way they've distorted this whole history is that in Palestine, there were Jews, there were Muslims, there were Christians all living together in Palestine. And now you have this situation where the settlers brought in by the imperialist Palestine. You can go back to Balfour Declaration in 1917, I think it was. You can go back to the agreement that was made, that SS
Wilmer Leon (00:40:21):
Pico agreement.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:40:21):
Yeah. That created the borders that now Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, white people did that and for their own benefit, et cetera. And then they act like they're surprised because there's chaos happening in those circumstances. So they've distorted this history, and it's all right for them to put lyrics in a song called From Sea to Shining Sea, which was a decoration that all of this land of indigenous people, they wanted all of it. It's not like they brought a million people here when they came. There's just a handful. But they set out to take every square inch from sea to shining sea. And we say from sea to shining sea, the indigenous people will be free and from the river to the sea, Palestine should be free. But history is something else. You can't make it go away just because you don't like it
Wilmer Leon (00:41:21):
As much as they're trying and they're doing as
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:41:22):
Much as they're trying.
Wilmer Leon (00:41:24):
And again, I have to go back to this whole idea because one of the things that I have found in reading history is that the United States, when the United States finds itself in conflict, that's when the government becomes very sensitive about what's being said and who's saying it, and when it's being said. So you can go back to World War, and you touched on this, you can go back to World War. And that's when we first started seeing anti sedition laws when the United States was involved in World War I and was very fearful about losing the war. Then the United States was very concerned about people speaking out against what the government considered to be their interest. And then after those forces were vanquished and the dust started to settle, well, then things started to relax and folks started saying, well, and then we had the same problem in World War ii, and then after the threats were vanquished, then you could just about say anything. So with the attacks on you, with the attacks on Scott Ritter with the attacks on others, is that a signal to you that the United States is scared?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:42:46):
It is a signal that the rulers of this country experience a very fragile situation. It is not like they control the world the way they used to. It is not like they can tell people to shut up and people would do what they say. They couldn't get even stooges in Africa to come out and support their position on Ukraine. They can't get people who they consider backwaters in their backyard, who they've characterized as Banana Republics in the past to just do what it is that they want them to do. They can't control Nicaragua, and they've tried and they can't control Venezuela, and they're even up to this point, they can't control the Palestinian people who are resisting. And so it's a very fragile situation because it's a situation that rests upon a colonial motor production where the entire process of human beings engaged in production in the world today is on a foundation of parasitic foundation of colonialism. And so it is a very tenuous situation for them. And I'm reminded of this statement by George Orwell in the book 1984, when he says, who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past, the past, and this is where they found themselves in a really shaky foundation of controlling the past.
Wilmer Leon (00:44:11):
That's why they go after Scott Ritter because he has the historic documents.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:44:16):
Yes. And that's why they're attacking us, right? They don't want history to start in 2014 when they say that somehow I became a stooge of Russia. That's where they want history to start. They don't want history to start with a murder of black people that would have incentivized us to take the kind of political stance that we take. They want to say the history of our party over the last 50 or more years. And our position consistent around genocide, around reparations, around, and actually I developed, excuse me, a pamphlet tactics and strategy that included looking for allies around the world and the struggle against colonialism, but that they don't want to talk about. So from their perspective, they're trying to control the past in that courtroom. They want to control the past. They've even moved that they want to deny us the right to use the First Amendment as a defense. Do you hear what I just said?
Wilmer Leon (00:45:19):
Say it again.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:45:20):
Yeah. They want to deny us the right to use the First Amendment as a defense in court.
Wilmer Leon (00:45:29):
And that centers around, I haven't studied that point, but I believe it's because they know on that point, they lose they. So what they're saying is it's not a matter of, you don't have the right to say what you've said. It's that we don't like what you're saying,
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:45:54):
But that's the real deal. But the way they cloth that, the way they try to hide their hand, and I think it's so shallow, it's so weak, is they say, well, hell,
Wilmer Leon (00:46:03):
If I figured it out, it ain't that deep.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:46:08):
Oh, that's funny. What they're saying is that we are not attacking them because they said something. We are attacking them because they said it because the Russians told 'em to say it. So they liquidate, they try to liquidate the free speech question by turning speech into an act. Do you see
Wilmer Leon (00:46:27):
As a foreign agent?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:46:29):
Yes, yes, yes. And it's ridiculous.
Wilmer Leon (00:46:34):
I want to be sure I don't forget this point. To your point about erasing history, another example of that is Hamas' attack on October 7th. The 99% of the narrative is this conflict started on October 7th, ignoring the Nakba in 1947. That has absolutely nothing to do with this and the over 50 years of genocide, oppression, and war crimes. Oh, no, forget that. That had nothing to do with October 7th. That's another example of what you It is.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:47:14):
It's an example. And the fact is, one thing we know is that there are people who don't know me, don't know the African people Associates party, the who, the movement. And they hear us say something and then they hear the United States government say something. Sometimes they might have some struggles in trying to understand who might be telling the truth. The fact is that the oppressed must have truth because we cannot win freedom without truth. The oppressor cannot have truth because they can't have slavery where truth is involved. And so this is the thing that you start off knowing that those people who oppress, and there's no way you can deny the historical oppression of African people unless you control the courtrooms like they do now you have guns that can wake people up at five o'clock in the morning or with flash bank grenades and things like that.
(00:48:16):
The fact is that there are certain things that cannot be controlled, cannot be denied in terms of the history of oppression of African people in this country. And what they would do, of course, is they would use examples like Obama and Kamala Harris because they want to contain the struggle around racism. And you say, well, racism doesn't exist anymore. Not as bad because we elected a black president, or we are getting ready to select another Negro president, Negro Indian president. But it's not about race as such except to the extent that race represents and identifies a colonial population. The fact is we suffer from colonialism. So you can have black people who represent the colonial empire, just like you've had that African people, Mobutu and all over Africa and other puppets like that, and Africa,
Wilmer Leon (00:49:08):
William Ruto in Kenya being bought off to help the United States invade Haiti.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:49:14):
That's right. That's right. And so that's what they've been able to do. And that's why the colonial question, understanding that colonialism is so important, and not colonialism just as a policy, but as a mode of production that came into existence with the first time in human history where there was a single world economy. And that world economy was something that was initiated by Portugal's attack on Africa in something like 14, 15. And then started the dispersal of African people and others who in what is now Europe, jumped in and participated in this process. That's where you got the So-called America from, that's where you've got Brazil, that's where you've got all of these territories throughout the So-called South America as a consequence of that initial attack and the world economy that was knit together for the first time in history, that that is not just a policy of a particular government as it may have been when Portugal started, as it may have been when some other countries started.
(00:50:20):
But now it's the basis of the whole world economy. It is a colonial mode of production. And to the extent that we understand this and really get a hold of that, we don't have to have somebody, Russians or somebody tell us what to do. We know that when colonialism tries to exert itself or when people are fighting against colonialism, it's part of a common struggle. And so I had never met Nicaraguan in my life when the Nicaraguan revolutions heated up and we organized in San Francisco Bay area, we organized the first mass meeting solidarity with Nicaragua people because we understood that was our struggle too. And we built the whole movement in support of Nicaragua because it is one mode of production. The colonialism is the thing that n this whole process together where you have colonizers and colonized and the vast majority of the people in the world experience the negatives of colonialism through this colonial motor production. It's only a handful of people. And that's something that's not widely understood either. Only a minority of the population benefits from this economic system that they've created on the backs of African and colonized people around the world.
Wilmer Leon (00:51:42):
And as you talk about Nicaragua, about three weeks ago, Chiquita Brands was found guilty in a Florida court of funding death squads in Columbia, and they were held to have, now they have to pay millions and millions and millions of dollars to the survivors. I just use that as another example of the colonialism that you're talking about. And that whole story right there could take us into another hour about immigration because the question that's not being asked in this political context about border protection and immigration, they keep talking about what are we going to do with all of these people that are at our border? But they don't ask why are the people coming in the first place? And so again, because we could talk about Haiti, why are there Haitians at the border in Texas and Mexico, California, and because the United States is decimating the Haitian economy, why are these people coming from Guatemala, Honduras, all over central and South America? Because the United States has decimated their economies and the people have no other choice?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:53:13):
That's true. And I think even a related truth is the fact that when people talk about immigrants, sometimes they like to call America just a nation of immigrants. The melting pot, they call it the nation of immigrants. And we say, first of all, America's not a nation. It's a prison of nations. And that black people are not immigrants. We are captives. That's how we came here as captives. Now we are the only people other than the indigenous people who did not come here looking for a better way of life, but lost a better way of life as the consequences having been brought here. When you look at all the places where Europeans have gone to running from poverty, running from disease, running from despotism, from monarchy, and a feudal system, they came here, they came to the Americas, they came all these other places. They occupy New Zealand, Australia and things like that.
(00:54:08):
So when you look at immigrants, when you look at immigrants, and when they say that America's a nation of immigrants, what they're talking about is them. They are the ones who are immigrants. And why the hell did they come? They were running from chara, and this is the origin of the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights because they faced tyranny in the divine right of kings. They had no rights. So they came here to this land, and then they initiated laws and things like that to protect them from tyranny. But they won the freedom to oppress because when they were doing this, African people were enslaved. The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment was ratified by the United States Congress in 1791. 1791. African people were under the whip, under being enslaved, beaten and raped and stuff legally. So it wasn't for us. And this is something I'm trying to help white people understand that what they do is they will pick someone that they have made extremely unpopular.
(00:55:18):
When they want to attack a basic and fundamental right, they would pick someone they think they've made extremely unpopular, and they will use them as the means to attack that, right? They can't attack my right to free speech in many ways because I never had it look at people like Emmett Till, who they butchered because they said that he whistled at a white woman. And the fact is that black people learn how to shuffle and hold their heads down and not look up and not say anything that white people would find offensive. And this has been the history. So when they come at the Bill of Rights, when they come at the First Amendment as quiet as it's kept, they're simply using us as the means by which they can attack the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights, the constitutional democratic rights of everybody in this country, including white people. And we see evidence of that. You talk about Scott Riter, you talk about all these other people who they're attacking now, not in total disregard of what the Constitution is supposed to be about.
Wilmer Leon (00:56:21):
Hands off uru.org, hands off uru.org. What do you want, folks? And before I ask that question, lemme say this to those of you who are watching this that are just saying, oh, these guys, these guys are tripping. These guys are drunk. Look, folks, just research we're talking about, that's all you got to do. You can either summarily dismiss us or again, look up the Maidan Coup, look up the mens courts. Look up Chiquita brands being found guilty in a Florida court for sponsoring Death squads in Columbia. Look it up. And what you'll find is we're confusing you with the facts. That's what we're doing. So chairman, yes, Ella, what do you want my audience to do as it relates to the Uhuru 3?
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (00:57:19):
Well, one thing I want the audience to do is to understand that we are not guilty of anything they've charged us of. They've used the facts, as I mentioned earlier, that I went to Moscow, that we ran people for office, et cetera. And they've used these facts to obscure the truth and the truth that we didn't do what they said to do. Our lawyers though, for the sake of court argument, says that even if we did it, it's protected by the Constitution. So that's one thing I think is really important. And the other thing is that we are transparent. You don't engage in some kind of conspiracy to overthrow disabuse the government in public. Everything that we talk about, it's in our newspaper. They don't have to use flash bang grenades, bust down doors and stuff like that. Get a copy of the newspaper. It only costs a dollar.
(00:58:13):
Go to our websites. Everything is spelled out. The books that we were printed, all of it's in the books that we've written. So people should go to Hands Off Hurro, that's HandsOffUhuru.org. HandsOffUhuru.org. We want you to read the indictment. We want you to see it. We want you to see our response to that indictment. We want you to see their response to our response, read it. And because we believe that if people know the truth and the court is aware that people are aware of the truth, et cetera, it makes, it enhances the ability of the court to go by the law, which is what we want them to do, because they are using the law to pursue a political objective, destroying our movement, destroying the struggle of African people to win freedom and to take away basic rights from other people.
(00:59:06):
So we want you to read the indictments and the political, the court documents that's associated with that. We want you to come to St. Peterburg Florida. Come now, come anytime and stay as long as you can because we are going to be doing this work moving toward a massive event on August 31st, and then from August 31st, which is the weekend before the trial in Tampa, right across the bridge on the September 3rd, there's a trial. And we want you to be at that trial. So come and organize on the ground, come to Summer to the summer project that we've initiated here, the Freedom Summer in St. Petersburg, Florida, where we'll be educating people, organizing, doing forums, doing door-to-Door work, doing political education the whole bit. And that's what we are looking for. And we say HandsOffUhuru.org. And we really appreciate all the support that the people have given. And you comment Wilman, thank you so very much as well.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:11):
It is
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (01:00:12):
Melody.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:14):
Melody Graves. As always, without her, you and I would just be sitting here talking to ourselves.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (01:00:20):
I got it.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:22):
Chairman brother Omai Yeshitela, thank you so much for joining me today.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela (01:00:27):
Thank you. I really appreciate being here, and I want to thank your audience. It is just splendid to be here with you. Thank you so much.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:33):
And folks, as Chairman Omali Yeshitela just said, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon, stay tuned. There are new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, and follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. That Patreon page is very, very important because your contributions help and enable us to do the work that we do here. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you all again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wier Leon Uru. Have a good one. Peace. We're out
Announcer (01:01:31):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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The Dark Side of Democrats’ Relationship with Black Americans
8 Aug· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
In this gripping episode of "Connecting the Dots," Dr. Wilmer Leon and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Jon Jeter expose the Democratic Party's desperate reliance on voters of color to save them from political collapse.
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!
Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:00:00):
I have two questions. The first question, has the Democratic Party committed suicide by biting the black hands that feed it? Here's the second question. Has the African-American community allowed itself to be taken for granted and thereby taken advantage of
Jon Jeter (00:00:25):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:00:32):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which a lot of these events occur. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. Black Agenda report has a piece entitled How the Democratic Party Committed Suicide by Biting the Black Hands That Feed It On today's episode. The issues before us are, as I stated at the top, has the party in fact committed suicide and has the African-American community allowed itself to be taken for granted and thereby to advantage of for insight into this?
(00:01:35):
And for answers to these questions, let's turn to my guest. He's a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. He's the co-author of a Day Late and a Dollar Short, dark Days and Bright Nights in Obama's post-Racial America. His work can be found at Patreon as well as Black Republic Media. He's the author of this piece. He is John Jeter brother John Jeter. Welcome back. The pleasure is all mine, brother. Thank you for having me. You opened your piece as follows, the Democratic Party dug its own grave decades ago when it began trying to siphon voters from the Republican party or the GOP by appealing to conservatives and ignoring the needs of its strong base of African-American people. If political parties were prominent people, you'd have stumbled upon this obituary. Today, the Democratic Party, one half of America's longstanding ruling duopoly, and the author of political movements as disparate as Jim Crow and the New Deal died Wednesday, July 24. It was 196 sources said the cause was suicide following along illness. John, that's incredibly, incredibly creative. I've gone through the coroner's report. I can't make heads nor tails when it comes to the cause of
Speaker 3 (00:02:58):
Death.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:02:59):
So what was the cause of death on July 24th?
Speaker 3 (00:03:03):
It sort of slit death by a thousand cuts, but slitting your throat a thousand times slowly over the years. Man, I really, that piece really meant something to me. I am, as I think you would say, you are a man of a certain age and I remember very clearly Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 88 campaigns for President. I remember the energy and the excitement. I remember, even though I was just in my teens and early twenties, I remember that it was electric, those campaigns. And then I remember Bill Clinton running for president and I voted for Bill Clinton. But I remember thinking, I remember holding my nose while I voted because I remember Bill Clinton lecturing Jesse Jackson about Sister Soldier lecturing black people going to black church, lecturing black people about how we have failed Martin Luther King. And I didn't quite understand it other than I thought, well, bill Clinton is like most white people I know, racists most, not all the most.
(00:04:13):
And I just wrote it off as that when I was a young journalist at the Detroit Free Press. Later, I got to Washington the same time as Bill Clinton In 1993, January of 1993, I got to the Washington Post, and it sort of dawned on me over the years, particularly as I heard democratic presidents and democratic candidates for President repeat these same tropes scolding black people. I remember, and I was in a very different place at this point, but I remember Barack Obama talking down the black people in a way that just really offended me, scolding black fathers for their failure to raise their kids when a study at that time had been produced, which showed that black men who are separated from their families are actually better parents, actually spend more quality time with their kids than any other ethnic group. Barack Obama telling a black church, I believe it was in South Carolina, that a good plan for economic development would be to stop throwing Popeye's chicken wrappers out of your car window, right?
(00:05:23):
Just the infantilization of the black voting block, black electorate. And it struck me that this is by design. They're talking to white people. And then this is only in the last few years where I read David Roder, the labor economist, labor, labor historian, I'm sorry, who wrote about the Reagan Democrats in Michigan, who we elected the blue collar white workers who we elected Ronald Reagan, president who crossed over to elect Ronald Reagan president. And how his polling showed that their main motivation was race or racism, I should say. They did not like black people. They defined black people as pulling down the party. And they divided Democrats as people who catered to blacks who were lazy welfare, all the tropes that were popularized by, built by Ronald Reagan. And it struck me that the Democrats in 92, the astrophysicists, I believe they talk about solar systems that are so distant, you can't see the sun, but you can tell by the movement of the planets that there is indeed a solar system by the movement of the stars and the planets that there is indeed a sun there, that it is indeed a solar system.
(00:06:43):
No one really wrote it down really. Although the poster Stanley Stanley, I can't remember his name now, but the post of the Greenberg for the Democrats, he came close, but we can see by their actions that the Democrats in 1992 especially were wrestling with how to win the White House after they had been exiled by 12 years of Republican rule. And they decided they chose between Jesse Jackson's campaign, which was trying to reunite that New Deal coalition, tenuous as it was, but it was still a new deal, coalition of black and white workers, and then Ronald Reagan's approach, which was to basically return to the old Southern Democrats, George Wallace, basically, and refusing to be out in worded right, keeping up this racist animosity and resentment.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:07:40):
I think that was Strom Thurman who originally made that quote, I will never be. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:07:45):
Right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. George Wallace took it to another level, and I think that that has been the Democrat's problem ever since. And you would think a child could have told them, this is not going to work well for you to antagonize purposefully your base, but this is the moment we're in where you see the Democrats, it's almost like a circus, a dog and pony show where Democrats spend four years openly denouncing or renouncing their black base and then in the election year trying to make up for it, trying to gin up the black vote. It is almost like this awkward dance that they're doing. And now we're seeing the culmination, because this has been going on pretty much for the last 30 years. I think Obama was the Navy or the Zenith, depending on how you want to look at it. But I think that it's really run its course. I think it's possible Kamala Harris can win this election, but even if that is the case after four years in office, the Democrats are a spent force. They can't continue this dance.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:08:52):
So to those who would say, well, wait a minute, John, how can you say that the party is biting the hand that feeds it when you've had a President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, and they are set as we assume that when they come out of their convention in a couple of weeks, that Kamala Harris will be the nominee for 2024. So how do you answer those folks who say, well, they're not taking us for granted. Let's assume that she wins in November. They've had two African American presidents. We could talk about African Jamaican, but we'll just put Kamala in the box over 20 year span,
Speaker 3 (00:09:48):
And they've completely ignored, completely frustrated black demands, right? You think about Kamala Harris. Well,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:09:57):
Barack Obama told us we didn't make any demands, which is why we didn't get anything. When he was asked that question. His answer was, you didn't demand anything. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:10:06):
And I would have to say, he's actually got to give the devil this dude. He was right on that one. Hey, look, the 2008, what they did, what the Democrats did in pushing Barack Obama passed Hillary Clinton was a stroke of genius. It really was. They had the perfect candidate to whip up to generate this black excitement, excitement in the black community, which at that same time, they were ripping off through these subprime mortgages, right, which were disproportionately aimed at blacks, black homeowners. And what they did by pushing Obama to the fore, the Democrats, I'm talking about bringing blacks, gin up the black vote, getting blacks excited about someone who at that point, Barack just didn't have much of a record for serving the black community. But he went on in his eight years in office to openly excoriate sc disappoint the black community. And in fact, I think you could argue that in terms of black people, I'm 59, I'll be 60 years old in January.
(00:11:12):
I would argue that Barack Obama has been the worst president in my lifetime for blacks. What I mean by that is the opportunity that he had in 2008 during the Great Recession, the opportunity that he had to actually begin to redistribute, and I'm not talking about socialism or communism. I'm talking about just redistributing wealth, just shaving off a portion of that onerous debt that many of us had accrued through these illegal, that's not my term, that's the FBI term illegal loans, fraudulent loans that the lenders made, and he could have shaved off proportion of that debt revived consumer buying power as we speak. We're talking, we're in the midst of the Wall Street, has seen a week really of decline. And the reasons, because Barack Obama set this in motion by not responding to the asset bubble in 2008, that asset bubble popped.
(00:12:14):
Usually how you deal with an asset bubble is you shave off a portion of the debt and you put people in jail to disincentivize a fraud, but you shave off a portion of the debt because that will revive buying power. Barack Obama didn't do that. He actually threw more money at the lenders. And so right now we don't have body power and who's leading that? African American. So I say that to say, to answer your question, that the blacks who have been candidates for high office, particularly for the White House, have been put there because they will participate. They will join in on this dance of scolding black people for the benefit of the white vote, and then doing this dance, this sort of vaudevillian kind of act where they, every four years talk about what they've done for the black community, what they're going to do for the black community, how much they love black people.
(00:13:11):
And I think it's run its course. I feel that it's run its course. And let me just end with this. And I really do believe that the legacy of Barack Obama, we've always had class tension within the black community. Now I think we're going to see the eruption of a real civil war, a real class war within the black community where the black elected officials are very much like conservatives and very much like white liberals. I think we're getting to a point now where we're going to see that the fault lines are very sharply drawn and the black elected officials, black celebrities, van Jones and Jay-Z and Bakari Sellers, that all these people are going to be seen as class enemies to the working class black community and the people who are its allies.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:13:57):
A couple of things. One, you mentioned the asset bubble and former President Obama giving the money back, basically bailing out the banks and not bailing out the homeowners. And I remember because to your point, that would've been the move. Don't give the money to the banks, deal with the loans, and that way you would've enabled people to stay in their homes. You would've been able to maintain the integrity of a number of neighborhoods, even down to the level of public schools and public school budgets because they get their money from property taxes by maintaining the value of property. There are a whole lot of things, a whole lot of benefits that would've come from that action. Instead of giving the money to the banksters, give the money to the homeowners. And I remember a press conference where former President Obama was asked why he did it the way he did it. And his answer was, and I remember this very clearly, his answer was, I didn't expect the banks to do this. People were asking him, why hasn't the money that you've given to the banks been loaned out? Why hasn't that money been distributed to the communities in need? And he said, I didn't expect the banks to do that. I said, well, man, that's what banks do,
Speaker 3 (00:15:23):
And maybe you shouldn't have run for president if you don't have that kind of understanding of finance.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:15:27):
Well, but that's the same guy that told the Banksters, I'm the one standing between you and the people with the pitch for us.
Speaker 3 (00:15:32):
Right? Right. And I believe it was in that same interview, I believe it was where he said that the reason he didn't bail out the homeowners who had been defrauded of their homes to these subprime mortgages, he said he didn't want to invite moral hazard. Well, moral hazard is exactly what he invited. But on behalf of the banks, not on behalf
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:15:52):
Of, oh, see, I thought he said Merrill haggard not moral hazard. My bad. I thought he didn't like country and western music. I'm glad. I'm glad you straighten that out for me. And the other thing you mentioned about former President Obama, and what I assume we're going to see from Vice President Harris is they have, I call it menstrual diplomacy. They are being used to sell imperialism and neoliberalism. And because it's coming from them, because Kamala Harris was selling us invading Haiti along with Linda Thomas Greenfield and so many, but because it was black people selling it, then there must not be anything wrong with it. We must be able to go ahead and accept it because of who it is that's selling it to us. I want to read another paragraph from your piece wherein you write, you write, it's important, however, to view Biden as a vital organ to a larger body politic that finally flatlined after failing to address a chronic illness, akin say to a diabetic eating Big Max every day for the past 30 years, Biden does not in fact owe his failed reelection bid to senility, though his cognitive decline is apparent.
(00:17:24):
But to his party's strategic decision three decades ago, to compete with Ronald Reagan's, GOP for racist, white suburban voters, white suburban voters, by openly repudiating the Democrats electoral base of African-Americans. And that gets to what you just opened with. But I also think it's important for people to understand that by taking us for granted and by allowing ourselves to be taken for granted, the Democrats know we're not going anywhere. And so that enables them to speak to a lot of issues while actually appealing to that white middle class male voter because they don't want to appear to be a party that's too black. They don't want to appear to be a party that's catering to black people. John Che.
Speaker 3 (00:18:23):
No, that's exactly right. I think I ride with black people. I rock with black people. I will to the day I die, particularly the black working class. My father was a UAW member. And as much as the unions are fraught with racism, I still claim the working class. That's the class I was born into in the class I will die in. Although if I hit the lottery, I guess I'll be a Cadillac Communist at that point. Maybe. In
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:18:50):
Fact, really quickly, really simply, the CIO was we got the AFL CIO because the A FL was racist and okay,
Speaker 3 (00:19:03):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And then the CIO turned racist. But that's another story. But no, this is really a choice that the Democrats made, which just shows how unimagined they were. If they had followed Jesse Jackson's model pulling more and more people, which by the way was what RFK planned to do before he was assassinated, was to pull more and more people into the tech, younger people, it's very conceivable they would've never have lost an election over the last 30 years. Right? It's very conceivable. We have 110, a hundred million voters at least every year who are eligible to vote, who don't vote. Pulling those people in more of those people in by giving them something to vote for would be a winning strategy, a sustainable strategy. The Democrats just relied on their own. They just reverted to reform, right? Racist Democrats like Bill Clinton, like Ben Pitchfork, Tillman, that's who they're, and they can't sort of snap out of that.
(00:20:10):
And so now they're stuck. They're stuck with this dance. It's very awkward dance, performative blackness. That's what Barack Obama is. That's what Kamala Harris, they perform, but they're not radical black political actors because if they were, and we have to bear some of the responsibility for this failure. We black people who have historically been the most sophisticated voters in the United States since they ran Barack Obama, we have for some reason forgotten that we have agency in this that if just sit and wait four years to go cast a ballot for whoever they put up for us to vote, that we might well be buried under a ton of ash, like some lost city of Pompeii or whatever. Because our parents and our grandparents knew much like they did in Chicago with Harold Washington, they faced the same dilemma. The Democrats just basically crapping on them and then asked them for their vote.
(00:21:17):
And they decided in 1982 that, oh, well, we'll just get our own candidate to run. And they got Harold Washington. They drove each other to the polls, they registered voters. They raised money even though they didn't have much. They raised money and they got him by the finish line right now, it won't look the same way now probably. But the point is that they used their imagination. They didn't just sit there and say, oh, well, this is who we got to vote for. They did something about, they demonstrated their own agency. We need to get back to that. But lemme just say this too, on that point, I do feel though that this isn't a way, a culmination of what Malcolm said when he said, I think there will be another civil war in this country, but it won't be black versus white. There'd be the haves versus the havenots.
(00:22:01):
And I believe we are getting closer to that. You see now these campus protests that emerged over the spring, which were led by the vanguard of which was Jewish people and Arab people and black people, I think that's going to be the coming revolution where we see what's happening in Gaza, rightfully so, has become the moral center of the universe. But that cause Gaza, which of course does not speak well with Kamala Harris, that cause I believe is going to intersect. We already see it intersecting with other causes. Cop city in Atlanta, right, the Jim Crow justice system. We see it intersecting with these other causes. That's how revolutions are born. So I say all that to say that I think that the Democrats are going to be on the wrong side of history. I think this deal, they struck this Carthage Genian peace deal that black Democrats have struck with the party. I think that it has run its courts and the people no longer have any use for it. I don't know if Trump or Ka Harris is going to be the next president, but I know that the American people are going to lose either way.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:23:12):
And I think evidence to what it is that you've just articulated in terms of this confluence of interest between Jewish Americans, between Arab Americans and African Americans, we're seeing now how Republicans are taking control at the electoral board level, the local electoral board level. They are now denying elections. They are now failing to certify elections. And this is something that people need to pay very, very close attention to because they are gaining control of the apparatus itself. And when they get control of the apparatus itself, then that's going to make our challenges even that much more difficult in terms of challenges, in terms of electoral politics, is going to make our challenges even harder to be successful at when you have members of election boards that fail to certify elections, not because they find wrongdoing in the process, but simply because the candidate that they backed. Look at Donald Trump gave this speech. He was in Atlanta today, I think it was Sunday or Monday, and he's pointing to people in the crowd that are at his campaign rally who are members of the county Boards of Election, and he's applauding them and lauding them for how loyal they are to his efforts.
Speaker 3 (00:24:48):
Oh, wow. I did not realize that. And that's very dangerous because these elections, these presidential elections tend to be battles of attrition who can do more to turn to vote, which means that they're very slim margins. So I mean, if Donald Trump has a little bit of leverage with the elections board in Milwaukee and Detroit and Philadelphia, you might as well hand the presidency over to him now. So this is something else.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:25:17):
Well, and that's why he is saying, Christians, after this election, you won't need to vote. I mean, he is saying to people, oh, I've got this. I don't even need your vote. I've got this. And after this election, you won't need to vote. And that goes back to, and I think this went over the heads of a lot of folks. His key advisor, the guy that's in jail now went to jail.
Speaker 3 (00:25:50):
Oh, baton. Baton.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:25:51):
Steve Baton said, our objective is the deconstruction of the administrative state. Steve Bannon was very, very clear about Trump's objective is to deconstruct the administrative state. And I don't think many people paid attention to that. And that is what we see with the January 6th attack on the Capitol with they're getting their talons into local boards of election with this whole project 2025, which isn't new. It's all wine in new bottles. But all of those things are culminating with the Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (00:26:44):
Yeah, no, it's really a historic time. We don't know how it's going to turn out. But I mean, if you look at the situation on the ground and Nazi Germany, say in 1934, it'd be very similar to what we're seeing now with this demagogue clearly rising up. And then you see all the other parties in Germany, although we only have one here in the United States, you see all the other parties sort of seeding that ground to this demagogue and the people who support him. And that's shaping up here. And the Democrat, again, it could be an opportunity for the Democrats to actually say, okay, we're going to step in and we're going to restore democracy, but they don't really care about democracy. How do we know the same people who are complaining about January 6th? And the Trump supporters who wanted to overturn the election just announced that the winner of the election in Venezuela is the guy who came in second passed the post, right?
(00:27:38):
And then the silliness. Well, we believe that the election was stolen. The Carter Center, Jimmy Carter has called the elections in Venezuela, the freest and fairest he has ever observed. Correct. National lawyers, gu, when they're now, and they said, no, this election is fine, but we're going to say that this guy who's a conservative in a country that is 13% black, and probably half of them are of mixed race, we're going to say this white conservative went in there and over and basically beat the socialist party, the Olaine revolution that has been in power since 1998. And not just beat 'em, but beat 'em by 34 percentage points, I
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:28:22):
Believe. Now, I was calling this out months ago, and folks, you need to really understand this, and there are numerous, if you go to Oroco Tribune or you go to venezuelan analysis.com, you'll find plenty of articles on this. So the United States started backing the Russian, the Venezuelan conservative candidate, marina Machado
Speaker 3 (00:28:50):
Machado,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:28:52):
And then she was convicted by the Venezuelan Supreme Court and found to have been basically an unregistered foreign agent. She was operating, I think, on behalf of Peru, I think it was Peru, against the interest of Venezuela. So they said, you are, because you have been operating as this agent for another country against Venezuelan interests, you can't run in the election. So the United States started backing her, knowing she couldn't run, and then they found the Gonzalez, the guy that replaced her, but he's basically her mouthpiece. And I was saying all along the United States is backing her, knowing she can't win, and then backing Gonzalez, knowing he can't win, so that when they lose, they will claim the election was fraud. And that's exactly, now here's the problem. So the United States goes in to Venezuela and they try to ment civil unrest the same way that Victoria Newland went into Madan Square.
(00:30:12):
That's right. And overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine leading us to where we are now in Ukraine. The difference between, or one of the differences between Ukraine and Venezuela, or a couple differences. One, the people are armed. There is a armed popular militia that when the bell rings, or as George Clinton would say, when the horn blow, you better be ready to go. They come in the street packing. In fact, we know this, when we had what we call the Bay of Piglets, about a year and a half ago, some American mercenaries tried to float their way into Venezuela, and they were stopped by a group of Venezuelan fishermen that arrested these guys damn near killed them, but exposed them for trying to come into the country to overthrow the government. So you've got a very strong citizen, heavily armed citizen militia in Venezuela. And here's the other thing. It's not about Maduro. No, it's about the Bolivarian revolution.
Speaker 3 (00:31:28):
That's right. That's right.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:31:28):
These folks are
Speaker 3 (00:31:32):
Right.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:31:33):
Ugo Chavez is the man. So they see Maduro not as Maduro. They see Maduro as an agent of the revolution.
Speaker 3 (00:31:46):
That's right. That's right.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:31:47):
I'll make one more statement about this because you know more about this than I do. I'm going to make this point. This is hyperbole, but I want to say they would say, Nicholas Maduro be damned. It's about the revolution. It's not about him as an individual. And so long as he stays true to the revolution, they will stay true to him. When they see him deviate, he's done.
Speaker 3 (00:32:17):
I could not agree with you more. I have not stepped foot in Venezuela in 20 years, although I talked to people who are still on the ground there every once in a while. I'm going to tell you something, man, I have never seen, and I've lived in South Africa, I've been through most of Africa, through half of South America. I've never seen France. Nan talked about the need for revolutions make to create the new man, the new woman, a different consciousness. I'm not sure I ever knew what that meant until I went to Venezuela. They really have a different consciousness. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. I think a lot of that was Hugo Chavez. I mean, it really does come down, man. He was as brilliant. I've met Mandela, who I think highly of. I met Mugabi. I never met a man who's more charismatic, more powerful, more visionary than he was.
(00:33:09):
Robert, I met later in life. I don't know what he was like earlier. Same with Mandela. But Chavez was visionary, and I so have to say that so much of this revolution is doing his understanding. When the United States organized a coup in 2002, the people, they weren't as well armed. They didn't have the malicious then, although some of them had armed the people because the government, the news media, which was controlled by the wealthy, the oligarchs in Venezuela, they told the people that Hugo Chavez is on the beach and she would kicking it with Fidel Castro. The people had these hammer radios. They got on the ham radio and said, nah, that ain't what happened. He would never abandon us like that. I think he's a mirror for us. Let's go get 'em mostly with pots and pan. And you can look at, there's a documentary, I can't remember the name of the documentary.
(00:33:58):
It's black women who were in the front pots and pans, and look, you're going to give him back. Right? And they did. Right. It took a couple days. It took a little while, right? About two days, right. Cause like I said, they mostly just had pots and pan. But thank God back. Now, look, I think that the vote, which was the closest, it's been, I think in 28 and 20, 26 years now, the vote just a little bit beyond 50% from Mad Gerald. I think it was 53. I want to say it was like 53, 46 or something like that. Yeah, I saw 51 to 44, but something like that. But anyway, it's a diminished margin. I mean, they have had inflation. These sanctions have taken an effect. And I know the people I talked to on the ground, I lived in Ecuador for a year or so a few years ago, and you saw more and more people coming to Ecuador who were disillusioned with the BOLO volume revolution.
(00:34:52):
And these are people who would've been supportive, people who were of color, mestizos, no blacks, but mestizos. Anyway, so I do think that it's lost a little bit of its luster. But this is what I know, they did not put up a right wing candidate was talking about taking Venezuela back to what it was in 1989 before what they call, I think they called the characters Z. When the president basically told the Venezuela one day we're not going to convert to neoliberalism and ratchet up the bus prices and all that. And the next day they went to work and the bus prices had doubled. And so there was this ride, and that's what produced hug job is. So what I'm saying is that there's a of the Venezuelan voter, the average Venezuelan, I wish we had it here in the United States because they understand as Fred, I know you're going to get sick of me quoting Fred
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:35:47):
Hampton. Right? I'll never get sick of you quoting Fred Hampton.
Speaker 3 (00:35:50):
But it's like the Venezuelans understand. I wish we understood it. I wish you peace if you willing to fight for it. The Venezuelans, they live by that, right? And so, I don't know. I can't tell you, the United States is very powerful, even though we're a diminished force, I can't tell you they'll always be able to hold off the United States, but they're going to have to fight them for Venezuela.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:36:10):
So we started this with your piece, how the Democratic Party committed suicide by biting the hands that feed it. And the way that we got to this discussion about Venezuela was a discussion about democracy and how Joe Biden tells us democracy is on the ballot. And Kamala Harris, the democracy is on the ballot. And Donald Trump democracy, we ought to protect democracy while we're going around the world, overthrowing democracies. That's why we're fighting in Vene in Ukraine because the United States overthrew the democratically elected government. We're trying to have regime change in Russia while the Russians, you can talk about their form of government, all you want to, it is democratic by their definition. And he was democratically elected. We can talk about Syria, we can talk about what they're trying to do in China as it relates to Taiwan. We can talk about what's going on in Gaza. We keep talking about we're defending democracy in Israel, democracy for who
Speaker 3 (00:37:19):
Democracy.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:37:19):
You even have, there are even Jews in Israel that aren't a part of the Democratic. So that's how we, so, okay. I just wanted to kind of bring us all back to this vice President, Kamala Harris, and still use the word presumptive, because even though she got the vote she needed through the Zoom process, they're going to have a convention which I will attend as a journalist not carrying anybody's banner.
Speaker 3 (00:37:56):
You sure you don't have that vote blue? No banner who? Banner at home you going to take
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:38:03):
No. So, okay, so now she has announced her running mate, and Tim Walsh has debuted as her VP pick in Philly. And my question to you relative to this, is the story that Harris selected Waltz to be her running mate, or is the story that she did not select Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, as the team gets ready to kick off its five state tour, which of those, and they both could be the story, but because we kept hearing that she was going to, A lot of people thought Shapiro was going to be the pick and the fact that they were kicking off in Philly, and now they're not awkward, but which one is the story?
Speaker 3 (00:39:18):
Yeah, that's a great question. I have to say, if I had to bet money, if I had to bet the farm, I would say that the Democrats are going to lose this election. But I do think Waltz is probably the best choice that she could have made. Shapiro would've been catastrophic, I think just because whether exactly, whether they want to admit it or not, Zionism is on the ballot, right? Right. We know Kamala has said she's a Zionist, right? We know she's had meetings with APAC in which she has asked for it not to be recorded. She is a Zionist. She supports Israel's right to defend itself when it has no such, right? No more so than the Nazis did in Germany. Anyway. So waltz, I think really
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:40:02):
Minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I need to say. So folks can clearly understand that you are stating that Israel does not have the right to defend itself. That statement is based upon international law,
Speaker 3 (00:40:21):
Law,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:40:21):
Law. Yes. You're not making this up, right. Kamala Harris coming out and saying, Israel has the right to defend itself as a prosecutor. She should know better because that's wrong. It is just, you might as well say the world is flat and the sun revolves around the earth. The world is not flat, even though when you stand out on the horizon, it looks that way. It ain't necessarily so, and the sun does not revolve around the earth.
Speaker 3 (00:40:56):
And the rest of the world knows this. Right? The Palestinians are an occupied people. You have the right to, that's why
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:41:02):
They're called oppress occupied
Speaker 3 (00:41:05):
Territory's not right. International law. It's not international law. We'll
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:41:08):
Continue, but I just want to be very, very clear on that point.
Speaker 3 (00:41:12):
Yeah. I just think it's so interesting though. I mean, it seems to me that their choice of, am I pronouncing his name right? Waltz?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:41:20):
Waltz. Waltz. Waltz. No, WALZ.
Speaker 3 (00:41:24):
Wall. Okay. Waltz. Okay. I think it's a concession to the anti-Zionist protests that I still think are going to be a very big factor in this convention. Chicago is home to the biggest, the largest Palestinian population in the country. And Lord knows how many black people are going to come out and support because they're protesting their mayor there who did a mini, he's a Obama Mini me ran, left, and is governing, right? So it does seem like it's like the best choice. It gives them a shot. He softens their edges, Kamala's edges, the Biden Harris administration's edges in terms of Zionism. But it softens his edges. It doesn't eliminate, from what I understand, he still supports Israel, right? Absolutely. And I don't know. Look, one thing we have to be honest about now is that the media is very much complicit in this game that the Democrats are running, and that's what it is.
(00:42:26):
The media is very complicit in this. And so are they going to really ask the Harris ticket, Kamala Harris' ticket to tough questions? I don't know. But you'd have to assume that somewhere between now and November that they're going to be confronted in a very public fashion with this question though. Well, what are you going to do about Israel? And that's why I see them losing this race, if nothing else. And I know that foreign policy does not often decide a presidential election, but I think given the state of the first live stream genocide in history, which Daily is bringing these unbearable images into our homes, that combined with their failure to do anything for their black base, especially black men, I have a hard time seeing a path to victory for the Democratic party.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:43:19):
Well, staying in that region. Another thing that folks, you got to stay tuned because these dynamics are changing minute by minute, Hassan Nala, the head of Hezbollah, came out and said, look, we are going to respond. Lemme take a step back. Secretary of State was telling us, Monday, 24 hours, 24 hours, and we expect that Iran is going to respond with man you
Speaker 3 (00:43:57):
Like he knows.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:44:00):
So Cassandra Sharla comes out and says, well, we're going to respond, and now we don't care what the outcome is. He came out Monday in a very clear speech and said, we are going to respond. We're going in hard, and we don't care what you do. Anah in Yemen saying, please send missiles our way, because every missile you send towards us is a missile you can send in the Palestine. Now, this is the poorest country in the world, the poorest country in the world. They have shut down. I'm talking about Yemen. Yemen, they have shut down the Red Sea. You can't get nothing in or out of the Red Sea. There's a port in Israel called the Port of OT has gone bankrupt because Ansara Allah has been sending missiles into the port of ot, like 13, 1400 miles away. And they're saying, we welcome the fight. Look, that's some smoke you don't want,
Speaker 3 (00:45:36):
Right?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:45:37):
Because if we were in South central la, this would be the bloods and the Crips saying, I'm about that life.
Speaker 3 (00:45:45):
Right? Right. The ties and Hezbollah and Hezbollah, you know that about that life. They handed a behind whooping to Israel in 2006, which Israel's never forgotten, right? No. And the ties, I mean, man mean you talk about solidarity. I mean, they, they're what anybody who says they're a revolutionary aspires to be a revolutionary needs to look at. They have a picture. We can take the picture. Well, no, maybe don't take the picture Martin Luther King down, maybe put the Houthis right next to it everywhere kitchen.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:19):
And see, they're not new to this game.
Speaker 3 (00:46:23):
No.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:24):
When Anah, I believe means a helper of God,
Speaker 3 (00:46:30):
Know that,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:31):
And I believe that comes from the time of the prophet. May peace be upon him. They traced their lineage that far back when he came through that region, they were assisting him.
Speaker 3 (00:46:46):
Oh, I did not know that.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:46:48):
So when that's your psyche, when that's your North star look, when Mike Tyson tells you to stop kicking the back of his seat on an airplane, you might want to stop kicking his backseat back of his seat on airplane.
Speaker 3 (00:47:02):
You might consider doing what he says. Yeah. I
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:05):
Dunno if you remember that story. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (00:47:06):
I do. I do.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:07):
When they had to carry that guy off of the plane
Speaker 3 (00:47:10):
And he got off lucky
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:13):
Because he was able, he survived the assault.
Speaker 3 (00:47:15):
And I
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:47:16):
Don't mean assault in illegal term ass whooping. So anyway, anyway, all of this, I bring this up again, folks. I'm trying to connect these dots. We get into September and October, vice President Harris may be asking questions about the regional war that is ongoing, because that's where we're headed. That's what Israel wants. They are trying to bait the United States into a conflict in the region. And now you've got the supreme leader in Iran saying to Hezbollah, go ahead on, do what you got to do. He's not saying, pump your brakes. Partner saying, do what you got to do. And he's saying, do what you got to do, because we about to do what we got to do.
Speaker 3 (00:48:17):
We about to put in that work too. And I don't mean to be glib about it, man, this is a horrible thing that's happening. But you've got to look at it. Americans really need to look at it in context. Context. Wait minute.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:48:27):
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Don't send your money yet, because there's a bamboo steamer that comes with this deal. Turkey Toa,
Speaker 3 (00:48:34):
Right?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:48:36):
Erwan is saying we in it too. He says, if we have to go in now, he can be a funny dude.
Speaker 3 (00:48:43):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:48:45):
He is at least saying, oh, if we got to go in, we're going in.
Speaker 3 (00:48:51):
Yeah. This is a perfect storm. I mean, this is the worst perfect storm I've ever seen in my lifetime. You've got this on the one side you've got, and you really think about it, this revolutionary consciousness that has been strengthened and amplified by Israel's decision to commit genocide in front of cameras. And then when we say, yo man, that's the genocide. They say, what's your point? Right? This is the end of Israel. Your
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:49:22):
Problem is,
Speaker 3 (00:49:23):
Yeah, exactly. As we know it, Israel, Israel will never go back to what it was on October 6th of last year. It just won't. Right? It's not going to happen. And the United States, I don't think it's going to go back to what it was on October 6th of last year, either what it's going to be, I don't know. But this is, we're really seeing the end of it, and you can see it in a couple things. One is the congealing of this resistance movement in the Middle East against the white settler colonialism of Israel and the United States and the West. You see it with the bricks whose GDP cumulatively has surpassed the United States. Russia, I believe, has said at reported, they're arming the Houthis. Right? They're arming the Houthis. I've read the, but I dunno if it's true or not, right? And then you've got the peace day resistance, a recession.
(00:50:12):
Oh, I didn't even think about that. Right? You've got, in the Sahel region in Africa, you've got this resistance is forming, and you've got all of Africa starting to sort of assert itself and say, wait a minute, why do we need these people who speak French, who speak English in here, telling us what to do? They claim to be the boss. Why do they take our resources out? Pay us nothing, take our resources out. You've got that congealing, and then you've got the peace state resistance. You've got that also in South America, although it's in bits and starts, the pink tides kind of a ebb and of flow. But then you've got the peace state resistance, which is what some economists and financial people believe is, at the very least, a very brave and very deep recession. And some people are saying, could be the greatest depression, the greatest depression that the world has ever seen. And there are numbers. I mean, United States has never been 35 trillion in debt.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:07):
That
Speaker 3 (00:51:07):
Never
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:08):
Happened against a $25 trillion GDP.
Speaker 3 (00:51:11):
I mean, come on, man. So we've got a lot of issues said
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:16):
That, try to get a mortgage with that bank balance,
Speaker 3 (00:51:19):
Man. I was looking at the loans for, and then we've got credit card debt up the kazoo, and the average interest rate, I believe is 25% of these credit card rates. And we're dealing with all these, no, that's the problem. We're not dealing with these problems. We don't address, we don't face these problems.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51:34):
So all of that, I wrote a piece, you're with her, but is she with you? Yeah. And the piece is contrary to what many people want to say. It's not anti Kamala. It's pro us. Yes. The question in the piece is, what are you as an African-American community demanding from her? And we have just articulated a number of very important issues that are and will impact how much you pay for a pack of chicken wings, a gallon of milk, and a loaf of bread
Speaker 3 (00:52:18):
Question.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:19):
So it's great that she's an AKA. It's great that she went to Howard. It's great that she can do what she do, but what does she stand for? What if you go to her website right now, zero policy, zero, not nary policy reference,
Speaker 3 (00:52:47):
But she has Megan, the stallion, twerking for
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:49):
Her. Oh, well, then that gets my
Speaker 3 (00:52:51):
Vote. I'm just saying,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:53):
Hey, I, amen.
Speaker 3 (00:52:55):
You know what, Earl? You know what Earl but said about black voters, right?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:52:59):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:53:01):
I dunno if I can repeat it here, but all we want is a warm toilet seat. A tight, tight, what was it? And a pair of shoe apparently to say,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:53:17):
So here's folks, here's the question. Politics. We are so caught up in the politics of personality and the politics of phenotype. We are trying to defend, oh, Donald Trump said she isn't black. Who cares when a pack of chicken wings is $21 a pack, when organic, a gallon of organic milk is $12 a gallon. That matters to me. I drink organic milk. Why are we so caught up in that? When your tax dollars are funding genocide, when your tax dollars are paying the salaries and the retirement of Ukrainians, and you don't have a retirement plan, your pension plan went out the window 25 years ago. That's right. We're paying Ukrainian pensions and healthcare. And healthcare and education budgets are numeric representations of priority.
Speaker 3 (00:54:36):
That's right. That's right. A moral document, as King said. That's
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:54:40):
Right. And we keep being told, we don't have the money. We don't have the money, but F sixteens just landed in Ukraine, which I'll say in the next 10 days will probably be blown into rubble. But we're sending F sixteens. So Lockheed Martin is happy. John Jeter, am I hating black women because I'm questioning policy issues related. Oh, we have to give her a chance. What did Barack Obama say when members of the Black Press said, you didn't really do anything for the black community, said you did not demand anything.
Speaker 3 (00:55:34):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:55:36):
Frederick Douglas says, power yields nothing without demand. It never has. And it never will. That's
Speaker 3 (00:55:43):
Right. That's right.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:55:44):
But when I asked the question, well, what are you demanding? Oh, no, Wilmer. See, you have to give her a chance. Oh, here's the other. I'll make, explain. Now I'm going to turn it over to you. So you've got folks like Simone Sanders that say, well, she's been vice president for four years. Kamala has earned it. And then you say, but wait a minute. So while she was vice president, what'd she do? Oh, well, you have to understand that vice presidents, those jobs, their job description is really very vague, and you can't really expect, well, no. See, you can't have it both ways,
Speaker 3 (00:56:23):
Right? That's right. You
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:56:24):
Can't tell me she earned it by being vice president. And then when I ask you, well, what did she do? You can't tell me. Well, she didn't do anything because vice presidents don't do anything. John Jeter.
Speaker 3 (00:56:35):
Yeah. We really need to raise our level of play. All Americans do, but particularly African Americans, because we have historically been the vanguard of this revolution, of the revolution in the United States, a progressive working class revolution. We need to raise our level of play. We need to deepen our understanding of politics. We need to do exactly as you say, we need to develop a list of demands, make them and stick to them. I'll try to say this very succinctly. I'm coming out with a new book in September next month, class War in America, how the elites divide the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? I began the book talking about a political movement in the 1870s in the reconstruction period in Virginia where blacks were the majority of a political party called the read adjusters. Poor whites, mostly farmers and blacks in Virginia, who decided to team up and to the elites of both parties, Republicans and Democrats were trying to take their tax money and pay the bonds, the money that was loaned to Virginia by the wealthy, the aristocrats, the Confederates, the people who really were responsible for the war, the Civil War.
(00:57:55):
And they said they wanted to pay exorbitant interest rates 6%, which would be actually pretty low these days. This coalition said, no, we won't do it. So this group, the Readjusts, they lowered interest rates, they
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:58:07):
Readjusted the loans.
Speaker 3 (00:58:09):
They spent this money on schools and things like that. They started feeling themselves, and the white party leader said, well, the blacks were saying, well, we want also, we want enter the whipping post. We want this and we want that. And the whites in that party, the adjusters didn't hear 'em. They didn't feel 'em, right? So they didn't do it. So the brother said, because it's just black men who voted at that time, although we know that their black women supported them in this. But black men said, okay, cool. So the next election, the readjust lost everything. And they realized, to their credit, they said, oh, they were serious. And so when they returned to power, they did everything the brother said, they eliminate the whipping votes. In the book, there's a point where they talk about the Patronist jobs. They handed out to blacks because black were 60% of this party. There's a postmaster who said, I think it was 1881. He said, my office is so full of blacks, or might have said colors at that time. My office is so full of colors. It looks like Africa in here, right? This is 1881. So I said, that's the same in
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:59:18):
Virginia.
Speaker 3 (00:59:18):
In Virginia, the heart of the Confederacy, right? 1881, people read this and they said, I was lying. I did not make it up. It is a true fact, as we say, right? We need to return to that mindset, that understanding. We need the people in Venezuela like the Houthis, like the Lebanese, the Hezbollah, Lebanon. We need to return to that level of understanding and raise our revolutionary metabolism. Look, man, as Fred Hampton said last time, I'll quote Fred Hampton today, if you say you want to do something revolutionary, but you say, I'm too young to die, you don't realize you are already dead. It's a lot of dead men walking in this country right
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:59:59):
Now. John Jeter, my brother, thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
My pleasure, man. Always a pleasure.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (01:00:08):
Folks. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Go to that Patreon account. Help us out, please. This isn't cheap. We need you to make this work. Leave a review and share the show. Follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. I'm going to see you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wier Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
Jon Jeter (01:00:58):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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The Legacy of Eugenics Alive in Today's Politics
1 Aug· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Wilmer Leon (00:00):
So here's a question. How does the false construct of race, and yes, it is a false construct or the real constructs of culture and cultural identity factor into our opposition to or support for a political candidate. Let's find out
Announcer (00:26):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:33):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode of connecting the dots, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions about the broader historic context in which most events occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events and the impact that these events have on the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is, as I stated, how does the false construct of race and it is a false construct and or the real issues of culture and cultural identity factor into our opposition to and support for candidates for insight. Let's turn to my guest, Dr.
(01:35)Chantel Sherman is a historian and journalist whose work documents deconstructs and interprets eugenic themes in popular culture, identity formation among African-Americans and reproductive apartheid in carceral spaces and within marginalized communities. Publisher of Acumen Magazine, author of In Search of Purity, eugenics and Racial Uplift among New Negroes, 1915 and 1935, as well as popular eugenics in television and film. Also, she's a novelist of Fester and Spill. Dr. Chantel Sherman, welcome back. Good morning. Thank you for having me. And as always, thank you for joining me. And I got to add, she's a very, very dear friend as well, so I get to call her Chantel, before we get to the question posed in the open, A viewer of our last discussion reached out to me and wanted us to elaborate on the issues of eugenics in medicine because many of us know some things about the Tuskegee study as well as Ms. Henrietta Lacks, but there's an awful lot more to eugenics and medicine than just those two issues. So starting there, particularly with the Tuskegee experiment, I elaborate, clarify what you know to be some of the misunderstandings about that, a little bit about Henrietta Lacks and then where are we with eugenics in medicine?
Shantella Sherman (03:10):
Sure. It's a loaded question because it actually has, the response is almost a series of volumes, quite frankly, but to synthesize this understanding, eugenics means what you're trying to do is create better people. And in order to create better people, you have to know what they're made of, what makes good stock, what makes good genes. And so what we've tried to do in this country through eugenics is to create better people by restricting who can and who cannot have children incarcerating people performing sterilizations for sterilizations on folks who we deem as unfit. And so it's not just about the body, but it's the body politic. So if I determine that you're poor, for instance, it's believed that poverty is in your DNA diseases are automatically in your DNA. And so black people as a whole, were considered to be contaminated. We are still considered to be largely contaminated.
(04:17)We are a bad gene pool, we are a subhuman group according to science and eugenics. So based on this, studying any type of disease means studying black people, and sometimes it means injecting them with certain things. So with Tuskegee, there's been a bit of a revisionist history about these are black people who had syphilis and we simply did not treat them in order to see the development of the disease or the course of the disease over years. The truth of the matter is many of these men were injected with syphilis, and that's the original documentation that we don't necessarily look at. We have to get to a point where we're looking at the entire scope of information and data. Alabama, Tuskegee was not the only place where these syphilis studies were taking place. The serological studies were taking place in six different states and they were all connected to sharecropping or farming communities, sharecropping communities where the black people there could not necessarily leave of their own free will.
(05:23)And then based upon that, you had a population that you could study, you could inject with different things. I've seen studies where folks are literally looking at how pesticides work by spraying cotton fields and leaving the black people who are working in the cotton fields in the fields so that as they develop lung conditions, you now start to talk about how black people don't have the capacity to breathe in certain places or they have bad lungs or these other things as if they're genetic, when the truth of the matter is you are experimenting on them. And so we've been the Guinea pigs unwittingly in this country for a long time, but because the stroke and the core of the information is based upon black people being somehow contaminated anyway, being less human, then we become like the lab rats or the little white mice in the labs where constantly we're having things tested on us and we don't necessarily know this. Then the scope of that becomes black people are 10 times more likely to have this. They're 10 times more likely to do this or to die of these conditions, or their behaviors lend themselves to these particular things.
Wilmer Leon (06:39):
When you said make better people, it was inferred, but I want to state the obvious. When the Nazis were trying to make the superior race, they were not doing this for the betterment of mankind, even though in their warped racist minds, they thought, so this was not altruistic by any stretch of the imagination. They were trying to make better white people at the expense of people of color. Is that hyperbolic on my
Shantella Sherman (07:22):
No, it's on point. I mean, the fact of the matter is if you consider non-white people to be subhuman, there we go. Or a subspecies. Let's pull this into America. When you say American, you're not talking about black people, you're talking about white people. That's why you have to add these hyphens, African-American, because America is the culture. It is also the race. It is also the health. It is also the patriotism. It is also the citizenship. And so this language becomes loaded. So when you say American, I'm looking at things that are talking about the American birth rate. The American birth rate is not going down when we're talking about black people or Hispanic people. So where in America is the birth issue? It's an American issue. It's a white issue.
Wilmer Leon (08:15):
It's a very white issue. And I'm quickly trying to put my hands on a piece by Dr. Walters here. I think I have it that speaks to this in the political context where, well, I can't find the quote, but he basically talks about, it's very important to understand that, oh, here we go. This is from white nationalism, black interests, and so this is your eugenics. On the policy side, if a race is dominant to the extent that it controls the government of the state defined as the authoritative institutions of decision-making, it is able to utilize those institutions and the policy outcomes they produce as instruments through which it is also structures its racial interests. Given a condition where one race is dominant in all political institutions, most policy appears to take on an objective quality where policymakers argue they're acting on the basis of national interests rather than racial ones. So that's Dr. Walters telling us, if I can just cut to the chase, when white folks run the show and they speak in the national interest, they're talking about their interests, not ours, and that's absolutely okay. Alright,
Shantella Sherman (09:55):
That's it.
Wilmer Leon (09:55):
So two other points about Tuskegee that I think are very important for people to understand. I know there were black nurses involved and weren't there also black physicians involved?
Shantella Sherman (10:08):
Absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (10:09):
And there is some question about whether there was actual consent. How much of this did they actually know or were they dupes? Isn't that a question that gets posed?
Shantella Sherman (10:24):
It's a question that's posed often because the belief is that if there's a black person in the room that they're going to side for black people, they're going to defend, they're going to try and help. But the reality is when we're talking science, we're talking medicine and science on behalf of the nation, on behalf of American Americans, we want to make sure that we have a healthy pool of black people as well. So it benefited and it benefits currently many black leaders to hold onto these eugenic things and these eugenic tropes and these eugenic theories where even though we don't talk about sterilizing people in the same way we did, then you still hear people say, black people, even this person has too many kids, they don't need to have any more kids. They're on welfare already. So what do you do? You
Wilmer Leon (11:18):
Give them Ronald Reagan's welfare queen,
Shantella Sherman (11:20):
Right? Well, right. If a white person says this, it's racist. If a black person says she already has 10 kids, she doesn't need anymore. She can't afford 'em, now she's neglecting them. We start with this other thing and it becomes, so what do we do? Give her no plan or something. And if that doesn't work, go ahead and give her a hysterectomy. That's eugenics.
Wilmer Leon (11:41):
An example of that on the other side is Octo mom.
Shantella Sherman (11:45):
Exactly,
Wilmer Leon (11:47):
Exactly. She got a TV show or she was trying to get a, there were people who were saying, oh, this woman is out here tripping and something needs to be done. But there were also those that wanted to glorify her, put her on television in order to generate revenue,
Shantella Sherman (12:11):
Generate revenue, but also public opinion, where she was one, a single woman, she already had one child that she was having trouble supporting. Then it became who should have access to IVF and all these other things, and then who's going to pay for all of these eight now nine children that she has? And it was like, what is she going to do with them and dah, dah, dah, dah. But you give the duggars one, she's single. If it's the Duggars who are just full of all types of deficiencies over here, I'm using eugenic terms. I'm sorry. All of a sudden it was like, right, give them a TV show. Give them money, give them this, give them that. Because what you're doing with television is programming people to believe some people need this, some people don't. If this was a black female in Chicago, in the Robert Taylor homes years ago and she had 10 or 11 kids, you'd be running her up a flagpole at this point and talking about the degeneracy and her kids are going to be this and there's no father in the house and all of these other things.
(13:09)So when you push this politically and you start talking policy, this is what you're concerned about. We should be concerned about on a local, national, and even an international scale. And so as you start to talk about candidates, we have to have a clear understanding of where our potential leaders fall, whether they're black or white, because black people are also Americans. And so we're living the American dream, and I don't want these people living next to me and I don't want a prison next to me and I don't want halfway house over here, and I don't want the school of kids over here and I don't want this, this, this and this. And that's an American thing, even if the person or the kids or the people I'm talking about happens to be brown just like me.
Wilmer Leon (13:57):
So to wrap up the Tuskegee, what are the two biggest misnomers about Tuskegee that you want this audience to have a better understanding of before we get to Henrietta Lacks? What do you want people to understand about Tuskegee?
Shantella Sherman (14:13):
The Tuskegee was not the only place, and I don't even like it being named, that it was the Eugenics records office. Serological studies. And you had five other places, five other places other than Tuskegee, where these serological tests were being done and they did not necessarily stop.
Wilmer Leon (14:34):
Oh, meaning that they're still ongoing. I know they were going well into the seventies at least.
Shantella Sherman (14:43):
And if Tuskegee is the only one that they're talking about, what makes you think that? The serological studies that were taking place in Mississippi and in Tennessee, in Georgia, just in North Carolina. In North Carolina, and again, there's a whole record of this, but we don't talk about that and we don't talk about the black people intrinsically involved in these studies and in this research,
Wilmer Leon (15:08):
Henrietta Lacks, if you would elaborate,
Shantella Sherman (15:13):
One thing that we don't discuss with Henrietta Lacks is that the fact of the matter is that she was at Crownsville, she was in Maryland. Once again, you must make the connection between eugenics and these carceral spaces, either asylums places where you need to have a mental rest. I don't like even calling them. It's a home for the mentally ill. This person may have been having menopausal symptoms. They have women in there, they were reading too much. There's a Howard University professor and his name Escape Smith, the moment high ranking Howard University professor. He was caught up in Crownsville at some point and died there. And
Wilmer Leon (15:52):
For those that don't know, what is Crownsville?
Shantella Sherman (15:54):
Crownsville was the Maryland, it's, we would say asylum now, but it was a place for people who were feeble minded or had mental health issues. And you could be put there for any of a number of reasons. But once you were there, this was the one specifically for black folks. So a whole black neighborhood was cleared in order to put this asylum there and to let you know what they thought of black people, they made the black people who were supposed to be the patients actually build the hospital itself. And it remained open for quite a while, but it was a place of torture. It was a place of experiments. And Henrietta Lacks ended up there. And so while people are, she's telling people, okay, I'm having fibroid issues. The potential cancer issue, once you're in these spaces, you don't have rights over your own body.
(16:45)So the experiments and the biopsies and the whatever else are also taking place in these spaces. And so that's where she was when all of this transpired, grabbing her cells, studying her cells. If you knew the cells could give us the cancer treatments that we have today, were you actually trying to treat her or were you trying to advance science? And so we have to start looking at who were some of the black doctors that were there, who were the other universities? You have universities that are attached to these asylums. And so it's not just, even if you're talking to Tuskegee, it's not just Tuskegee as the area, it's Tuskegee, the university, it's Howard or it's me, Harry. It's black institutions as well. And you have to look at this. Some of this is a class issue, but it's always a consciousness issue. You all right?
Wilmer Leon (17:40):
And just so people know that Henrietta Lacks, she was the first African-American woman whose cancer cells are the of the hela cell line, which is the first immortalized human cell line, and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. And a lot of people made a lot of money,
Shantella Sherman (18:05):
Still are
Wilmer Leon (18:06):
Hundreds of millions of dollars off of her body. And up until recently, her family did not receive any type of compensation for the illegal use of her body. And I want to put it in the context of body because when you talk about cells and people go, oh, cells, what the hell? No, it was her body that they used to create an incredibly valuable, some would say invaluable. You really can't even put a value on it. And up until recently, her family, I can see you want to go ahead. Go ahead.
Shantella Sherman (18:52):
Well, when you start talking about the value of black bodies, we can go currently, as of last year, the children that were involved, there was a situation in Philadelphia, 1985 where it was a group of what they called militant resistant black folks, the Africa Family
Wilmer Leon (19:12):
Move
Shantella Sherman (19:12):
Movement community. They were in a lovely community. And so they had this move project that they were doing, this is their thing. And you had a black mayor at this point who said,
Wilmer Leon (19:23):
William, good,
Shantella Sherman (19:24):
There you go, mayor.
Wilmer Leon (19:26):
Good. Who was bad?
Shantella Sherman (19:28):
I'm sick of having to deal with this. And instead of charging the house which had children in his whole family communal type of space, he said, let's drop a bomb, get a helicopter to drop a bomb on the house. Which of course ended up spreading. It tears up the entire neighborhood. But here's the point with this, two of the children that died in the bombing, somehow their bodies were sold given over to the University of Pennsylvania for study for research. Because the idea is, is there a difference in the brain and the mentality of a resistant black family and their children, their progeny that we need to be aware of? So now you have a university studying the brains and the body parts of dead children. The family does not know. The family did not know until last year that the university didn't even know that the bodies were sitting on the shelf Now
Wilmer Leon (20:30):
Because some of the other children survived and are now in their thirties and forties. Absolutely.
Shantella Sherman (20:36):
Absolutely. Absolutely. So they had to give those but become, we're going to give you the bodies back so they can be interred. What were you doing with these children? You were studying them, you're studying them not just as cadavers. They were being used in the classroom for what purpose though? And so I think that we need to really grapple with the fact that there's a value to black bodies, even if there's not a value to black people. The culture is amazing and this and this, but there is a value to black bodies that we don't talk about. And so there are folks that are, you have dollar signs on you when they see you, they have dollar signs on your womb, they have dollar signs on you as you matriculate through life and you navigate different systems. And the goal is to extract as much as possible while we are just kind of not paying attention to any of it.
Wilmer Leon (21:34):
There is the adage, you are a product of your environment. And so people will look at me, look at you. And how did you all become PhDs? Well, they haven't met your mother. I've had the blessing. They haven't met your parents. They haven't met my parents. We are products of our environment. So when you look at the children in the Africa family from move in Philadelphia, those children, there was nothing biologically different that made them one way or another. They were products. They were raised a certain way just as they want to talk about black on black crime, ignoring the fact that crime occurs everywhere. You tend to commit crime in the space that's closest to you against those that are closest to you. And that poverty is one of the greatest contributors to a criminal element. Not psychosis, not phenotype. And final point as they talk about black crime, who did the mafia commit most of its crime against other Italians? Who did the Polish Mafia? Who did the Russian mob? Who does the Israeli mob commit crime against those that are closest to them, but we don't understand it in that context.
Shantella Sherman (23:19):
Wiler, I'm going to throw this in here real quick. The University of Pennsylvania has a long history of studying black folks, especially ones that they consider to be degenerate types. For years, I did a series for Acumen Magazine called the Crack Baby Turns 30. And it looked at a study, a longitudinal study that the University of Pennsylvania was doing where they actually studied the children, the newborn babies that were left at the hospital by women who were crack addicted at that point. And they had these terrible lines in their notes saying things like, these children don't look you in the face. They are born with a pathology. They will be criminals and they will be murderers. And they don't even cry like real babies. They're like animals, okay, 30 years on and they're studying these kids every month 30 years later, they come back and say, each one of those children provided they were given to an aunt, a grandparent or someone else, and they were loved on and taken care of.
(24:21)They turned out just fine. None of them have been in prison. None of them have committed crimes. None of them have had out welock babies, most of them. I think they said 90% of them have been to college. Alright. So it automatically tells you that the nature versus nurture is really just a dream. It's a dream sequence in some madman's laboratory where you're going to try and make a case by creating an environment where you're defunding this and unhinging people and then saying, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy or this is all about the numbers and these are the stats and this is where this goes. And it is simply not true.
Wilmer Leon (25:04):
Some may have heard me tell this story before, but nature versus nurture, really quick example, I went to a private Catholic high school in Sacramento, Christian brothers high school and had to pay tuition to get there. So whether it was hook or by crook, I can obviously afford to be there. I'm there. So the guidance counselor at the time, Mr. Patrick O'Brien sees me wearing a Hampton sweatshirt and I'm walking down the hall and he says, Wilmer, what is that? And I said, oh, this is the sweatshirt from the college I'm going to go to. And he says, you're going to college? I said, yeah, Mr. O'Brien, I'm going to college. He said, Wilmer, have you ever thought about trade school? I said, no, I have never thought about trade school. He says, well, why not? I said, because honestly, Mr. O'Brien, I don't want to have to take the ass whooping that I'm going to take if I go home and tell my parents I'm not going to college. Now there's nothing against going to trade school, but in my house.
Shantella Sherman (26:13):
Exactly.
Wilmer Leon (26:14):
That was not an option,
Shantella Sherman (26:16):
Not one. So
Wilmer Leon (26:21):
It was all a matter of environment. And so people look at my son now who just graduated from Hampton, and the boy understands he has two options, conform or perish. So it's not a miracle, it's an environment. It's a level of expectation that is set. It's a matter of standards that must be maintained and understanding if you follow the path, life is great. If you deviate from the path, you might have a problem on your hands and you have to make a decision, do I want this problem or do I? That's all. Am I wrong?
Shantella Sherman (27:12):
No, I mean it's spot on. And I think that again, we understood this 50 years ago in a way that we are not passing that information down now. So the fact that someone can come to me now with eugenic thoughts and tell me if a black child hasn't learned to read by the time they're in the third grade, they have automatically lined themselves up to go to prison. Who came up with that foolishness?
Wilmer Leon (27:38):
Wait a minute, I'm one of those kids. I'm one kids.
Shantella Sherman (27:45):
Come on now.
Wilmer Leon (27:46):
I was reading well below grade level when I was in the third grade and they had shifted, and that was the time when they had shifted how they were teaching reading away from phonics to sight words. Fortunately for me, my parents, we had a very dear friend, Mrs. Bode, Mrs. Gloria Bode, who was a reading specialist, she would come to the house three times a week after dinner. She taught me phonics. And within Goy, it wasn't even a month, I went from reading below the third grade level in third grade to reading at the seventh grade level. All she did was teach me phonics.
Shantella Sherman (28:40):
Exactly, exactly. So the fact that you can add fake science over here with the eugenic themes, add it to policy, trickle it into the school system, add some funding issues with this, it's like I need you to understand that's what public libraries are for. I need you to understand that every child learns at a different rate. I need you to understand that if there's calamity all around this child outside in the neighborhood, they're not listening for concentration purposes and it may be hindering them. There are things that we knew and we knew how to meet those challenges to ensure that the children in this great space would be able to matriculate. We haven't gone bonkers. So why is it that we are feeding into this and actually accepting that it's true? And then getting on television and saying yes, as a black psychologist, it is true that if black kids don't start reading, you have black people who don't know how to read until they are adults, but they've never committed crimes and they didn't turn into degenerates. So why are we leaning this 10 toes down? It really is a fact.
Wilmer Leon (29:47):
I know some of those people who became very productive individuals and education became very, very important for them because they understood the value of what they didn't have. And they instilled in their children who went on to college and went on to get master's degrees and other advanced degrees, and many of those kids didn't even realize until after they got out of school that their parents couldn't even read.
Shantella Sherman (30:13):
Many people went to their graves as black people and white people who never learned to read period, but that was not a part of their character. If you can't read, you're automatically going to become a criminal. That's not the way this works. It's not the way it works. So the fact that we bought into this again tells me that we're moving back into these eugenic themes without, it's the popular social eugenics that the average everyday person is just like, yeah, that makes sense. It does not.
Wilmer Leon (30:43):
It only makes sense if you don't have any sense. So moving into these popular eugenics themes, getting to now the question that I opened the show with, how does the false construct of race and yes, race is a false construct or the real constructs of culture and cultural identity factor into our opposition to or support for a political candidate. And that all centers around, and I'll state the obvious here at right now, the presumed democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, whose father is Jamaican, whose mother is Indian, and she in some circles is considered to be an African-American woman. I've heard her referred to as such. I've also heard her in many current commercials referred to as an Indian-American woman. And I want to stress this is not a judgmental conversation.
Shantella Sherman (31:54):
No.
Wilmer Leon (31:55):
Let me throw it to you, Dr. Sherman.
Shantella Sherman (31:59):
The issue at hand warmer is that however many of those boxes she chooses to check that show diversity or
Wilmer Leon (32:06):
Check for her
Shantella Sherman (32:08):
Either way, either way, all of those lend themselves to the greater eugenic conversation, which is she is non-white. Okay, 1924, racial integrity, that act coming out of Virginia said there are only two races. Skip the Monga, Loy Caucusi. We're going to scratch all of that. There are only two races, white and non-white and the fact that she's also female, that's another thing that we have to deal with. Public perception, American public perception, sometimes global public section of what it means to be any of these things or an amalgamation of all of these things. And some people may be offended by the term amalgamation, a mixture. We're all a mixture of a bunch of other things. What does that mean? And so each one of these people who are definitive about whiteness and Americanism and patriotism, they're questioning as they did with Obama citizenship. They're questioning her womanhood at this point. They're questioning as
Wilmer Leon (33:15):
They did with Michelle Obama.
Shantella Sherman (33:17):
Exactly. They're questioning. But on this side, how many kids does Kamala have? And then the fact that,
Wilmer Leon (33:26):
Didn't JD Vance call her a cat woman because she doesn't have any biological children of her own?
Shantella Sherman (33:31):
What is that exactly?
Wilmer Leon (33:34):
Wait a minute. I got to mention when I mention his name, we always must say for those who don't know, JD Vance is now Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee. He's the same guy who about three years ago compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. So one has to ask the question, how does the guy who three years ago called another guy Adolf Hitler, wind up standing next to that guy as his vice presidential nominee. He didn't even call him Mussolini. He called him Hitler
Shantella Sherman (34:07):
And pay attention to the fact that when Kamala, Kamala was named as Joe Biden's running mate, once again, I heard the senator call say, okay, now we are going to have aunt your mama in the White House. This woman doesn't look like aunt your mama, no connections whatsoever. But all of a sudden this is what folks are thinking of you in these spaces all along. And so the nastiness of it starts to come out the thing. Wait
Wilmer Leon (34:40):
A minute, and that takes me to Tiger Woods when he first won the master's tournament and the year after the master's tournament, the winner gets to determine the menu for the player's dinner. And Fuzzy Zeller says, oh, we going to have fried chicken tonight.
Shantella Sherman (34:58):
Fried chicken and watermelon.
Wilmer Leon (35:00):
There you go.
Shantella Sherman (35:01):
Yeah. So again, my question is if we are that removed from the plantation at this point, why are you constantly trying to throw people back onto it? Or these are the only references that you're coming up with when you can clearly see in front of you that this isn't the case, it's the Fair State University, their whole thing, their memorabilia collection that they have of racist items that came up 1870 and moving forward. And it was like while we are saying they're racist, these are the things that keep peace in many white minds. I need an anama salt and pepper shaker. I need an anama cookie jump. I need to put her face on the pancake box. I need to have two little black kids as the icons or the folks that I'm using for gold dust soap powder and for this and for that and for the other.
(36:00)And so in researching how labels and emblems and mascots were created, you start to find that when white people feel uncomfortable in this country, they tend to hold onto the things that they did love about black people. And so that hasn't changed. We're going to show Kamala dancing and we're going to show her doing all of these things, loving cats, the things that make white people feel good and feel comfortable and feel wholesome and feel whole. She is a part of our group. And at the same time you have black people who are going, but she's married to someone who's not black.
Wilmer Leon (36:40):
I was asked that question, I won't mention the woman's name who said to me, Wilmer, why do black men, Hey Kamala Harris. And I said, I don't know that black men do hate Kamala Harris. I haven't seen any data. I said, but let me pose this to you. Why does she hate black men? And it was what I said, well, she didn't marry her brother. And I said, so I'm not equating the fact that she didn't marry a brother to say that she hates black men. I am just posing that as a ridiculous premise to your ridiculous premise and riddle me that and I couldn't get an answer.
Shantella Sherman (37:28):
No, we are still stuck in an antebellum mindset. Many folks are just still stuck there. And so it doesn't make sense that I can walk into a room and someone is waiting for me to flip some pancakes or am I the cleaning lady? Am I here for any type of servant position? Nothing wrong with servants, but when you visually look at a person and you start to assess them, not my character, not any of these other things, but sight, you're seeing me for the first time. If your reaction is to put me into this particular position, you need to ask yourself why. This is something that as the commander in chief, potential commander in chief of this country, that she's going to have to face down in the same way that President Obama had to. But she's also going to have this added level of this is a female who does not have children and all of these other, she's suspicious to folks. She's suspicious to the nation. And that is simply unfair and it's unfounded, but it's how we do things here a lot of times.
Wilmer Leon (38:40):
So let's take the other side of this because when she first announced that she wanted to be president in this, after Joe Biden stepped down, the narrative was she's earned it. She deserves it. I think it was Simone Sanders Townsend who was saying, and some of her other surrogates who were saying, what does the Democratic, what problem does the Democratic party have with wanting a black woman at the top of the ticket? It was all about her being an AKA. She went to Howard and she can do the electric slide. We were falling into that same mindset in terms of rallying the troops around her instead of asking the questions, where does she stand on Gaza? What's she going to do about Ukraine? What's her policy on Cop city? Where is she on the George Floyd Act and policy issues? And when we started listing policy issues and wanting her to articulate where she stands on policy, then the question becomes, why are you hating on the sister? Why do you hate black women? No, I don't hate black women. I know that AKAs Howard University and I have two degrees from Howard, so I ain't hating on Howard and being able to do electric slide that ain't going to feed the bulldog.
Shantella Sherman (40:16):
Well, and the truth of the matter, I don't believe our percentage is 13% still because it's just not fathomable we've been producing. So I'm going to say the black population is country. Let's say it's at about 18% right now. Alright? You still have the whole rest of the country that to some extent mentally and emotionally, you're going to have to reunite in the same way Obama had to reunite them because they had blown apart with even the thought of having a black man in office. Okay, you're going to have to suture us back together.
Wilmer Leon (40:54):
Donald Trump was the reaction to Barack Obama.
Shantella Sherman (40:58):
Absolutely. And the belief that even at this point, I still have people saying, Barack Obama is running the White House behind Biden all this time. And I'm going, are you serious? So it doesn't matter the truth. The truth doesn't matter at this point. It's what you feel. And I'm telling people it's not about what you feel. Your feelings don't enter into the facts at this point. Thank you. I need you to start talking about the fact that the housing in this country is so deliberately greedy and ridiculous that working people are living in homeless shelters. All right? I need you to talk. College
Wilmer Leon (41:33):
Professors in California are living in their cars.
Shantella Sherman (41:38):
I need you. And this is across the country and quite frankly across the globe. So I need you to talk to me about investing and divesting in certain things. I need to know where Kamala stands on certain things. I haven't really heard. I don't know what her platform is on certain things. I would love to have someone talk to her rather than having Megan thee stallion up dancing with her. I don't care about that. I don't want to hear about that right now. You're telling me people are blowing me up about Project 2025, which by the way is nothing but the NATO group and some other folks from 1925 still trying so much conservative policy. This isn't new.
Wilmer Leon (42:14):
It's not new. It's called New Gingrich's Contract with America.
Shantella Sherman (42:18):
Thank you. Nothing on that list is new. Nothing on it is new. So it's like even if it were true, and I understand that a lot of it is not true. It wasn't in the 880 page document that most people haven't read. When I started sifting through it, it was like that didn't happen. That's not in the document. That's not there. These are proposals. And do you know how many think tanks put out proposals every time there's about to be a change of leadership? So it's like don't get up in arms. This is something that we always face. But in the meantime, can you tell me where if this were something that was about to take place, where are your local leaders positioned on this? Because we got Biden in office right now, but you still can't afford to get a bag of potato chips for less than $4 or $5 right now. What is going on with the cost of living and the American dream? Why are you having corporations buying up housing so that the average person can't afford 'em?
Wilmer Leon (43:10):
BlackRock,
Shantella Sherman (43:12):
Help me out.
Wilmer Leon (43:14):
People don't understand that As a result of the Covid crisis and the mortgage crisis and all of these homes that people were put out of BlackRock and other venture capitalist companies were buying up the housing stock and they weren't putting the housing stock back on the market for sale. They were putting the housing stock back on the market for rent. Absolutely
Shantella Sherman (43:45):
For rent. And if you're charging, there's nothing, I'm going to say it on the record, there's nothing inside Washington DC that's worth $5,000 a month as a two bedroom apartment. Nothing. Nowhere in this city is it worth it. But those are the going rates. And so we can look at this. Go ahead, I'm
Wilmer Leon (44:02):
Sorry. And as Vice President Harris is on the stump saying, Donald Trump is a convicted felon. And as a former prosecutor, I know how to deal with felons. I know that personality well, when you had Steve Mnuchin in your sights when he was the bankster in California and your staff brought you a thousand felonies committed by the man, you didn't pursue the case against Steve Mnuchin who wound up being our Secretary of Treasury under Donald Trump. So don't hate Malcolm said, when my telling you the truth makes you angry, don't get angry at me. Get angry at the truth. I don't do the electric slide. I'm not an A KAI am in the divine nine, but I don't do that. And so those things don't matter to me, Dr. Sherman,
Shantella Sherman (45:00):
It's going to have to matter to us what the policies and standpoints are that Kamala Harris brings to the table. I just want to know her positions on things. I have the lesser of two evils true as it appears, and I believe she would make a wonderful president, but I would love to know where she stands on all of these issues that are also international issues that are also, I've been trying to get someone from the state of California, a representative, and I don't have to call the person's name to talk to me about the sterilizations that are being forced on black and Spanish women inside California penitentiaries for the last eight years. And I can't get a callback. So I want you to understand that it's not about blackness. It's about I need you to make sure that my American dream isn't a nightmare, that you get to blame on Donald Trump or anybody else. We have black elected officials. We're not holding anyone accountable and we're not holding them accountable from the moment we elect them. You're not asking the proper questions, and so you
Wilmer Leon (46:04):
Won't get the right answer.
Shantella Sherman (46:06):
I want Kamala Harris to win. I put on the T-shirt, all of that. But in the meantime, I want to know where she stands on some things that impact my quality of life and the quality of life for the folks who are around me. I've crossed 50 years old at this point, so I'm trying to figure out if I had to go lay down and retire somewhere, is there a patch of dirt in the woods for me that you want going to then come through and arrest me for being homeless on and lock me up for it? That's a reality. They're locking up homeless people. It's their laws in certain states now. And these states have black representatives. No one's talking about this. We are talking about the suits that people are wearing and their connections and affiliations with other things that don't benefit us at the moment.
Wilmer Leon (46:51):
And rappers
Shantella Sherman (46:52):
Well, and just while you dancing, when it comes time to pick your kid up from the daycare center, are you going to find out that they've raised the rates? So you got to pay $3,500 a month for the kid to go to the daycare?
Wilmer Leon (47:04):
And two things. One is we keep hearing that we can't afford to provide quality daycare to people across the country, but we can send a trillion dollars to Ukraine. See, budgets are numeric representations of priority.
Shantella Sherman (47:26):
And also add to that, even if we didn't have the money, we had the consciousness, we had the heart to say that the grandmother in the neighborhood who was opening her home should still be able to do that without being licensed to a point where she has to pay $2,500 to the city and go to a class for eight. She raised 10 kids and 15 grandkids. She knows what she's doing. You've kept us from being able to have that communal space. Now that's not just, I want some money that's being vindictive. You're setting up the parameters, the variables that are going to lend to the things that you're talking about as black people and poor people. You're creating poverty. That's what you're doing right now.
Wilmer Leon (48:11):
Norway can do it, Finland can do it. Denmark can do it. They're doing it.
Shantella Sherman (48:19):
Anyone who is for their citizens can and will do it. The difference here is that we're not working together. We've always been fighting against each other. It's the infighting. I want my kids to be able to have it, but not your kids. I don't want immigrant kids. I don't want my kids around the Spanish kids. They're going to learn Spanish and it's too many of 'em and they're undocumented and they can have diseases, and I don't know what they're into. Well, the same thing was said about black people coming into white spaces. So if we're going to do America, we got to do America for everyone, and we got to make sure that these policies don't hurt this person in order to make me feel better. And in the long run, end up hurting me as well.
Wilmer Leon (48:58):
My current piece is you're with her, but is she with you? And the premise of the piece is, and I say this in the piece, it's not about her. It's about us. And what are we going to demand of her relative to us? Because that's what policy politics is all about. It's about policy output. It's not about the Divine nine and Howard University and the electric slide. It's about policy output. She went to the Cara comm meeting as vice president and try to convince the leaders of those Caribbean nations to be the minstrel face on American imperialism to invade Haiti. How does a black woman whose father is from Jamaica believe that our invading Haiti is a good idea? She didn't go alone. She went with Hakeem Jeffries and some other folks, Linda Thomas Greenfield. How do these black people, how do these black people buy into imperialist, neo-colonial policies like that? And so I make that to take us back to the eugenics question and the identity
Shantella Sherman (50:26):
Question, and I'll throw that to you because it's all about the fitness of the individual person or the group. And so Haiti has always been the bastard black child that even black folks don't want to claim a small minority of black folks always down for Haiti, always. I'm there with you. But there are all these people who are still, you want to glamorize Africa, but you won't set foot there. You want to go to Africa, but you don't want to stay there. You don't understand the politics, the culture, the language, the faith, none of it. But since it's been tagged onto you as African-American, you claim it. But again, when you get down to it, we still have eugenic thoughts as black people about who is fit and unfit, who is worthy, who is unworthy. And it's about nothing related to character. It is about nothing related to morality or how people handle you or them being good people.
(51:27)It's all about the same things that white people use the litmus test to define you. And so we cannot get away from that as easily as we think and things like this. When we get into a space like this, it magnifies it and we start to see ourselves and it does not look good. It doesn't look good on us at all. Haiti, poor black people, folks living in the projects historically by colleges and universities, not the elite eight, the big eight, but the rest of 'em, the ones that we don't really want to talk about this in them other states that we don't want to deal with, alright? We don't want to deal with that. There are things that we need to discuss to make sure that HBCUs and the Divine Nine still exists. If the federal government starts pulling money back. We've had the heirs desegregation case.
(52:20)We've had a similar case in Maryland where basically HBCUs are being said to be anti-white at this point. And in order to get the money that these HBCUs won for having been discriminated against with funding, it's being said, in order to get the money, you now have to have five to 10% of your student population be minority. That minority has to be white. So now you are giving free education to white students in order to get the money that's owed to you from having been discriminated against in the first place. You have to understand in street terms, we've been in a trick bag for a minute, right? And we need to stop playing games. It's late in the day. You need to heal your line. Alright, I'm going back to Hurston. Heal your line. You need to understand that you're about to get caught up in the very trap that you've been setting and you're not paying attention. You're simply not paying attention. We haven't been paying our alumni fees like we're supposed to. Our schools are still dependent on federal government funding and state funding. We are not standing alone. So we need to make sure that our leadership also understands that, that we need to have practical solutions and policies so that we're not reacting to things, but literally charting a course and setting it and staying on that course.
Wilmer Leon (53:44):
What are you demanding? And two things to your point about funding and HBCUs, the HBCUs in Maryland won a case against the Maryland government for not properly funding those HBCUs. As the state had funded, the predominantly white institutions went all the way to Maryland Supreme Court and the schools won. The Republican governor, Larry Hogan refused to give them the money that the court awarded and forced those institutions to negotiate a lower number. I don't remember what the numbers were off the top of my head, but
Shantella Sherman (54:33):
What? Yes, sir. What again? The exact same thing happened in Mississippi. And that's why I said that was the heirs desegregation case. And it was the exact same thing. The money that came down to fund the Mississippi schools, they gave the HBCUs less money when they disseminated. And it was like, okay, Mississippi won the HBCUs won the case, but the content, the little fine print said, we are going to give you the money, but now you are required at this point to add 10% of your population needs to be minority on a black campus that's not black students. And they said, we can pull in some Africans and some people that still fit. No, you need to have some white students on this campus now. So that was the quote. That's how they got around it. And it was like, wow, these are the nasty tricks that I'm talking about. And so if it happened in Mississippi and it's happened in Maryland, where else is this happening? Can I get leadership to understand this is how you tie black hands behind the backs of citizens that actually want to go to school.
Wilmer Leon (55:45):
Final thing, symbolism. And again, I'm getting back to ethnicity and cultural identity as it relates to Vice President Harris. And I'm not picking on her, she just is the poster child of this in the moment because there's an awful lot of symbolism that is being used here. And again, they rather be symbolic than talk about substantive policy output.
Shantella Sherman (56:22):
The symbolism goes to the heart of the nation. Whose nation is it? Whose America is it that's which one of the presidents?
Wilmer Leon (56:39):
Well, you mean we want, we want, oh
Shantella Sherman (56:41):
No, no, Coolidge, Calvin Coolidge. Okay, whose country is it anyway? And so you literally, you're having white Americans say, this is ours and we've allowed you to be here,
Wilmer Leon (56:56):
Tom Tancredo, and we want, and the Tea Party, which was the precursor to Donald Trump. We want our country back.
Shantella Sherman (57:06):
So again, but how have you lost it?
Wilmer Leon (57:09):
Who has it? Because I don't have it. Tom Tan credo. If you're listening, if you're watching, I don't have your country.
Shantella Sherman (57:18):
And again, so that's how you start again. You're going to see an explosion of language about women having babies and birth control and all this. And again, it's this. They're having natal conferences once or twice a year where people are talking about we need to get the country back. And getting the country back means we need white women to have babies and they're not having them. And so based on that alone, any white female who's out here supporting Donald Trump and all of these policies, they don't necessarily understand what you're about to do is send yourself back into the house because there's a good white man that needs the job that you're sitting in. You need to be producing babies bottom line. And if you're not, you serve no purpose. Now to the nation, that is a Hitler esque thing, but Hitler got it from us. So that is a Francis Galton thing.
Wilmer Leon (58:11):
In fact, thank you very much because you and I had talked about that Francis Galton father of modern eugenics, there's a book Control the Dark History and troubling present of Eugenics just by Adam Rutherford. Talk about Francis Galton and talk about Adam Rutherford's book.
Shantella Sherman (58:32):
Just the idea First Rutherford's book is an amazing examination. I think that it's something that pulls together a lot of the research from different spaces and different years and to synthesize it the way he has it makes it make sense to the average person, which is critical at this point. It's not talking above folks head. So you get to the critical analysis of we need these birthing numbers. Statisticians started coming in and Galton is right here in the middle of this. And you have the eugenics record office who are literally charting birth rates and they're trying to figure out with immigration, emancipated black people. And then you end up with Chinese people and all these other folks that are coming in. And then you start having women who decide they're not going to stay at home. These rates matter and they have mattered for the last 150 years because whoever has the birth numbers, when we start talking politics, these are voting blocks.
(59:32)And if I can put you under duress, if I can incarcerate you and then tell you based on the fact that you're in prison, you are no longer a citizen, so you are not able to vote because you have a felony charge. That is a reality for those black men who are huddled in prisons. But the other part of that reality is that because during the reproductive height of their lives, they're in prison, it means that they're not reproducing children. And so there's a duality to having black men and Spanish men and locked into these prisons and degenerate white men. We don't want babies from them anyway.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:08):
And the fastest growing cohort in prisons are women.
Shantella Sherman (01:00:13):
And when the women go into the prisons, they are automatically taken before what used to be the sterilization board. They're given a physical examination. If you're a black woman, a Spanish woman, and you have fibroids, they're going to tell you, we're not going to manage your fibroids while you're here. We're just going to recommend that you have a hysterectomy. Or they may not even tell you. So great documentary Belly of the Beast looks at the California state Penitentiary system and they're just ad hoc deciding to sterilize black and Spanish women without their consent and without their knowledge because they said, once we open you up, it's easier just to go ahead and snip you than to worry about having to pay for your children, either ending up in prison, being slow and retarded mentally having to go to special schools or having to pay through the welfare system because they're not normal. Because you're not normal. You're breeding criminals. And so we have to look at these things. I think Rutherford did a great job, but Galton has been talking about, he started talking about this when he coined the phrase, we were already talking about this and the black bodies on plantations started this whole, let's check the women's bodies and see what they can manage and hold as far as their fecundity, as far as they're being able to breed the next crop of Americans.
Wilmer Leon (01:01:28):
Are those eugenic practices relative to women of color in California? Prisons still going on as you and I are speaking right now.
Shantella Sherman (01:01:38):
Absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (01:01:40):
So our vice president, Kamala Harris, who is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee is from Berkeley, was the DA in San Francisco, was the attorney general in the state of California, was the senator from California. I haven't heard anybody ask her this question.
Shantella Sherman (01:02:05):
I have not heard anyone ask
Wilmer Leon (01:02:10):
Anybody
Shantella Sherman (01:02:10):
Elected official. You've only had the Congressman Ell from North Carolina who got reparations for folks who had been sterilized, many of them black in North Carolina. He's since passed away. Virginia asked that people come forward if they had been sterilized, but people couldn't come forward because they didn't know they'd been sterilized. You took them in and told them that they had an appendicitis. So they didn't know that the reason why they didn't produce children is because when they went into the hospital, you decided to do a hook and crook on 'em. They didn't know. So based on just that information, you have very few people in the state of Virginia to come forward and to receive the money. California is now offering some reparations to folks. But if you're in those penal systems, it's still going on. You don't have control over your body.
Wilmer Leon (01:03:08):
And I want to be very clear to say, I'm not for those that just heard me ask that question and Wilmer, why are you blaming her for this? I'm not. I'm saying I haven't heard anyone ask her this question again because it's not about her. It's about us. And what are we as a political constituency? What are we going to do? What are we going to demand? What are we going to get if we are responsible for putting her in office, which everybody says Democrats can't win without black people.
Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
Okay,
Wilmer Leon (01:03:56):
All right.
Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
Again, I think that she would make an amazing president again. I simply want to know what her policies are. I want to know how she's going to fight against and how she's sizing up her time in office. And that's what I want to hear from her. That's it.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:19):
Dr. Chantel Sherman, I am so appreciative of you joining me today, as always, dear. Thank you. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
Thank you. Anytime,
Wilmer Leon (01:04:29):
Folks, thank you all so much for listening and watching the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon, and my brilliant, brilliant friend and guest, Dr. Chantel Sherman. Stay tuned for new episodes each week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Follow me on social media. You can find all the links below to the show there. And remember, folks, that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis is just chatter. And you can tell by this, we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you all again next time. Until then, I am Dr. Wier Leon. Have a great one. Peace.
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Biden is Out, but who Decides Kamala Harris is in?
25 Jul· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Wilmer Leon (00:00):
I am back. I'm back. I went to what I'm calling Cult Fest 2024, also known as the RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That was a site to behold. But with all that said, president Joe Biden has decided not to pursue a second term for 2024. Without a primary, without an open process, vice President Kamala Harris has quickly become the Democrat's. Presumptive nominee. Is this democracy or a Bernie Sanders? Redo. Stay tuned. We're going to answer those questions,
Announcer (00:41):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:49):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they are current, a vacuum failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur, thus enabling you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue before us is the 2024 presidential election and how the Democrats are selecting their nominee. My guest is Tom Porter. He's a lifelong activist and scholar, former dean of the African-American Studies Department at Ohio University, former director of the King Center in Atlanta, former host of morning conversations with Tom Porter. Tom Porter. Welcome back to podcast, my brother.
(01:57)So Tom, as I said in the open President, Joe Biden has decided not to pursue a second term for 2024 without a primary, without an open process. Vice President Kamala Harris has quickly become the Democrat's presumptive nominee. I believe she has now amassed the requisite delegates in order to become officially the nominee on July 8th. Clinton advisor, James Carville, who is one tricky, somebody wrote a piece entitled Biden Won't Win, Democrats need a Plan. Here's one wherein he wrote, the Jig is Up, and the sooner Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders accept this, the better we need to move forward. But it can't be by anointing Vice President, Kamala Harris or anyone else as the presumptive democratic nominee. We've got to do it in the open, the exact opposite of what Donald Trump wants us to do. Tom, it doesn't appear, at least at this point that the Dems are listening to Carville
Tom Porter (03:09):
And they shouldn't.
Wilmer Leon (03:10):
Okay?
Tom Porter (03:11):
And they shouldn't. I remember the most important black labor leader in the country came out of a meeting with Clinton Carville and Al from, and he said, Tom, they're a bunch of fascists. It is the Clinton Wing that took over the Democratic Party under the leadership of the Democratic Leadership Conference, which was made of Southern governors, which has gotten the Democratic Party in trouble ever since. And what that means is that CarVal didn't want Kamala Harris. That's what that means. It had nothing to do with the open process and what have you. He would know open if he had a can opener,
Wilmer Leon (03:58):
But to his point about an open process, because further on in that piece, he talks about Clinton and Obama selecting, I think it was eight potential nominees, and that they needed to have regional town halls where these individuals would travel the country explaining their policies, introducing themselves to the electorate, and then based upon that, an individual would be, I think the term was selected, Tom.
Tom Porter (04:30):
Well, the effect of it is one of the things that Jesse Jackson and the Jackson campaign of 1984 is instructive and people should study that more. What Jesse found out that even though he was leading the other presidential candidates, that the rules of the Democratic party was stacked against him. It was called front loading. So for CarVal, they throw the word around democracy. First of all, the America's never been a democracy. It was born in slavery, genocide of Native Americans, and still the land from the Mexican. So the fact of it is it only had the possibility of becoming a democracy, and it has yet to come there. So what car is talking about it seems very, very interesting. But he crow controls the process, controls the day, and I'll guarantee you that Clinton and CarVal and that bunch are not going to have any kind of process that they don't control. And so it may look like it. I mean, it looks like Biden was chosen. He was number four. How did he get past three candidates and become number one? It wasn't open process. And I tell you one thing carve out and nobody else said anything because he was their choice because they wanted to stop Bernie Sanders.
Wilmer Leon (05:52):
There are those who say that Joe Biden was selected not to defeat Donald Trump. Joe Biden was selected to defeat Bernie Sanders,
Tom Porter (06:03):
And you are absolutely right. And that is what they have done. They did it with Jesse in 84. The whole Jaime thing was just that a hoax. Jesse never said it in any kind of way that was demeaning towards the Jews, but the JDL disrupted interrupted Jesse's announcement when he announced that he was going to run for president and hounded us, us being me, Florence Tate and Jesse, who were three people called the road team. When Jesse first started running in 84, they hounded us to JDO every place we went. And before we got secret service protection, it was Farhan and the FOI that protected us. So they were after Jesse from the beginning. It's instructed for people to read the platform of the Rainbow Coalition because Jesse has had the most progressive populous campaign in the 20th century.
Wilmer Leon (07:00):
I'm glad you brought that up. This takes us a bit off topic, but I think it is relevant because James Clyburn and a group of African-American leadership went in and met with Biden a couple of weeks ago, and that's when Clyburn came out with the line, we Riding with Biden. And one of the things that I said as a result of that was, what did you get for that endorsement When you walked into the room and you sat down with Joe Biden, did you put your own project 2025 plan on the table and say, look, Joe, here's what we need. Here's what we want. Here's what we demand. You're going to sign this or we're going to go back out here and tell people that you just fell asleep in the meeting. I don't know what they got for that. And based upon the way that this whole thing has gone, it seems as though they were once again on the wrong side of history. So for you to say that people need to go back and read the plan from the Jackson campaign, and then we can even go back to the black political, the Gary Conference,
Tom Porter (08:15):
Gary Convention, that
Wilmer Leon (08:17):
There's enough data. Go ahead.
Tom Porter (08:19):
Those are two documents that people need to read. Not only read, but they need to update them. That is the agenda that came out of the Gary Convention and Jesse Jackson's platform. Not only was Jesse's platform the most advanced in 1984, when I left the university, I was looking for something to do, so I decided to run for Congress and Jackie Jackson called me Jesse's wife and said, Jesse wants to meet with you. And I was in Cincinnati running for Congress, and I went to Chicago, spent the night at Jesse's house the day before 1983, and that's when Jesse asked me if I would work with him in the campaign. But I ran for Congress in Ohio and I ran in two counties that were 99% white and blacks and white in Cincinnati, which was a big city, said, don't go out there, show your literature, but don't show your face. Long story short, Mondell was at the top of the ticket. I got 2000 more votes than he did in Brown County and a thousand more than he did in Claremont County. He was at the top of stick. He was supposed to ticket, he was supposed to help me. The fact of it is it was just as populism that got basically these working class, mostly Republican whites to get behind Jesse because of his platform. It was a very populous platform to the left. Trump came along with a populous platform from the
Wilmer Leon (09:52):
Right, from
Tom Porter (09:53):
The right. And so the Democratic Party, instead of embracing Jesse's platform, which came out of the Gary Convention, instead of embracing it, they moved the leadership of the Democratic Party to the Democratic Leadership Conference and hired all of Jesse's people and gave them jobs which are meaningless jobs, moved the structure from the party someplace else. But these Negroes became deputy. This deputy, I call their names, but I don't want to, some of my still call friends, but they drank the Kool-Aid. And if you read some of the press around Clinton and his crew Al from, and James Carve, one theme was We don't need Jesse Jackson anymore. They marginalized Jesse so much so that in the convention in New York, Jesse didn't have a VIP pass. He had to come through the door like everybody else. That's Clinton and his crew, and Nancy Pelosi and Clyburn and all of the Negroes come out of that. Obama's position was to negate the progress and the black leadership that had gone before he calling Dr. King a simple country preacher, he couldn't carry Dr. King's dirty underwear.
Wilmer Leon (11:12):
Well, in fact, wait a minute. First of all is that negating the negation is the one question. And to your point, you can go and read President Obama's acceptance speech at the Nobel where he talks about Dr. King and then says, but I'm an American president. I have a different set of concerns that I must address. You don't quote Dr. King and then say, yeah, but you say, yeah, yeah.
Tom Porter (11:43):
But his job was to negate the advances that had been made and our responsibility, and this is what this generation of young people, when Joe Biden has to pass the torch, but not pass the torch, the Hakeem Jeffries and that crew, we have to negate them, which is called a negation of the negation, which is an affirmation of something at a high level
Wilmer Leon (12:11):
Because two negatives make a positive.
Tom Porter (12:13):
That's right. That's right. And so getting back to where we are now, of course Kamala Harris was not chosen as a result of some democratic process, and one would not expect that coming from the Nancy Pelosi, bill Clinton and them. And so the responsibility of this generation of young people and young people have actually shown from the mass worldwide protests around the George Floyd lynching, Greta and Climate can change the mass protests around the war and Gaza, the mass women protests around the world. There's a new populism that is emerging. And if Kamala Harris does not pick somebody to be the vice president to the left of her, she may have problems.
Wilmer Leon (13:16):
Now, when you say to the left of her, that's a very, very interesting designation because there are many who will say she is the left, that she was the left to Biden. And by the way, folks, Tom mentioned the Democratic Leadership Council, Joe Biden was an instrumental part of that as well. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Joe Biden, they were all Nancy Pelosi. They were all part instrumental parts of moving the Democratic Party from the left. They want to say center, but it was actually to the right. So Tom, what do you say to those that say, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, Mr. Porter, vice President Harris, it's to the left of Joe Biden.
Tom Porter (14:03):
It wouldn't be difficult.
(14:07)I mean that's a distinction without a difference. They say Twi D and Twiddly dumb. She was as a black person, as a black person, she would have to be given the history that she is a part of, be the left of most white candidates. But at the same time, she was not on the left. And so for her to pick conventional wisdom is a bunch of Bs curse of all. Somebody's always been telling me, well, Tom, conventional wisdom or you don't understand real politics. I say, I'll tell you where you can go with both of those. So conventional wisdom says that she should pick somebody from a state that she needs a governor. The protests and the mass movements that are happening, the populous movements that are happening are to the left. And they're to the left because the Democratic party and the Republican party are so far to the right. But what used to be when we said left, we meant socialists or communism.
(15:28)But the left today is anything left of the Democrat or Republican parties. But if she is to, there are two things that I think that are important now. One is the platform. One is the platform. I mean, she's going to be the vice president, the president nominee. That's a foregone conclusion because any of these other people who want to jump up, they can't go anywhere. What's this guy out of? West Virginia said that he was thinking about running, right? The base. Yeah. The base of the Democratic party is black and growing Hispanic, and he's not going to get any votes from them. And so for him to say that he might run and they know it. They know it. And that's why they use Clyburn in 2020 who just as he said, we riding with Biden, we know Joe and Joe know us. I mean some of that old coon foolishness. So they know they can't move without black folks. But the same time they hoping that they got other cly burns
Wilmer Leon (16:45):
And they know they can't move without black folks, but they never offer substantive legislation to demonstrate a commitment because for as much as they know they can't move without us. They don't want to appear to the broader demographic that they're with us.
Tom Porter (17:11):
Well, the fact of it is if they were true and honest, Jesse Jackson would've become leader of the Democratic Party just like Trump did. Obama could have become the leader of the Democratic Party, but that wasn't his job. His job was to look good. He and his wife while doing nothing, my daughter sent me a magazine cover the other day where Obama was on there, and it was something about the new generation of Kool. He was supposed to be the replacement for Miles Davis and Malcolm X, all of the black people. We considered to be cool just because they taught him how to dress and walk black and he could shoot a basketball. So he did not want to be head of the Democratic party. He liked his job. He had barbecues and all kind of black folks in the White House, and they line dance and did what they did, and then he came out and did nothing. So the key thing now for the Democrats, if they want to win, I wasn't going to vote for Joe Biden anyway, and I already said it, and anybody that co-signs what he did in Gaza, he could be running against the devil and I wouldn't vote for him or the devil, so I wasn't going to vote for him.
(18:38)Kamala Harris, black people going on the glory, they went on the glory with Jesse Jackson. They went on the glory with Barack Obama because black people feel their late nationalism that when we get somebody black, we'll get a better deal if we get somebody white. But as they say, you might be my race, but you're not always my taste. But they're excited about Kamala Harris. They're all this money and black women on Facebook are putting on with camera. I don't have a problem with that. The problem is what's going to be the platform and is she going to choose somebody to the left of her a more populous candidate? Because if she's not going to do that, then what are we talking about more the same? And the other thing that the Democratic Party has to do in the new world that we live in, they've got to loosen the grips that the Israeli lobby has on the party.
Wilmer Leon (19:38):
What about, I want to quickly go back to the issue with the African-American women and this proclamation or this statement, this sentiment that Vice President Harris has earned the right to be the vice president. And that any attempt to either have a more open process or anything that might challenge that is a threat to black women, it's a threat to black womanhood. Your thoughts on these politics, this whole identity politics thing, because she's a black woman, now all of a sudden is hands off.
Tom Porter (20:24):
Yeah, I understand that sentiment, but I understand it. It's like with Obama, we knew we questioned Obama, but the black women said that Michelle would keep him in line. Remember that?
Wilmer Leon (20:42):
Oh yeah.
Tom Porter (20:43):
They said,
Wilmer Leon (20:44):
Because Michelle we're from Chicago. And when she said that, I said, oh, we got some straight gangsters up in this joint. We got some
Tom Porter (20:52):
Elkins. But it was also because she was darker
Wilmer Leon (20:56):
Than
Tom Porter (20:56):
Obama. And even though Obama himself said he was a mu mother, he was sure about one thing, and he really wasn't black. He was clear about that. So I understand the sentiment, but everything else in our politics we've got to be serious about.
Wilmer Leon (21:20):
Not sentimental.
Tom Porter (21:22):
Not sentimental. That's what Dr. King said and his great thing about power, he said love without power. He said, power without love is reckless, but love without power is weak, sentimental an anemic. And so I understand that everybody wants to see somebody. I'd like to see short guys run the world. I'm five six. Nobody's deeper than that.
Wilmer Leon (21:53):
No, Tom, it's taller than that.
Tom Porter (21:57):
You're absolutely right. So I understand the sentiment, but that's the reason why I tell people that you must study deeper. You can't be all form and no content because then you end up saying that Michelle is darker than Obama and therefore she'll keep him in line. They were both like Clinton and Hillary, which was their role model, latter Day Bunny and Clyde's. So I understand that sentiment, but unless they turn it into something, unless they talk about the platform, what is the platform going to look like? What is camera going to run on? I mean, I see her quietly distance herself from Netanyahu's visit. She's going to be in Indiana, but then she's going to secretly meet with him. It's not so much a secret. So we've got to be, these are very, very serious times. And as they say in my neighborhood in Ohio, now's not the time to be nut rolling. So these are very, very serious times. And so when we look at passing the torch, who are we passing the torch to? Not Hakeem Jeffries, not the rest of these niggas, Roland Martin, they're all getting in line. They're getting in line without even discussing the platform.
Wilmer Leon (23:26):
Well, first of all, could Kamala Harris get away with not meeting with Netanyahu, understanding the power of apac, not meet with Netanyahu and still win the election?
Tom Porter (23:42):
I think she could.
Wilmer Leon (23:43):
Okay.
Tom Porter (23:44):
I don't think, see, APAC has never been challenged,
(23:49)And APAC represents that group in the Jewish community who attempts to control everything that they can, particularly in the black community, whether you're talking about the music, the culture, or what have you got to say it. We got to say it because if we don't say it, then we allow ourselves to be chumped. And the fact of it is, is that it's got to be challenged and she won't, but she can challenge it by who she picks and what the platform's going to be. In apacs power is basically through the media, the media and its money. It's not the numbers that they have that can put a candidate in office except maybe in New York City, but she won't. But that has to happen. We cannot allow a group of people to control significant aspects of our community and not say something about it.
Wilmer Leon (24:58):
Wait a minute. And to that point, to those that listening to this conversation, want to jump on the antisemitism train and accuse us of being antisemitic, APAC said, and you can go back and look it up in the newspaper, they were going to invest 100 million into the Democratic primary process to be sure that they would unseat or prevent from winning candidates whose politics were to the left, and that they deemed to be anti-Israel. That's not us making this up. That's them making the declaration. All we're doing is highlighting and calling your attention to what they said. So we're not making this up.
Tom Porter (25:51):
I let those kinds of conversations roll off my back that you anti-Semitic, the same way when somebody says, if we get into disagreement and the first thing they go to is you got a Napoleonic complex. And my answer to that, would I be wrong if I was tall? So you can't be afraid of all these things because they going to come at you anyhow. I said to Jesse, when the ING thing came up, I said, man, just don't cop to that. And some of the people who were around him told him to cop to that. It was the biggest mistake that he ever made because they never heard him said it, and he never said it in a derogatory way. About, on the other hand, in our first meeting in New York, Percy Sutton met us before we were supposed to meet with the Jewish leaders of New York with a yako on his head telling us how we had to talk and act in front of the Jews in New York. So look, I don't pay any attention to that. We have to challenge, we have to cash all checks when it comes to us. And it has to be a Pan-African perspective where we really, where the continent and blacks in the new world. We've got to challenge those things that oppress us because if not in this serious time, Trump them are going for all of the marbles.
Wilmer Leon (27:18):
Yes, they are. I mean,
Tom Porter (27:19):
They're going for all of the marvels, and there's enough Democrats, white Democrats who will side with that stuff. Because quite frankly, where we are right now, in order to solve the world's problems, we have to understand two things. Who's been in charge of the world for the last 400 years? White men look at the state of the world. They forfeited the right to run the world, but you're not going to give up just because you enslaved. A bunch of people stole the land from the Native Americans. If we give up, we'd have to give up what we got. It's too bad, but we not giving that up. And that's what trumped them. That's what Hitler was riding on. That's what Trump didn't riding on. We don't want to give. Democracy is what it means to pay reparations, give some of the land back to the neighborhood. What the hell with democracy? That's what they're saying.
Wilmer Leon (28:13):
I want to quickly go back to your point about challenging APAC and other type of organizations, and I want to tie it to what's going on in Gaza now nine months into that conflict. And the Zionist government of Israel has been taken a ass whooping for nine months straight. And so this whole mythology of the invincibility of the IDF, that they're this phenomenal military force and they're getting their ass whooped. And so the whole mythology behind this thing is being exposed. And so just as it's being exposed there, it's being exposed here. The question is, are we willing to do what we have to do to challenge that mythology in alliance with those that are fighting in Gaza? Does that make sense?
Tom Porter (29:12):
Sure, it makes sense. Well, the fact of it is, given the geopolitical alignment in the world today with China and Russia and Brazil and different formations coming together, even the EU who has been lockstep with Israel, the eu, it can no longer hold to that position because without Africa, Europe is broke in terms of the resources. And so the Israel, where it appears to be winning because of the devastation that it is reaping on the Palestinian people, there will be a reckoning, and it's coming slow, but it is coming even among the evangelicals who say that the rapture will come when Israel is safe and secure within its borders, and then Israel will be destroyed.
Wilmer Leon (30:12):
Look at Yemen. Look at what Yemen has been able to extract or the force that they've been able to exact upon in terms of their involvement in this process. A small Yemen is considered to be the poorest country in the world. They control the Red Sea. They're sending missiles 1200, 1400 miles across Saudi Arabia and decimating important ports that Israel controls. The whole dynamic is shifting. So with that, when you look, you've talked about the platform. I remember when the platform committee meetings used to be broadcast on television, and I used to sit and listen to 'em. I know I need to get a life, but I used to sit and listen to 'em. That's not happening anymore. So how does a candidate, Harris, what type of platform does she articulate having sat there for years while the Biden administration is involved in genocide, while the Biden administration has wasted trillions of dollars in Ukraine, how does she formulate a platform that takes us away from that failed, attempted world domination and moves us closer to the direction that the world is actually going as in bricks in the South and the Chinese?
Tom Porter (31:47):
Well, as if we look at the Middle East,
Wilmer Leon (31:52):
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is what I was trying to get to. Go
Tom Porter (31:55):
Ahead. If we look at the Middle East,
Wilmer Leon (31:59):
Is that a reasonable question to
Tom Porter (32:01):
Ask? Not only is a reasonable question to ask, but it's a reasonable question to expect that it be answered. You can't allow a small country in the Middle East, which was settled by people who were not from, that had no connection to the original inhabitants of the Middle East to control the future of the Western world women. There's a movie called Rollover, and this was when the Arabs dominated the money thing through it started Kris Christoff and James Fonder and the Greenspan character played by Hume Cronin. At one point, the Arabs were not going to roll over the money, and Hume Cronin said, you are playing with the end of the world. That's where we're at. You can't allow a group of people since Jesus time to control your system in the way that these people do, because it won't work with people talking about if they leave the dollar,
Wilmer Leon (33:26):
Which they are doing,
Tom Porter (33:28):
Which they're doing, somebody else loses their influence because there's nothing back in the dollar to begin with talking
Wilmer Leon (33:38):
About other than more dollars.
Tom Porter (33:38):
Yeah, talking about only a paper Moon
Wilmer Leon (33:45):
And Tom, people really need to understand for it because it's not really being articulated here in the Western media. Again, the power of the bricks, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and now about seven or eight other countries have joined the organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those two as quiet as is kept in the West man, they kicked the French out of Niger. You look at the development of the Sahel cooperation organization, man, they are kicking ass and taking names. They are finally moving beyond flag independence, and they are now actually taking control of their economies and they are taking control of their countries and they are kicking the west out.
Tom Porter (34:42):
The Palestinian leadership met for two days in Beijing. I mean the world, one of the most popular soap operas used to be. As the world turns
Wilmer Leon (34:55):
In daily city,
Tom Porter (34:58):
The world is turning. And quite frankly, it's turning away. Not so much from the West, but from the ways of the West. And they don't get it. They don't get it. You can't put sanctions on the whole world without putting sanctions on yourself. You can't tell people they can't come to America, and you'd be welcome in Panama and Costa Rica and Brazil. It doesn't work like that. Or you'd be welcome in Africa. It doesn't really work like that. You tell the people they can't come. Well, clues the borders work both ways. We can open 'em and close, and you can't. I mean, the policies are so stupid in the West. I mean, it's almost particularly in the United States because they have sold this white nationalism for so long, they'd actually believe it themselves. The world is going on without them.
Wilmer Leon (35:52):
And to their point, I'm looking up here seeing if I could put my hands on it, but I can't quickly, Dr. Ron Walters wrote a book a while ago, white nationalism, black Interests, and I strongly suggest that people get ahold of it. To your point about the policy and the borders, which they say that the Biden administration put Kamala Harris in charge of the borders. I was at the RNC and this woman, Latinos for Trump is who I was talking to. And she was talking about the border, the border. The Democrats have just, I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. You are not even talking about the American foreign policy in these countries that is decimating their economies and forcing these people to leave their countries to come here. And she looked at me very puzzled and quizzical, and I said, lemme give you an example. Chiquita Banana last week was convicted in federal court in Florida of having sponsored death squads in Guatemala. So Chiquita Banana, a US corporation is killing Guatemalans, torturing Guatemalans. And that isn't motivation for them to leave their countries. She didn't even want to touch that, didn't want to
Tom Porter (37:18):
Touch it. I mean, it's very interesting that Trump would say that the people who are coming across the border are taking jobs from blacks and Latinos. Who does he think are coming across the border?
Wilmer Leon (37:33):
Oh, I asked her about Haitians. I said, the United States. Thank you. Hakeem Jeffries, thank you Kamala Harris, thank you. Linda Thomas Greenfield, the United States is trying to rein invade Haiti. Where are the Haitians supposed to go?
Tom Porter (37:51):
I mean, the fact of it is we have got to make sure and say to anybody that says that they represent us. Hakeem Jeffries, John Clyburn, governor
Wilmer Leon (38:06):
Gregory, Gregory
Tom Porter (38:06):
Meeks. Gregory Meeks, that if you're going to represent us, this is the platform brother. I mean, you had Hakeem Jeffries and Jonathan Jackson down here in Maryland supporting the guy from that owns Total Wine and Liquorice who was running for Senator Now, I dunno,
Wilmer Leon (38:28):
David Tron.
Tom Porter (38:29):
Yeah. And also Brooke. I didn't have no dogging hunt. But how do you come down here in this neighborhood and you support a white candidate who was no more distinguished than Officer Brook for what? Well, I know what Johnson Jackson did. He's in the same business. He's a liquor distributor and by man owns Total Wine. But I understand that he paid off some of Hakeem Jeffries and John campaign debts. So I don't know. But that's not representing us. You're not representing us if you're not on the side of the Palestinians. If you don't believe in the two state
Wilmer Leon (39:10):
Solution,
Tom Porter (39:11):
You're not representing us. If you don't understand what's happening in Africa or Haiti or Cuba, 70% of the people in Cuba of African descent. So you putting sanctions on your own people, you can't be co-signing that. And we got to say this, we got to negate the negation. We, as Margaret Walker said, let a new race of men and women rise and take control. That's what time it is.
Wilmer Leon (39:38):
So how do we get the presumptive right now, democratic nominee, Kamala Harris as a woman of color, as a multi-ethnic woman, Jamaican and Indian, how do we get her to speak to those issues?
Tom Porter (40:02):
First of all, we got to energize the black community because they're counting on that. And we've got to say to black women, these are the issues that we think, and there are black women who agree with us. These are the issues that we think that are important to the black community, and we need to have townhouses. We got to not only reenergize our black community, but we need to reenergize a movement because the struggle's not over. And we've got to put before, we can't just say that Kamala, you black, and therefore whatever you do is cool because it's not cool.
Wilmer Leon (40:45):
But that's the narrative right now, we are so ecstatic, and I'm speaking in the global, we are so ecstatic now that she is in this presumptive position and they are saying that she has earned the right to be there simply because she's black, because she's a woman and because she's been the VP for four years. But when you go back to when she ran for the number one slot, she was the first one out the race. She had zero delegates. She got less than 5% of the vote. Black people didn't even vote for her. Wait a minute. And final point, Tulsi Gabbard torched her ass in 45 seconds. And folks, I ain't hating. I'm just putting out the data, Tom.
Tom Porter (41:39):
Well, I mean she's earned the right as much as anybody else, but that's not really saying anything.
Wilmer Leon (41:46):
Okay?
Tom Porter (41:47):
It's not ever saying anything. The question is, now you here and this is what we're saying.
Wilmer Leon (41:52):
So what you going to do?
Tom Porter (41:53):
Yeah, this is what we're saying. We already went through Obama with this stuff and see, we got to quit accepting this notion of the first black to do this. The only reason why, I mean, you take the question of black quarterbacks. The only reason why there were no black quarterbacks in the NFL until there were some had absolutely nothing to do with. There were black quarterbacks, quarterback at junior high, black high schools and colleges ever since. There were some. And so the fact that you decide to let us in don't have anything to do with it because we've earned the right, we've earned the right. Our ancestors paid the price for us to be any damn thing. We want to be in this country. But now, if you're going to represent us, this is what we need at this point. And if you can't do that, it's okay. Do like Biden did go sit next to him while he's fishing, but we have got to have more programs like this. Too many people are not rolling in the press. You have people who, when I was in radio, well, you got to do both sides. There's no good side to slavery. I'm not even going to attempt that one so
Wilmer Leon (43:04):
Well. In fact, Tom, I've always, particularly when I started talking about Palestine, and I'd get calls from Jewish listeners who would tell me that I'm not balanced. And I said, no, I'm not trying to be balanced. I'm the counterbalance. Because anything that the positions that you want to articulate in the narrative that you want to hear, you get it in the Washington Post, you get it in the New York Times, you get it in the LA Times, you get it on M-S-N-B-C-I-A, you get it on CNN all day every day. So I don't have to present that because it's already presented. I'm the counter to that. And I think I got that from you, by the
Tom Porter (43:46):
Way. Well, it's very, very interesting. I was watching the BBC yesterday and the BBC hosts was saying, Kamala Harris is black and Asian, as if these would become factors. And she had an affair with Willie Brown. I mean, first of all, she's running against the cat who's damn near serial rapist
Wilmer Leon (44:12):
And admitted as such.
Tom Porter (44:14):
But then nobody mentioned that JD Vance's wife was Indian. Nobody talked about Nikki Haley being Indian. It only comes up with his black people
Wilmer Leon (44:29):
Who I talked to at the convention and was an empty can just full of talking points. Go ahead.
Tom Porter (44:38):
And so we going have to, the black community is going to have to defend her even if she doesn't want us to defend her because they coming at her.
Wilmer Leon (44:49):
Oh, no question.
Tom Porter (44:50):
They're coming at her and somebody's going to slip up and use the N word.
Wilmer Leon (44:56):
In fact, when I was at the convention, I was on the floor right after they nominated JD Vance, and that whole process ended the day session. I'm doing my standup with the convention floor in the background. And this other news entity had allowed us to use their standup space. And as I'm wrapping up, I say, I find it interesting that a guy who just three years ago was telling America that Donald Trump was the next thing to add off. Hitler is now going to be standing next to this add off Hitler as his vp. I said, how does that happen? And when I said that, the guy who allowed us to use his space came up and said, you guys got to go. You guys got to go. And we said, well, wait a minute. So anyway, but I raised all that to say that question. I'm not hearing many people ask, JD Vance said that Donald Trump was the next thing to Hitler, and he's now standing next to his Hitler.
Tom Porter (46:13):
Well, I say this about JD Vance and I put it on Facebook that he is either the white version of the Spook who sat by the door or he is the opportunist of the highest order. And I think it's probably a combination
Wilmer Leon (46:28):
Of nation of the two.
Tom Porter (46:29):
Yes, yes, yes. And I think Trump may be a little bit concerned now because Trump is in hot water because people don't like him now. They tolerate him. You think Mitch McConnell lacks Trump?
Wilmer Leon (46:44):
No. Oh, well see, in fact, I'm glad you said that because my advice to the Democrats right now is just put together a clip, a montage of JD Vance, of Little Marco Rubio of what's the dude from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, all of these folks who were, most of whom were sitting in Trump's box last week at Cult Fest 2024, which is also called the RNC Convention, put a montage of them, of Lindsey Graham saying, he's a narcissist, he's a bigot, he's an idiot. All of those put all that language Cruz, all the folks that were in that box kissing his butt. They need to tell the truth.
Tom Porter (47:40):
And at the same time, the Democrats, they've got some work to do. Oh, where do you think all of those people who were supporting Bernie Sanders in 2020, it's one thing for Bernie Sanders to be with the party, but those people, that's the reason why I said if she doesn't really pick a populous candidate as Vice President running mate, or if the platform is not one that is of a populous nature, she's got serious problems.
Wilmer Leon (48:12):
Those former Bernie people are part of that new crew called the Dual Haters. They're part of that new crew that is saying, we don't want either of these buffoons talking about Biden and talking.
Tom Porter (48:25):
And the fact of it is a significant number of the American people didn't want either one of 'em either. Correct. It was the press and the polls. And I say to people that polls are designed to shape and mold public opinion not to reflect the truth of public opinion. And of course, the other thing that nobody's ever, we haven't looked at, who are these people in the press? How many of them are actually Republicans? I know Lester Ho is Now, I'm not saying he's a Trump, but I'm just simply saying, because the press has been very, very lack in covering Trump. I mean, he lies. They never say that he lied. We are going to fact check him. Why don't you just say he lied about this? He lied about that. That's, that's the operative word. He lied.
Wilmer Leon (49:21):
In fact, I'm glad you brought up the polls because that part of the conversation got away from me for a minute because, and I know that the whole issue with Kamala now has just surfaced. So current polling hasn't taken place yet and hasn't been analyzed. But when you go back to, in looking at the numbers, you go to real clear politics. Trump at 58.4, Kamala Harris at 32.9. Now she has gained traction over the last couple of days, but still 58.4 to 32.9, that's not where you want to be with four months out from the election.
Tom Porter (50:14):
Yeah, but I think she has ignored the polls. I remember again.
Wilmer Leon (50:18):
Oh, absolutely.
Tom Porter (50:18):
Absolutely. I remember, again, traveling with Jesse and Negroes always ask these questions. They don't ask these questions. And they said, well, let's face it Jesse Jackson, you can't win Reverend Jackson. You got no organization, all this kind of stuff. And at that time, it was seven candidates in the race, and Jesse said, I'm number three, at least four other candidates that'd like to have my place. And so I think she has to ignore the polls because the polls are all part of the establishment, and they got a dog in the, and what's on the agenda now? What's on the agenda now is whether or not capitalism can in fact solve depressing problems that are facing the world today. And I would say that it can't. And so then what is the solution? I mean, I'm not saying that I have a solution, but I can say, what ain't the solution because it hasn't worked.
(51:19)And therefore we got to be trying something new with some new people. And so the changing of the guard and the passing of the baton includes the passing away from white men, the same white men that who've been running the world, and the same white women who've been aligned with them. The passing of the church means that we got to not go with these Negro leaders who've been appointed, but to find our own leaders and to elect our own leaders, and the ones that don't do what we want 'em to do, we punish them by not electing them. Again,
Wilmer Leon (51:54):
Final question to you then. As you look at Kamala Harris as the presumptive nominee, I've been saying it can't work by just changing the messenger and not changing the message.
Tom Porter (52:12):
Oh, absolutely.
Wilmer Leon (52:13):
Go ahead, Tom Porter.
Tom Porter (52:14):
I mean, absolutely. We've already been there before. We've been there with Obama. Obama had, in the first term, he had the House and the Senate. He did nothing. And so we can't just change the message, the messenger or be satisfied that the messenger looks like us. We can't have got the demand and insist that people who represent us at whatever level, they represent us from the city council to the Congress and what have you, that if you're going to represent us, represent us. And if you not get the hell out the way,
Wilmer Leon (52:55):
But Tom, so what do you say to those AKAs that are ski win and doing the electric slide behind Kamala Harris and saying, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that now. Oh, no, no, no. You can't say that now because you can't put that on her now because we have to get her elected. And if you play those cards now, you're going to put her in a very precarious position and we'll lose the opportunity to have the first woman as a president. So what do you say to them that will respond in that manner?
Tom Porter (53:30):
We don't need a first black woman president because she's black. It's like people who say people fought and died for the right to vote. That's a lie. I fought and I didn't die for the right to vote, not for the right to vote, but the right to vote for something and somebody that would represent me. And so as the old folks say, you might be my race, but you're not my taste unless you willing to do what the ancestors have done. The legacy that you've inherited is not a legacy of people who went along to get along. It's a legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer. It's the legacy of Dr. King. It's the legacy of SNC and Core. That's the legacy. And if you ain't in that legacy, then get the hell out the way. Whether you a KAI don't know nothing about Greek organizations because I'm gamma delta iota damn independent. But my point of it is, we could no longer listen to these kind of arguments. I mean, these arguments go slow, slow. They say go slow. I mean,
Wilmer Leon (54:43):
Yours will come by and by.
Tom Porter (54:45):
Yeah. But we are past that. The world is in a serious position. And last side, look, we're in the world whether we are talking about the environment, whether we are talking about violence in the street, whether we are talking about homelessness, whether we're talking about whatever we're talking about, black people are impacted about that. And if you ain't for that, then get back. And we have to say that. I mean, I have no problem with saying to people, including in my own family, now look, if you ain't going to do nothing, get the hell out the way. I mean, I say that to my daughters, my grandkids, my friends. If you ain't going to do 'em, don't come around me because that ain't my style. And my heroes were Dr. King and Malcolm X and Fannie Lou Hamer. They weren't AKAs or Deltas. We didn't care nothing about any of that. And some progressive people were part of those organizations. But we can't, if she can't get elected on a platform that's a progressive platform than how is she going to govern as a progressive.
Wilmer Leon (56:02):
I want to thank my guests, brother Tom Porter. Man, thank you so much for joining me today.
Tom Porter (56:10):
It's been a pleasure, brother.
Wilmer Leon (56:12):
Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon and Tom Porter. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow me. Follow us on social media. You can find all the links to the show below in the description below. And remember, folks, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here. Unlike a whole lot of folks, we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. I'm going to see you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
Announcer (57:05):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Covering the Conventions
4 Jul· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Announcer (00:06):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:15):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. There's a lot that's been going on this week. Both Biden and Trump failed to deliver during the so-called debate. Biden's obvious cognitive decline captured the news cycle over Trump's obvious racism, lying, and failure to demonstrate a command of the subject matter. After that horrific display by President Biden, Democrats are now scurrying around like rats on a sinking ship trying to decide if they need to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic called the Biden Harris campaign. Vice President Harris is angry that her name is not at the top of the list of potential Democratic party options to replace Biden. She has her surrogates now out and about asking if that's due to the Democratic Party elite not wanting a black woman at the top of the ticket. Well, that's true. Dems don't want a black woman at the top of the ticket, but that's not her problem.
(01:24)Her problem is wait for it, wait for it. Her. She didn't get 4% of the vote when she ran in 2020 and she was the first candidate out of the primaries on the Democrat side. African-Americans didn't even vote for her. Folks can't understand what she's talking about because she is the sous chef of the word salad. Anyway, all of that to say I'm on my way to Milwaukee to cover the Republican Convention, so we're going to be away for the next two weeks when the convention starts. Go to politics in color.com for election coverage that will be relevant to you and to your interests and concerns. That's where you'll find me. You'll find me in Milwaukee streaming over politics in color.com. So as always, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week except for the next two because I'm going to be preparing for the Republican Convention in Milwaukee where you can find [email protected].
(02:35)Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review. Please, please share the show. Follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Go to Patreon and please make a contribution because these processes aren't cheap to get into. This is where the analysis of politics and history converge. Talk without analysis is just chatter and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you again in two weeks. Follow me on politics and color.com. Broadcasting live from the Republican Convention in Milwaukee. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Have a good one. Peace. I'm out
Announcer (03:26):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Julian Assange and the Cost of Truth: How WikiLeaks Changed the World
27 Jun· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!
Our guest this week, Steve Poikenon can be found at his website here.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Dr Leon (00:00):
Now, usually I start this part of the show with a question or a few questions, but today I have to make a statement. After 13 years of either being held up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Britain, or being in Belmar Prison in solitary confinement, Julian Assange walks free. Why does this matter what led the Biden administration to finally come to its senses and accept a deal? Why should this matter to you?
Announcer (00:42):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Dr Leon (00:49):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between the events and the broader historical context in which they take place. This enables you to gain a better understanding and to analyze events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode. The issue before us is what's the significance of WikiLeaks and what's the impact on the freedom of the press? My guest for today's conversation is the host of AM Wake Up and Slow Newsday, which you can watch live on Rock Fin and Rumble, and you can listen anywhere. Podcasts are served. Steve Poin and Steve, welcome.
Steve Poikenon (01:51):
Thank you very much, Wilmer. It's good to see you not on the radio,
Dr Leon (01:57):
Man. Well, I have the perfect face for radio from what they tell me, and it's great to see you to be able to put a face with a voice. We've been talking for a couple years now, and it's finally great to be able to put a face with a voice. So footage tweeted by WikiLeaks, I think Julian Assange's wife showed him walking up the stairs onto an aircraft bound for Sipan in the US administered Mariana Islands. He has agreed to plead guilty to one count under the espionage act of conspiracy to disseminate national defense information. Steve, what were your thoughts when you first heard the news that Julian Assange was free?
Steve Poikenon (02:44):
I was a little stunned. This is something that we've discussed on and off over the last couple of years, and certainly in the last couple of months there have been substantiated rumors that the Biden Justice Department was preparing some sort of plea deal, whether or not the Assange team was going to accept it. That was the thing that we didn't have any certainty about whatsoever. They obviously have gone forward with accepting the deal. He should be, at this point, touching down or walking into the courtroom in the Marianas Islands says a lot about the state of the US empire that we even have a district courthouse in the Mariana Islands. That's just wild to me to begin with, but from the best that I can tell, and Wilmer, you may correct me if I'm wrong, from the best that I can tell, there's nothing in the initial plea agreement that says Julian won't be allowed near a computer or won't be able to access the internet.
(03:51)Can't give speeches or interviews or can't have documentaries made about a situation. So by all accounts, up to this point, it appears that when he walks out of the courtroom later in the next couple of hours, he will be a legitimately free human being, and that is a win in and of itself. I'm a father. I can't imagine being taken away from my kids for making the US government angry and then having to know that they're growing up without me. And so the ability for him to take part in raising his own children, I think is the biggest godsend out of all of this. And then we can get into the implications and the impact that this is going to have on press freedom and citizen journalism and everything else going forward. But the huge win here is that he's no longer an inmate in the Guantanamo Bay of the United Kingdom where he was being held with the worst criminals on the island, having never once committed any crime of any sort of significance that would warrant that cell.
Dr Leon (05:12):
Do you have any idea in terms of why the Mariana Islands other than is the closest space that will enable him then to go from there to his home of Australia?
Steve Poikenon (05:25):
I think that was the ultimate deciding factor was proximity to Australia. It's not like the US can't construct a kangaroo court anywhere, and it's not like if they didn't have a different provisional, different courthouse, they wouldn't be going through the same sort of performative motions in the eyes of the Biden administration. I think the guilty plea is the thing that they were looking for, something that they could make at least a political, if not a legal for, and then also to not have it be an election issue going forward.
Dr Leon (06:04):
And from what I understand, this is not precedent setting because this was the result. This is the outcome of a plea deal. This did not actually come as the result of a trial.
Steve Poikenon (06:17):
If they would've gone to trial and evidence presented and a conviction was rendered and then upheld by a judge, then it would establish a legal precedent because he pled and pled out to time served for what he'd already done. The only thing that it can be used to set a precedent for is politically, or I guess emotionally or spiritually, where people are more hesitant to approach national security reporting or classified information, talk about it, disseminate any of that. And that is I think the real ultimate goal of not just the Biden administration, but the Trump administration and ultimately the Obama administration from where all of this stems is to redefine journalism in the future.
Dr Leon (07:10):
I want to read from the paragraph from the Washington Post as they reported out this story, Julian Assange's plea deal, sparks global celebration and condemnation reactions were divided as WikiLeaks. Julian Assange heads to a US Pacific territory to cement a plea deal that could soon set him free. WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange's tentative plea deal with the United States, which could soon bring an end to his years long international legal legal saga, drew celebration and criticism reflecting the divisive nature of his role in obtaining and publishing classified military and diplomatic documents. A couple of things. One is the condemnation side of this. The only folks that I can see that would be condemning this deal are people that are tied to the Trump administration, people that are tied to the Biden administration. I don't understand where they get this idea that there's all this divisiveness and condemnation.
Steve Poikenon (08:23):
There were the usual, the people you just spoke of, but Mike Pence was one of the loudest. There have been a number of former Trump administration officials and a number of former Obama administration intelligence apparatus and national security apparatus officials who have expressed distaste. This now and again, realize that to be opposed to this means you wanted to see a 50-year-old man, 51-year-old man get effectively tortured to death in a US prison for the rest of his life. That's what being in opposition to this effectively means. The reasoning behind it though is because information is currency. Assange and WikiLeaks were a broker of this information that wasn't part of the sanctioned club, and so Pompeo called them a hostile rogue intelligence agency, non-state intelligence agency. If you are viewed like that amongst the apparatus that's making the national security decisions, it doesn't matter what the end result is, if it's not your wholesale destruction, they're going to be displeased.
Dr Leon (09:43):
There's another paragraph. While Assange supporters saw him as a courageous whistleblower of government misdeeds, his critics saw him as a self-promoter oblivious to the harm that his leaks might cause, oblivious to the harm that his leaks might cause. There has not been one shred of evidence presented to show that any harm other than embarrassment by Hillary Clinton and some of the other government officials who were identified through these WikiLeaks releases, maybe their egos were damaged. But short of that, there's been no harm. WikiLeaks publication of the Afghan War logs did not obscure the names of Afghan civilians who provided information to the US military and omission that dismayed human rights groups and national security officials. Who are they talking about? Steve?
Steve Poikenon (10:49):
Okay, so when they say that the harm that they're talking about, it's not just their ego, it's their ability to continue to spy on their friends and allies that was harmed. It was the harm that was done by letting people know what the US government is doing with our tax dollars and our names. But Wim
Dr Leon (11:07):
Steve, it's not as though the allies did not know that they were being spied on. Remember what happened with Bill Clinton and Angela Merkel's? I think it was the Clinton administration and Angela Merkel's cell phone. I mean, it's not as though we don't know. We don't know Israel. It's not as though we don't know that Israel is spying on us. I mean, it's the game that they play.
Steve Poikenon (11:31):
It is the game that they play, but we're not supposed to know. And the rest of the diplomatic core is all that operates on the pretense and the fiction that it's not happening. That everybody's there to politely try to sort out the ills of the world and that all of the espionage going on in the background is never to be brought up. It doesn't have to stop. You just can't talk about it. If you bring it to light, then the whole operation gets blown up. And that's why WikiLeaks is parent company is called the Sunshine Press. The whole point of it is to bring it into the daylight, that kind of stance from a political point of view, from a journalistic point of view that's going to get you targeted, which is as we saw exactly what happened leading to 13 years of illegal and arbitrary detention.
(12:29)Just one quick point to what you were talking about though, when you see major press outlets come out now in defensive Assange, these are, and you had mentioned it, I think even this morning, some of these instant outlets that are reporting on it are outlets that shared the same information. Are these guys then going to look at the plea agreement and go, golly, if Julian Assange isn't being charged as a journalist, does that mean that everyone who has ever shared a piece of classified information can be charged under the Espionage Act? Because Wilmer, I don't know about you. When I read the plea, when I read the plea deal, they're charging Assange as a private citizen. They're not charging 'em as a publisher. They're not charging 'em as a government contractor or a government employee. And those are prior to this, the only people that could get a charge for conspiring to disseminate classified information in this manner. So is that saying that Nick, the janitor or Dan the trucker or whoever your English teacher is now susceptible to Espionage Act charges?
Dr Leon (13:48):
Well, I think one of the reasons why they're not charging him as a journalist, because that was one of the issues that was being presented in his defense, is that as a journalist, he has the right to disseminate this information. So if they charged him as a journalist, then I think that would probably throw a wrench in their own argument. But to your point, one of the ironies here is when you read the Washington Poll story and the New York Times reporting out on this is that they were complicit in disseminating the information that he made available. Hence during the Obama administration, they called it the New York Times conundrum, and many say that the reason the Obama administration didn't charge him is because Barack Obama didn't want to open up that can of worms.
Steve Poikenon (14:45):
Well, certainly the idea that the Biden administration would try to with less competent people than were in the Obama administration is somewhat ridiculous. The only reason they could get a plea deal out of the guy is because they'd been torturing him for five years on top of the seven and a half, eight, almost eight years of being confined to one and a half rooms in the most spied on building in London, which is saying a lot because London has more cameras per capita than any other major city. But more cameras were pointed at the Ecuadorian Embassy than anywhere else in London for a very long time. That kind of constant surveillance is going to wreak havoc on an individual. And I got to tell you, Wilmer, it really did surprise me seeing the video, the very brief videos that we have seen of Julian, the last I had heard, he had been in very poor health. He had suffered a stroke or a mini stroke 18 months ago, 20 months ago, something like that. So to see him moving that rapidly, being able to stand walking
Dr Leon (15:59):
Up the stairs to the plane,
Steve Poikenon (16:01):
Being able to stand that upright when we had all been told that his back was wrecked and stuff like that, I'm really, really taken away by that. And I can only hope that he remains in that good of health or gets a little bit better shape from here on out because I was imagining the worst I was. And we haven't seen that. So that's very heartening.
Dr Leon (16:32):
This some will say is a very obvious question, but I think it still needs to be asked and answered Why this deal? Why now? Because when I look at, when I read the plea, when I see what the Biden administration got out of this, could have done this five years ago, he's out on bond. They could have allowed bond five years ago. He could have, instead of being tortured in solitary confinement in Belmar prison, he could have been walking the streets of Piccadilly Circus. So why now?
Steve Poikenon (17:14):
There's a number of different factors, and one is that it does get eliminated as an election year issue. Trump, regardless of the reality that he's the guy who had Julian arrested was able to successfully run on, we love the WikiLeaks. Have you seen the WikiLeaks? Can't get enough of the WikiLeaks. He was able to gain a lot of ground with that. So it is popular among Americans to want to at least think you have some sort of transparency with your government or think you might be able to have some sort of citizen accountability with your government, which is one of the benefits that WikiLeaks provided. So that's off the table, the Biden administration, because people have goldfish, brain can try to spin it as well. Donald Trump's the guy who had 'em thrown in jail and we're the guys who let him out. Well, you didn't let him out.
(18:11)You made him plead guilty to something he didn't do after torturing him for five years and threatening every one and everything that he held dear, that's coercion. That's not a liberation. That's coercion. That's not a victory in any way, shape or form. And I've seen some on the progressive left already try to be like, Hey, man, Trump locked him up, bite him, let him out because he forced him to plead guilty to something that he didn't do. I think we all just need to keep circulating that last part until it sinks in. But we discussed for a number of years on the critical hour how it is a huge problem for the Biden administration or any administration to have Julian Assange on American soil even if the trial takes place behind closed doors in the Eastern District of Virginia, because then you are really putting the press on trial in America for everyone to be forced to pay attention to. And that's something that not Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, definitely not Merrick Garland is capable of dealing with or quelling in a manner that doesn't look like a total brutal dictatorship. And that's what it was going to turn into.
Dr Leon (19:35):
We have been saying for a couple of years, the one thing, the Biden, for all of the discussion about extradition and all these appeals and the United States sending attorneys to London and going through the barrister and all of that stuff that they were doing, we kept saying, they do not want this man on American soil. They were trying to kill him through the process. Let's drag this thing out for as long as we possibly can and hope the man dies in Belmar prison. We were saying the last, in fact, I remember having a very extensive conversation with you where I was saying, I think the time has come for the Assange Camp to flip the script and take the deal. Tell Merrick Garland, we want to come to the United States. Please extradite us. We want to be on American soil. And we kicked that around for a while.
Steve Poikenon (20:41):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And the last thing that any government wants to deal with is having all of its media suddenly turn against it. And in the US, even though the mainstream media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the state, there are people who are allowed to operate with a little bit more freedom. And those are the people who usually command the largest audiences because they're allowed to show a little bit of authenticity on mainstream airwaves, and people are desperate for that. So they don't want their press turning on 'em. They don't want free Assange banners every time they pan into the crowd at a sporting event. They don't want free Assange banners signs every time they go do a man on the street interview. They were in the worst possible position you could be having to make up your case entirely. And having a still somewhat engaged public to where they could mount not just a resistance, but a real jury nullification campaign and a real on the ground, real time education of exactly what their government is trying to do. Via the prosecution of Julian Assange, again, under the Espionage Act of 1917, we're going to take an Australian citizen with a publishing company, publishing outlet, registered in Iceland, give him fake charges in Sweden, imprison him in London and have a Icelandic FBI snitch, make up a whole bunch of stories about him, then recant his testimony. I think Aile, because that's the thing that happened. Pedophile. Yeah, a convicted, convicted pedophile.
Dr Leon (22:40):
And you haven't even gone through what we did as it relates to Ecuador and what we did in terms of the Ecuadorian election to be, now I'm drawing a blank on the president.
Steve Poikenon (22:51):
Lennon Moreno was more Moreno. Yeah.
Dr Leon (22:55):
We didn't even go through what the machinations that the United States went through to get Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Steve Poikenon (23:05):
Yeah. Or touch on the security company that was there at the embassy, uc Global, which was hired first by the Ecuadorian government to provide security then by the CIA via a spook convention effectively at one of Sheldon Adelson's casinos, who was one of Trump's biggest donors at the time, where the head of the security company wound up getting arrested, trying to flee the country after it was discovered that he had had this double dealing with the CIA. And then it was revealed that because of the illegal spying equipment morales's company had placed in assange's rooms at the embassy that led to a planning session with the American CIA where they were plotting out how to kidnap and murder Julian Assange. That was Mike.
Dr Leon (23:56):
They
Steve Poikenon (23:56):
Came to,
Dr Leon (23:57):
That was Mike Ell at the time. And so what folks, and you laying this out, what folks really need to understand is this is not some tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. All you got to do folks is Google it. It's there in mainstream press that this is what the United States went through trying. These are the illegal machinations that the United States government went through in order to try to get this guy.
Steve Poikenon (24:28):
Absolutely. And people feel certain ways about the gray zone or what, you don't have to read the initial reporting that Max Blumenthal did based off of the reporting that the Spanish outlet El Pais did. Michael Isikoff, two years later, 18 months later, Michael Isikoff through Yahoo News, did the same story, picked it up and took out some of the more poignant points so that he could fit it into a Yahoo story and put out that version of it. But it's there in several mainstream outlets everybody should know. Mike Pompeo tried to have a journalist and publisher assassinated or kidnapped and then assassinated just to prevent him from being able to testify in his own defense is all you can really assume at that point. You're trying to take him out while you have him basically captured. You want to make sure he never works a day in his life again, and you damn sure want to make sure that he doesn't testify because then it becomes part of a court record and then somebody can sue to have that court record or it'll be public
Dr Leon (25:40):
As a wrap up to this part of the conversation. So I never thought I'd see, this day I thought Julian Sal was going to die in Bell Marsh. What do you see as being the more immediate impacts to this as it relates to press freedom and journalism and some of the longer term impacts? And some of that, I know we won't really know until we hear from him, but your thoughts,
Steve Poikenon (26:10):
I hope it inspires people to kind of see where the new limits are, because most journalists have just been not necessarily holding back, but the amount of leak based journalism has basically vanished the amount of journalists truly going out there and trying to bring to light some major problems. Boeing comes to
Dr Leon (26:35):
Mind. Investigative journalism.
Steve Poikenon (26:37):
Yeah. I want to believe that Julian Assange breathing air again will be a beacon to people to do investigative journalism more often, better than they have been, however you want to frame it. I want that to be a spark that pushes the current boundaries and hopefully pushes 'em back a little bit because it's been relatively restrictive over the last several years.
Dr Leon (27:08):
There's another issue related to this. It was in consortium news, help us fight theocracy Psychological operations or PSYOPs are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations and groups and individuals. William Casey, the CIA director under Ronald Reagan said, we'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false. And what happened with Julian Assange, I think is a perfect example of this type of behavior by the American government.
Steve Poikenon (28:02):
It is. And if you look at the amount of government shenanigans that have occurred in the last four, five years since they yanked Julian out of the embassy, there we're seeing more and more lawsuits being brought against major pharmaceutical companies for vital information that they withheld during the last several years were we found out that a lot of what we were originally told about the January 6th incident, and a lot of what happened then was not necessarily true. There's been multiple court cases that have kept political parties from taking part in the American political process. They've kept, Lawfare has been levied against everyone from the aru, the Aru fellas,
Dr Leon (29:07):
Mali. Yes.
Steve Poikenon (29:09):
Yeah, I can never, I know, yes. Ella is something that is just not chambered for me. It's not. But from those guys to, like Alex Jones has been a victim of lawfare. Donald Trump has been a victim of Lawfare, and the entire time there hasn't been a really adversarial reporting outlet with the international foundation that WikiLeaks has with the international audience, that WikiLeaks has to mount a citizen and open source intelligence challenge to any of this and the myriad ways, not just through the restrict Act or the new antisemitism bill or a number of the different laws in Europe and Europe, has the internet been shrunk down significantly? But Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter stating that he wants to turn it into WeChat where your entire internet based existence is on through this one app. I would imagine that Julian Assange would have a lot to say about what Elon Musk has been up to.
(30:24)He'd have a lot to say about what happened with the WHO or the NIH over the last several years, but we haven't had that opportunity. And that to me is something that the US government can put as a Big W in their column. That's something that MI six could put as a Big W in their column and really goes right back to those forward documents where they were outlining the plan for what they wanted to do with WikiLeaks. They didn't get to scatter the organization to the winds the way they necessarily described 14 years ago. But when's the last time we got a WikiLeaks drop?
Dr Leon (31:07):
Well, and for folks that may not understand the significance of this, of course, it was the shooting of the civilians, the murder of the civilians in Iraq and the journalists in Iraq that were shot during the war. And WikiLeaks put that footage out for everybody to see the war crimes that were being committed. So if WikiLeaks had been allowed to continue to operate, I would think our understanding of Ukraine would be different. Our understanding of what's being done in Taiwan would be different. Our understanding of what's being done or trying to be done in North Korea would be different. We would have a lot more insight and information into the illegalities, whether they be international law, whether they be American law, whether they be war crimes, that the United States and its allies have been engaging in these various engagements around the world.
Steve Poikenon (32:15):
You're correct. And let's also recall that WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks alone disclosed the transpacific partnership. They were the outlet that that agreement came to. They published it, people looked at it and went, no, you want to do what? No, no. And those kinds of trade agreements being disclosed that were done in the dark, away from the eyes of the American public with zero opportunity for public comment or any sort of pushback that made WikiLeaks more dangerous in my opinion, then disclosing video of something that according to even the guys in the helicopter was like a three times a day event in Iraq. And it's something that people in the military kind of shrugged off like, well, yeah, that's what we do. But to the average citizen, it's shocking and horrifying, but not as shocking and horrifying as the United States government wants to set up a corporate court, and it will be a couple of CEOs that determine your future. And if you say something untoward about them on the internet, then they're appointed magistrates from the corporation will decide your faith. That's what the TPP was promising. And any outlet that is going to disclose information like that is suddenly become the most dangerous organization on the planet.
Dr Leon (33:49):
And when you said that, that I'm drawing a blank on his name, the attorney that sued ExxonMobil in Brazil,
Steve Poikenon (33:58):
Steven Inger,
Dr Leon (33:59):
Steven Inger, and how Mobil ExxonMobil was able to use a judge. I mean, they just flipped that whole thing. Don Zinger on behalf of the Indians in Brazil, sues ExxonMobil wins an ungodly amount of money, and he winds up going to jail and ExxonMobil because of what they were able to do with the judicial system in New York, it was criminal. So when you talk about a corporate magistrate, Don Zinger is what popped into my head.
Steve Poikenon (34:42):
And it was because of an agreement that happened during the Trump administration that that was even possible. And they basically dismantled the TPP, they put certain parts of it into different trade agreements and provisions, and then they got the quasi corporate court because the judge, I believe had been a former Chevron attorney. Correct. And that's how that may even be how he got his judgeship was Chevron bought his way into the judgeship. And that is kind of ordinary corruption, but it's ordinary corruption that also has multinational trade agreements codifying it. And again, in the absence of a WikiLeaks or an organization like it, disclosing these kinds of agreements on the regular, you're not going to get the rapid dissemination of that information amount, a successful pushback in time to stop it. You're not going to be able to get people on the same page understanding it because there's no trust with a number of these.
(35:48)All of these other outlets are so disparate, nobody's really consolidated in a way that will lend the immediate mass public trust in what you're doing. Like Lit WikiLeaks had built up over a number of years to the point that when 2015, they disclosed the tpp, people from all over the world held rallies immediately, and there were people out in the streets immediately, and it became an election year issue and it wasn't. And people had to change their tone on it and say to the point where Donald Trump even won a lot of people over by saying, it's a bad deal. It's bad. I don't want to be any part of it. Hillary Clinton had to answer for it. They all had to answer for it. On that debate stage back in 2016, it became a real issue. And so if we don't have these kinds of things moving forward, we're going to be in a significantly less informed spot than we were a decade ago. And in the internet age, that should not be how information is progressing.
Dr Leon (36:51):
And final point here, and I want to go back to this William Casey quote, and this is the former director of the ccia A and Ronald Reagan will know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false. And that takes me, you've heard me say this too many times, Edward Bernas and the book Propaganda folks, you need to get a copy and you need to read Propaganda by Edward Bernas because that's to a great degree what Bill Casey was talking about. And this whole idea, the whole idea of psychological operations, PSYOPs and the PS ocracy.
Steve Poikenon (37:47):
Yeah. And fifth generation warfare is an asymmetrical warfare conducted on the citizenry, and that's conducted via all elements of propaganda. We're 12 years into living in a reality, a post Smith month modernization act reality. When the Smith Modernization Act passed and went into effect, government propaganda, military propaganda, and government analysts and experts became part and parcel of the media the better part of a halfway through a generation's worth of 24 hour, seven day a week asymmetrical warfare where the vast majority of the people walking around don't even know that they're at war, let alone with their own government, nor that their own government openly declared war on them. That's how good the propaganda is. Everybody should study Bnes. Everybody needs to internalize that the United States is the most propagandized country on the planet. And the only way that we can get out of that is if we understand the landscape that we're standing on and we start to look at how not necessarily individual people that make up that landscape operate, but the institutions that allow for those people to move freely on that landscape operate. And those institutions, we've been shown over and over and over again to be untrustworthy, to be acting not in our interest, to be acting at the behest of not even people in their own country. And yet for some reason, we still get Berna back into thinking that you can vote your way out of an oligarchy
Dr Leon (39:44):
And so quickly am wake up slow news day. Where do people go? What do they get when they listen to it?
Steve Poikenon (39:50):
You can go to am wakeup show.com for absolutely everything. We are live Monday through Thursday from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM Pacific us. There's content on the channel pretty much all the time. We stream out live on Rock fin and Rumble, and then you can catch them pretty much anywhere and everywhere else. And yeah, just thank you so much for having me on. I really have always enjoyed our conversations. Very glad to do your show.
Dr Leon (40:22):
Well, I got to thank you my guest, Steve Kin, for joining me today. I greatly, greatly appreciate you giving me time out of your schedule, and I always look forward to the conversations that we have and look forward to having many more with you here on Connecting the Dots. Thank you, Steve.
Steve Poikenon (40:37):
Thank you, Wilmer.
Dr Leon (40:39):
And thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon, and Steve mentioned the Smith Mut Act, M-U-N-D-T Act. You all can Google that. Look it up. But simply put, for about 60 years that act prohibited the United States Department of State and the broadcasting Board of Governors from disseminating government produced programming within the United States over fear that these agencies would propagandize the American people. However, in around 2013, Congress abolished the domestic dissemination ban, which now has led to this big heated debate about the role of the federal government in free public discourse. Folks, stay tuned for new episodes every week and follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, make a contribution. We would greatly, greatly, greatly appreciate it. Doing this every week is not an inexpensive venture. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Follow us on social media. You can find all the links below to the show. And remember that this is where the analysis of politics and culture and history converge talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
Announcer (42:20):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Russia's Nuclear Sub in Cuba: What It Means for the U.S.
20 Jun· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Wilmer Leon (00:00):
There have been tensions between the US and its neighbor 90 miles to the South Cuba since 19 59, 65 years. Why? And are there indications that changes on the horizon or will the issues become more significant?
Announcer (00:27):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:33):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which these events occur. During each episode of this program, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. My guest for today's show is a Cuban American journalist, radio host, author, and host of RTS Direct Impact. He is Ricardo Leon Sanchez de Ronaldo, also known as Rick Sanchez. Let's connect some dots. Rick, welcome to the show.
Rick Sanchez (01:33):
Hey, it is great. Great to be here with you. Wilmer. Always a pleasure, doctor.
Wilmer Leon (01:37):
Did I get it right?
Rick Sanchez (01:38):
Well, yeah, you did. I mean, I don't use it anymore, but it's funny. I guess one point back in 1958, when I was born on July 3rd, my mother named me in little Guanabacoa, Cuba, a suburb just outside of Havana. The doctor said, what are you going to name this kid? He's ugly as hell, but let's give him a name anyway. And she said, Ricardo de San Aldo. So there you go. Is part of the history in Latin America, which I think is a great thing in our culture, you carry the mother's name for at least one generation. So when a woman marries a man and they have a child, that child will carry her name for at least that one generation. Whereas in our culture, you just throw the mother's name away.
Wilmer Leon (02:17):
Well, out of respect to your mother. So just a little historic context, because context for me is always so important. Cuba's ruler CIO Batista.
Rick Sanchez (02:35):
Oh yeah, the old Batist. You're
Wilmer Leon (02:37):
Starting there overthrown. He was overthrown by Fidel Castro, his brother, Raul Checo Rivera, and a lot of other folks in 1959.
Rick Sanchez (02:47):
That's correct.
Wilmer Leon (02:47):
This revolution had and continues to have powerful and profound domestic and international repercussions. Give us your thoughts on where the countries, the US and Cuba is today. Because for example, a lot of people don't really even appreciate the impact that this relationship has on us. Domestic politics.
Rick Sanchez (03:14):
Oh my God. Politics are fascinating in that sense. I don't think there's ever been a better example of a country that is being castigated more than Cuba has been castigated by the US government. No country in the history of the world has been sanctioned and castigated economically for a longer period of time than Cuba has. The United States has done everything possible for some 70 years to literally keep Cuba under its thumb, by the way. And Cuba's economy has paid for it drastically. Remember when I was in Cuba interviewing Fidel Castro in 1991 during Glas and Troika? I remember at the time that I talked to Castro and I asked him about what was happening. He seemed desperate. He had to be desperate to invite me to give me an interview on the island. At the time, they don't usually talk to Guanos. I am a guano.
(04:15)A guano means a worm. A worm is somebody who left the revolution and betrayed the revolution. But I left because my parents left. I mean, I was two years old when I left Cuba. But it's funny because I'll just say this, that era, that 1991, I go and I talk to Castro in Cuba, which was really fascinating. Then I go to New York and I talk to Gorbachev, and I asked Gorbachev, I was working as a correspondent at NBC, and I was assigned to go to New York to speak with President Gorbachev, and I asked President Gorbachev about Fidel Castro, and I said, you were recently in Havana. You and Mr. Castro apparently have had a falling out. He didn't even go see you at the airport. And Gorbachev stops right there, Wilmer. And he says to me, you know what your problem is. You know what the problem you have and the problem with all you Cubans, you're obsessed with Castro.
(05:07)Why are you asking me a question about Castro with all the things going on in the world? I don't want to talk about Castro. Next question. I was like, whoa. I couldn't believe he was coming at me like that. But it just shows. There's an old story if you want to talk history, and I wrote this once in one of my books. I said, let's see if I can quote myself here. Cuba was the slave of the Spanish, the prostitutes of the Americans and the child of the Soviets. It has always been taken and oppressed and used and mistreated by somebody. First, it was the Spanish. They broke from that. Then they got the Americans. The Americans really screwed the Cubans over in every way they could. Americans just owned 70% of the land in Cuba. Think about that for a minute. So it was easy for Fidel Castro to turn to these people back then and say to them, they own 70% of your land. You can't own a business here. They control the government. Batista works for the mafia, which he did. By the way. He was one of the most corrupt presidents. Literally, the mafia ran Havana. So when he says,
Wilmer Leon (06:20):
Watch the Godfather,
Rick Sanchez (06:22):
Yeah, the scene in Godfather two. So in the end, let me close with this. The US government, like the Spanish government, and in many ways, like the Soviets all used and abused Cuba. And to this day, Cuba is suffering the consequences of it because it's a sad place economically to go. And the US to this day is doing everything possible to punish Cuba and keep him under the thumb with an embargo that still persists. And they also have him on a list called the States that condone terrorism lists. There's only like three or four countries, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and a couple others. And I mean, really, Cuba, it's tough to be Cuba because of that.
Wilmer Leon (07:10):
So to that point, at the end of May, it was reported that the Biden administration eases some economic restrictions on Cuba. Private enterprises with no link to the government will be granted access to US banks and additional internet services. The Biden administration seems to have amended and clarified a number of sanctions against Cuba, allowing private entrepreneurs and businesses again to open US bank accounts. They portray this as increasing support for Cuban people. But we'll talk about what that really means. The acronym Micro and Deanna's impress us.
Rick Sanchez (08:10):
Yes,
Wilmer Leon (08:10):
Rick Sanchez. Small
Rick Sanchez (08:11):
Businesses. Small Businesses is what Businesses Small. Yeah, yeah, essentially. I mean, it's a bunch of acronyms. Too many letters for a very simple description. You're absolutely right. And you know what? I think the Biden administration did a good thing with that. A lot of people have been pushing for it. And what it basically says is the Biden administration is looking at Cuba and saying, wow, there's something going on in Cuba for the first time in some 60 or 70 years. Now, I thought what Obama did was fantastic. Obama was the first president, thank God, who came along and said, why do we hate these people? Why do we have to have an enemy that's 90 miles away because of something between Khrushchev and Kennedy? And Eisenhower? Man, that's been a long time. Let's turn over a new leaf. Let's start something new. And Obama allows the United States and people in the United States to start traveling to Cuba. Suddenly, Cuba starts doing really well. People in Miami start going to see their cousins. They're buying, they're trading. Suddenly the Cuban economy starts to show signs of life. It was all really good
Wilmer Leon (09:13):
Cruise lines.
Rick Sanchez (09:14):
What cruise lines, exactly. The whole thing had the promise of starting all over again. So let me attack that first before I tell you about the people you mentioned a little while ago. But we have these absolute morons in Florida politics in particular. You have some idiot named Marco Rubio, for example. You got another guy named Rick Scott. These guys, they live off of hate. The only way that they can stay in power is to make sure the people in South Florida vote for them. And the only way they think the people in South Florida will vote for 'em if they scare them into thinking that somehow Cuba is the boogeyman. It's a horrible communist country that's coming to kill and blah, blah, blah. And because of that, people in South Florida, even if they really deep down don't think that, and even if they really deep down would love nothing more than to be able to visit their mom and their dad and their brothers and their sisters, and to somehow create some kind of reproachment with Cuba, they're afraid to say it.
(10:18)So they say publicly, oh, I hate Cuba. It's horrible. Yay. Marco Rubio. They're afraid because they live in an environment in South Florida, which is run by the older exiles and by the Marco Rubios, where they think if they say that they're not going to get a job, they're not going to be hired. Nobody wants to be called a communist in Miami. So it's this vicious cycle that has continued for so many years, and it's the politicians who continue that. Marco Rubio went to President Trump as soon as President Trump came into office, and he said, here's what you have to do. Cancel everything Obama did. Kill it, destroy it. Make sure people are never allowed to go to Cuba, make sure families are not allowed to see themselves, et cetera, et cetera. And this idiot Biden went along with it. When he got into office, instead of going back to the Obama thing, Biden's been acting like more of a Republican than the Republicans. So finally,
Wilmer Leon (11:12):
Wait a minute, because he was playing to the politics in South Cuba,
Rick Sanchez (11:19):
In South Florida.
Wilmer Leon (11:20):
I'm sorry, south Florida. Thank you. Exactly. He was playing to the politics. Because if my memory serves me correctly, when I look at the demographic data of both Obama elections, when you break it out by age, the older Cuban Americans voted Republican. Their children voted. Obama did, which is why Obama carried Florida both times,
Rick Sanchez (11:57):
And they voted for Clinton as well. But
Wilmer Leon (12:01):
Yeah,
Rick Sanchez (12:01):
It's interesting that soon after that, to be elected president in the United States, you must go to Miami and say that you're an anti-communist and down with Castro, even though he's dead. But people still think he's alive. People still think Russia's a communist country, but whatever. That's another thing. And
Wilmer Leon (12:16):
Elvis, Elvis is still alive.
Rick Sanchez (12:18):
It's like, it'd be stupid, but
Wilmer Leon (12:20):
Whatever. In fact, Elvis and Castro are going to be in Vegas in August.
Rick Sanchez (12:26):
So you have to come to South Florida if you're running for president and say all these patented lines like a script. But then Obama said, okay, I'm going to say all that crap. But then when I get into office, now that I'm in my second term, you know what? I'm going to try and open Cuba back up. Nobody's had the intestinal fortitude to do that, and by golly, I'm going to do it. And he did.
Wilmer Leon (12:47):
Credit was that partially due to agribusiness, US agribusiness seeing a market in Cuba,
Rick Sanchez (12:56):
Which still exists by golly. But for some reason, Trump got rid of it because Trump does whatever he thinks some guy tells him, and he has a bunch of rich friends who are Cubans. So they told him, get rid of everything Obama did. So he did. And along now comes Biden, which brings us back to your point, and it's the me Pimas along. Now comes Biden and enough people get to Biden and say, look, there's actually entrepreneurs in Cuba right now. There's these young guys who are starting these small businesses, and they're distribution centers, and they're actually beating the government at their own game. You've got a socialist country and you have all these young entrepreneurs who are selling vacuum cleaners and clothes and water bottles and glasses. I visited them. I was just there the other day in Cuba, and I was amazed by what I saw.
(13:43)So somebody got to Biden and said, look, if nothing else, throw these guys a bone. There is right now, so many restrictions on any Cuban citizen. They can't use phones, they can't use internet, they can't use American banks. They can't trade with other countries. They are totally isolated, locked up. It's nasty in a horrible, one of the worst sanctions in the world. So finally along comes Biden or somebody in the Biden administration, and they open that up a little bit, and they let these entrepreneurs start to have banks in Florida. Good idea. Now, the other side, the Cuban government looks at this and says, well, wait a minute. But the way you wrote this, you say they can't have any ties to the Cuban government. So you're saying you're going to run an enterprise again in our country, but we're not allowed to monitor it.
(14:31)We're not allowed to tax it. We're not allowed to have contact with them. Go to hell. We're not going to do that. I mean, this is back to Batista again. You guys want to control the economy of our country. So when I met with Cuban officials in Havana last weekend, and I sat down with somebody from the president's office, but not the president himself, but one of the high ranking foreign policy guy, he said, look, here's how we feel about, because I told him, I said, look, whatever it takes, go along with it. This will be good for the Cuban people. And he goes, look, we want to go along with it, but we've got to protect ourselves too. I mean, we want to make sure that we at least have some say in this new system.
Wilmer Leon (15:13):
It is our country.
Rick Sanchez (15:15):
Yeah. See, that's where the thing is difficult. But you know what, in the end though, I think my bottles half full. I'm going to half full guy. I think this is a good thing. It might be a starting place, and it might be the beginning of something that could hopefully flourish and turn Cuba into what it should be. It's a beautiful island, a mecca for tourism where a lot of very successful people have come from. It's such a shame that it's deteriorated into what it's become simply because the United States was angry 70 years ago and has never stopped being angry and has now turned it into a political football.
Wilmer Leon (15:59):
First of all, it was the mob that was pissed 70 years ago.
Rick Sanchez (16:03):
That's true.
Wilmer Leon (16:04):
And so one of the things that I've been saying for a number of years, United States, if your game is as good as you says it is,
(16:15)Then alleviate the sanctions, remove the sanctions. Let the Cuban people see the benefit of the United States. And if your game is as good as you say it is, then stop sanctioning them. Because we know sanctions have never worked. All sanctions do is create a greater sense of nationalism because the entity in charge is able to say, your suffering is not my fault. Your suffering is their fault. They're the ones that are not allowing you to trade. They're the ones that are not allowing you to talk to your relatives in the united. All of that. So it creates a greater sense of them versus US nationalism. So I've been saying for years, just release the sanctions, let the Cuban people decide for themselves. Now, with all that being said, and
Rick Sanchez (17:19):
Let me just underscore here's where you're right, because what you're saying is by having sanctions, you give the Cuban government an excuse to fail, which they have taken. And most countries do. They say, well, and by the way, I mean they're partly right. How the hell can we succeed? We're not allowed to trade with other countries. We can't trade with you. We're not allowed to do business in the United States. We can't buy oil and gas from any of NATO countries or any European countries or any G seven or anything. So we're kind of flummoxed in not being able to succeed the way we should. Now, the Cuban government has also made its economic stupid mistakes as well, to be fair. But nonetheless, they do have that excuse, and it only exists because of the embargo. You're right.
Wilmer Leon (18:03):
So now my question to you, when you've talked to the Cuban officials, did anybody mention the National Endowment for Democracy? And here's why I asked that question, because what this whole, and help me up with the pronunciation.
Rick Sanchez (18:25):
No, that's right. Me.
Wilmer Leon (18:27):
What this whole thing sounds like to me is the NDA, the national end down for democracy. Like they went into Ukraine and Victoria Newland threw around a bunch of cookies to a bunch of Nazis, and they overthrew the Ukrainian government. This sounds eerily reminiscent of a tactic used by the NDA. We're going to fund Cuban small businesses. We're going to show them the wonderful benefits of democracy in the United States as we entice them to overthrow their government. Is that a concern that the Cuban government has?
Rick Sanchez (19:06):
It is, and it should be. But at the same time, speaking to you as a Cuban who has watched the history of this country for so many years, when you're eating dirt, anything becomes a sirloin steak. So at this point, the level of desperation in Cuba is so bad. I mean, I don't know if you've had a chance to go there, but recently I have not. I've ever seen it. The people are really hungry. I mean, nothing works. Everything's slow. There's no efficiency. I mean, it is down to a crawl in Cuba. And if they can at least have something that works. I mean, you compare it to Ukraine, but Ukraine is like one of the basket, the bread, the corrupt
Wilmer Leon (19:52):
Countries
Rick Sanchez (19:52):
In the world, and it has a good economy. The only problem with Ukraine was it was super corrupt, but the economy was good. There's billionaires in Ukraine. I mean, there ain't no billionaires in Cuba, my friend. I mean,
Wilmer Leon (20:03):
No, no. I only compare it to Ukraine in the context of the NDAs involvement in fomenting a coup. Because the president in 2014 was that Jankovich. Yeah, was in the eyes of the United States. Too close to Russia in order to, you're
Rick Sanchez (20:25):
Smart to say that. You're smart to say that. And I think you're right. I think we would be foolhardy not to consider that given our history, the United States of America, this country we love, but can't help but notice that our CIA goes all over the world and screws things up and abuses people and kills people, and assassinates people. They tried 13 times to assassinate Fidel Castro. I mean, they put poison in his cigar. They put poison in his diving suit. I mean, it's crazy. So yeah, we need to also remember and reconcile into anything. We look at exactly what our state department and our CIA and the administration, whatever administration it is, is capable of based on the history and what they've done in the past. That said, I still believe we should try and be optimistic about this and try and figure out a way to use good old fashioned ingenuity to make this work.
(21:18)And I think it's at least the beginning of an opening that didn't exist before. The problem is as soon as there's another presidential election, whatever's done that moves the needle forward will be pushed back because Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and all these other morons who could give a crap about the people of Cuba who are really the ones suffering, not the government, they could give a crap about those people. We'll do whatever it takes to squeeze the hell out of the Cuban economy even more just like they've done in Venezuela and in other places around the world, Guatemala, et cetera, et cetera, because they're mad at some guy who may have said something leftist. Its nuts. But that's actually what has taken place and what our government has done, as you well
Wilmer Leon (22:03):
Know. So the question that I posed is are there indications that changes on the horizon or will the issues become more significant? And the latter part of that question has to do with, last week, a squadron of Russian ships, including a frigate capable of firing hypersonic missiles, arrived in Cuba as part of an international partnership program. Now, that immediately took me back to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Rick Sanchez (22:33):
It was a show. It was Well, go ahead.
Wilmer Leon (22:35):
Go
Rick Sanchez (22:35):
Ahead. The genesis of that, you well know because I know you and I speak a lot and we talk about these things, but the genesis of that is that both Macron and President Biden intimated that they would be willing to use missiles, our missiles. They will give permission to Ukraine to shoot missiles into Russian territory. The next day, Putin picked up the phone and says, oh, so let's see. They have a country next to our territory. Guess what? We've got some friends next to their territory too. He picked up the phone and sent three ships to the Cuban Harbor. Why? To send the world a message that two can play that game. And essentially it's a tit for tat where Putin is trying to tell the US administration, okay, you got some missiles in Ukraine. I got some nuclear subs in Havana. Let's talk. By the way, we got more nuclear warheads than you guys.
(23:30)Do you want to start this thing? Let's go. I mean, it was like, oh my God and the world, and I'm sure there's a lot of bravado coming from Washington, but in the end, I guarantee you they kind of got the message. I almost get the sense there's already backing off going on a lot of NATO countries, and certainly half of the mps in the German parliament came forward and said, this is crazy. Stop this crap. No more weapons to Ukraine that can be used to shoot into Russia. That can start another world war that we are going to have to pay for, not the Yankees, not the Americans. So I wouldn't be surprised if the genesis of that, which led to that, which what you just mentioned, is the three ships in Havana, is what may be causing a little bit of a slowdown now in the Ukraine push, especially on the part of many members of the European community.
Wilmer Leon (24:22):
There you go. So what does that say to you about the empire? What does that say to you? Because 10 years ago, going back to the Godfather, I'm drawing a blank. I'm going to Des name. When the Turk hit the Don and they said 10 years ago, could we got it? Could we have gotten to the Don like that Soso, when Soso hit the Don 10 years ago, could we have got the Don is slipping, so is the Don, the us, is the Don slipping because 10 years ago, Vladimir Putin couldn't have made that play.
Rick Sanchez (25:08):
No. Let me just say this, and it's a two part answer, I think. One, I think if you ask the average American in the United States, should the embargo be lifted, I think 90% of them will say yes,
Wilmer Leon (25:21):
Absolutely.
Rick Sanchez (25:22):
They think it's silly.
Wilmer Leon (25:23):
Absolutely. If
Rick Sanchez (25:23):
You ask the average young American under 30 or something and tell 'em they can't go to Cuba unless they fill out 19 forms and get a special visa and all kinds of crap, whatever
Wilmer Leon (25:35):
It is, or fly to the moon and get a flight from Southwest from the moon,
Rick Sanchez (25:39):
They're going to say, why? What's the difference between that and Mexico? That and The Bahamas, Cuba's right next to The Bahamas. People go back and forth between The Bahamas and Cuba every day, and they're fishing together and stuff. So it makes no sense. It's silly. So two things, A, as time goes by, younger people will look at this and think it's just ridiculous, shameful and foolhardy. Two, when I spoke with Cuban officials in Havana last weekend, and we were sitting in the hotel bar, and I asked the ambassador, the guy who used to be the ambassador to the United Nations Kabana, who's an interesting man and very guarded, and I said, are you guys going to play a waiting game? And he goes, what do you mean? I said, well, you know what's going on in the world? The Western powers are now being pushed back by Brazil, which is your friend by Iran, which is your friend by
Wilmer Leon (26:32):
Russia, Venezuela, your friend,
Rick Sanchez (26:34):
Right? China, which is your friend. So suddenly you have all these allies who've created these interesting consortiums which are fighting back against the western power, which have always had you under your thumb. So does that make you look at things a little differently? And he just kind of smiled at me and he said, we're playing by different rules now. And I said, okay, we'll leave it at that because I don't want to get myself or you in trouble. So I get a sense that they know that and they think that could be a reproachment as well for the island.
Wilmer Leon (27:11):
And for people to really understand, they have to understand the development of bricks.
Rick Sanchez (27:16):
Of course,
Wilmer Leon (27:17):
They have to understand a number of the leaders that the United States labels as dictators and labels as anything but a child of God. President Xi Jinping is traversing the world and is a respected diplomat. Vladimir Putin traversing the world a respected diplomat. Nicholas Maduro traveling. He's sitting in Iran talking with President. Well, now the Supreme leader, these guys are being recognized internationally as diplomats. Tony Blinken is considered a goon.
Rick Sanchez (28:11):
Yeah, it's funny the way things have now developed, and we are seeing a world that's changing, and I think that the world order for lack of a better term is not what it was before. And Cuba is really, I think, in a unique position. I mean, here's an island with 11 million people that's 90 miles away from the United States and has had a 70 year torment of economic sanctions and resistance against it. And suddenly it's in a position where it can finally make peace with Washington. Or it can tell Washington to go to hell and say, you know what? We're going to be a part of B bricks. We're going to be a part of the global south. We're going to be a part of all of these things, and we don't want anything from you anymore. We think we can get it over here, especially if there's a change in currency or in the monetary policy that these guys are able to adjust, which
Wilmer Leon (29:05):
They are in fact implementing. Look at the deal between India and Russia. India is buying Russian oil based on the ruble, which by the way, Joe Biden said he was going to turn it into rubble, but that's now one of the top five fastest growing economies in the world.
Rick Sanchez (29:28):
Well, but the thing is, the thing that look bothers me about all of this, and I think it probably bothers you too, is just the all out hypocrisy. I'll give you an example of something that happened overnight, just within the last 24 hours. The Chinese have apparently come up with a fantastic ev. I drive a Tesla. I love EVs. I think apparently they've come up with something that they make for 20 to 30,000 less than what I paid for my,
Wilmer Leon (29:55):
I thought it was 15. They make it for 10.
Rick Sanchez (29:57):
Yeah, it's crazy. They're making, and it's a great vehicle. It's fantastic. So they basically said, we want to introduce this car, this Chinese car, the Chinese technology into Europe. And the Europeans are saying, no, screw you. We're not going to let you do it. You want to put your cars in here? We're going to give you a 40% tariff, 38.7 actually, but pretty close, man, that's almost half. That means if they sell a car for $20,000, they really have to sell it. People there still have to pay 40 plus be the administrative fees and everything else. The tariff alone is brutal. It's punishment. So yesterday afternoon, Beijing announced it's going to start considering putting tariffs on all pork products. Now, the Chinese eat more pork than anybody in the world. 50% of the pork that's eaten in China comes from Europe. So the Chinese are now telling the Europeans, okay, you want to put a 40% tariff on our cars and our technology? We're going to put a 40% tariff on the pork, the pork Spaniards, which by the way is where all the 50% of the pork eaten in China comes from Europe. And 20% of that comes from Spain. So the who's going to get screwed? The poor farmer in Spain who has the pig farm. So the whole thing is cyclical. But my main point in that story is I thought that we were the country who pushed for democracy and free markets. Free
Wilmer Leon (31:21):
Markets,
Rick Sanchez (31:22):
Where
Wilmer Leon (31:23):
The fuck, the invisible hand let the market decide winners and losers. Adam Smith told us that.
Rick Sanchez (31:30):
Right? It goes back to your point about Cuba. It's like we say, well, we don't like Cuba because it's a communist country. So we do everything possible for them not to be able to compete in the free market. And then we say, we believe in the free market. Well, if you believe in the free market, you got to let China play. You got to let Cuba play. And you can't say, I don't like how they smell, or I don't like their policies, or I don't like their system of government. Everybody gets to play, right? That's what the free market means. Oh,
Wilmer Leon (31:59):
And by the buy, just really quickly, the United States made the conscious decision to export its manufacturing to China. We de-industrialized. That's true. The United States
(32:17)Why? For cheaper labor. Why for greater profit? Now, what we found is the Chinese have found a better way to beat us at our own game. Once you learn how to play the game, then you got to learn how the game gets played, and we can't break that code. I got it. My brother, Rick Sanchez, thank you so much for joining me today. I love you, man. You're a great guy and a great friend and a great golf partner. Well, you are too kind. You probably just need to get out more. Hey folks, thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me. I'm a great guy. I'm a great friend. I'm a great golf partner, according to Rick Sanchez with me, Dr. Woman Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You'll find all the links below in the description. Go to that Patreon site. Please make a contribution because, hey, I got to pay Rick. It ain't cheap. Anyway. This is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis. It's just chatter. We don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a great one. Peace and blessings. I'm out
Announcer (33:54):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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Eugenics Refuses to Die
13 Jun· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Wilmer Leon (00:00):
Let's play a word association game. When I say eugenics, what comes to mind? What does it mean? Is the opposition to critical race theory? A eugenics construct is eugenics alive and well and still impacting our culture? Does eugenics influence the character portrayals in movies that you see in commercials? And what are your children being taught in school and why?
Announcer (00:35):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:43):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which most events take place. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that are impacting the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is eugenics. Is it a warped pseudoscience of the past or is it still impacting how people view each other? My guest is a historian and journalist whose work documents deconstructs and interprets eugenics themes in popular culture, identify formation among African-Americans and reproductive apartheid in carceral spaces and within marginalized communities. She's the author of In Search of Purity, popular Eugenics and Racial Uplift Among New Negroes, 1915 to 1935, and Pop U, popular Eugenics in television and film. She is Dr. Chantel Sherman. Chantel, welcome to the show.
Dr Shantella Sherman (02:19):
Thank you. I appreciate you having me. Always.
Wilmer Leon (02:23):
Before we get to your work as a researcher and historian, let's talk about your work as a researcher, historian, and journalist. You're the founder of the Acumen Group and you're also the Acumen Group, publishes Acumen Magazine. What is the Acumen Group?
Dr Shantella Sherman (02:43):
The Acumen Group is basically an institution where we are training, it's a nonprofit where we're training folks to deconstruct the things around them, specifically related to eugenics, but also related to race to the world around them, how we construct identities not only racially, but within our families, within our nation, and how we view and observe the worlds around us. So the goal with the Acumen Group was to take what it is that we have in institutions and do a trickle down, or I like to say like a sprinkler system, so that every person has the ability to actually see what it is that we're studying, know what folks are saying when they create policy, understand the dynamics that go into creating policy and the power that they have to change it. But since most people aren't comfortable being in school anymore, or they figure once they reach the 12th grade, then that's it. They stop reading, they stop, I'm having conversations. They stop really engaging with the process of life. And so the goal is to tool people up, first of all, by making them comfortable with being in classrooms again, being armchair historians and armchair politicians so that they understand the world around them and then giving them the tools to actually go out and change the things that they need to change.
Wilmer Leon (04:06):
And Acumen Magazine, how often is it published? Where do people get it? What's in Acumen Magazine?
Dr Shantella Sherman (04:14):
Acumen Magazine came about because we have students, a lot of students who once they got the information, they were on fire. They really wanted to be able to tell this information and represented it and reproduce it. And so we created the magazine as a quarterly. It is student led, it is student produced with me at the helm doing much of the graphic design and the editing. But it is students from around the globe at this point that showcase their research. It is dialed down in a way that it's journal quality, but in a rather popular and inviting way of reading it. So it's more like a magazine, even though it feeds like a journal.
Wilmer Leon (05:00):
One of the things that has stood out to me, as you and I talk about all the work that you're doing, all the research that you're doing, all the presentations, it seems as though, and if I'm wrong, please correct me. It seems as though there's a lot more interest in your work abroad as in Europe than there is here in the United States.
Dr Shantella Sherman (05:24):
Yes, it's the quick answer. I think that there's a real passion across the globe, but specifically in these European spaces, because even though eugenics took off here in America, and I think it was the perfect laboratory for the pseudoscience, it in fact originated in Europe. And so the concept of how to create better people, the concept of how to nation build it comes from them as part of the colonial mainframe. And so it's that colonizing empire with its tentacles. But how do you manage people that you consider to be less than, to be inferior, to be the world's workers, to be low on the totem pole? How do you manage them? And so Europeans are still looking at this in other ways. They never stopped the eugenic mainframe. They never stopped the cogs and the wheels from spinning. And so when we look at things today, and I know we'll get to this artificial intelligence or people talking about genomes and helping with medicine, creating the medicine that you need based upon gene pools and gene sets, these are all tentacles and legs of the original eugenics movement.
(06:45)And so if we don't understand what that is, then the folks in Europe understand it. And so they're courses, they're college courses are designed to fit around this, whether it's law, whether it is political science, whether it's journalism, they understand that eugenics is still a part of the conversation. So for instance, Francis Go, who's considered to be the father of Eugenics, his original laboratory, the Eugenics Records lab, those societies are still very much in existence under different names. So the original Eugenics Institute under Francis Galton has now been renamed, and it's called the Adelphi Forum. And they're still having meetings early or as late as 20 23, 20 24. So part of, again, what the Acumen Group does is we send researchers, or I will attend myself, and we go in and we listen to how eugenics is now being talked about, or genetic research is now being talked about in a rather deconstructed way, so that folks are studying what happened, for instance, with Covid trying to determine through blood types or through environment who was more prone to having contagions.
(08:07)And that way it's no longer about the survival of the fittest, about who can survive different catastrophes and disasters based upon the help of science. Because if it's survival of the fittest, when the smoke cleared according to data, 63.7% globally of the folks who died from covid or complications from Covid were white people. So it makes sense that you then want to try and figure out if survival of the fit is about white people dominating people of color, but you have a pandemic come through, and the majority of the folks who passed away from this epidemic pandemic were white people. How do you explain that in a scientific way? So you'd start to study them all over again. So again, that's that eugenic tentacle still reaching out the way it does.
Wilmer Leon (09:00):
So let's take a step back and start with a definition of this pseudoscience known as genetics, known as eugenics. And after you define it, explain why it's a pseudoscience.
Dr Shantella Sherman (09:16):
Perfect. The term itself came about roughly 1840, though folks have believed that you could create or build better people or better societies through reproduction probably since the beginning of time. So the idea was that you can, in the same way you manufacture or manipulate the DNA, we weren't using the term DNA then, but germ plasm of plants and animals. You want to breed in certain things and breed out certain things. We believe that some point in this country and across the globe that you could actually do the same thing with people. And Francis goin took this science to a different level. And at the time it was considered a science. It was a bonafide science. The theories were that in the same way that you reproduce height and weight and hair color and eye color and things like that and pass them on to your children, that you could also pass along your characteristics.
(10:15)So they were stuck. There was a gene for lying, there was a chromosome for stealing. It is the belief that if you mix this type of person with this type of person, you'll end up with these type of children. And the belief eugenically was that these genes sat for generation after generation after generation. So if you had a great, great grandfather who was a criminal, that criminality was in your genes and the genes of your children, and that it was just one thing that would potentially push it on out, or in other instances it just manifested itself. So we know it to be a pseudoscience. All of the theories were fallible because if that was the case that meant that we just have a world full of criminals, we would have a world full of liars. And it's not to say that this, to some extent we don't, but these are things that can't be set aside.
(11:13)One of the things that is really defining about eugenics as well is that poverty is considered to be in your DNA. So this is the reason why, again, when we start talking about social sciences and reform work, the belief is that if you are born poor, you're going to stay poor. If your parents were burden on society, you will be a burden on society. If you had a child born out of wedlock somewhere along this family tree, that that immorality is in you and therefore you have to be watched, monitored, segregated, kept from doing things that other Americans do or other British do or other whomever do, because there is a discogenic taint, if you will, a contamination to your gene pool. And so that's where we get the marriage laws that are restricting folks. So we get segregation to restrict people from coming together.
Wilmer Leon (12:12):
So as a part of this, and I say this all the time, and usually people look at me, the whole construct of race is an artificial construct. Race does not exist. Racism exists because that is a thought process based upon the artificial construct of skin color, hair type, nose type, all of these types of elements that we attribute to race. That's an artificial construct grown out of the whole eugenics. Pseudoscience.
Dr Shantella Sherman (12:56):
Absolutely. And the reason why America became such a tremendous laboratory for the quote science at the time, is that Africans came over looking like traditional stereotypical Africans, very, very dark in complexion, very broad noses, very thick lips. And by the time you get to emancipation, you need eugenics to go through and measure noses and measure the thickness of lips because skin color is no longer attributed necessarily to white or black. You have enough black people who are, their skin tone is light enough that you cannot tell them from a white person,
Wilmer Leon (13:37):
Hence passing.
Dr Shantella Sherman (13:39):
Exactly. And there were enough at this point that you end up with your Dred Scott Case with your Plessy versus Ferguson with people saying, how can I identify this person as black when I can't by the naked eye see that they're black? And so we start to attribute within the eugenics mainframe things like 60 or 70 different measurements that every American at some point has to go through, whether it's through the school system, the public health system, which is just being birthed all around the same time. And so you have these folks like Frederick Hoffman who was a statistician who worked for Prudential Life Insurance, which is still around, who literally came up with a 330 page manifesto. He called it an article, I called it several volumes, but it was about who the Negro was and his health deficiencies and why black people as a whole did not deserve life insurance or health insurance because they were naturally predisposed genetically to cancers, to calamity, to disease, through filth, and just we were immoral, and it was our behaviors that created the discogenic bodies, the unfit bodies. So eugenics is the science of the fit over the unfit. And when you understand it that way, you also understand that there were as many, at some point as many white people who had to deal with this concept that they were not white enough. And so understand that any white person, when we start getting into things like the Racial Integrity Act, any white person who is not white enough is automatically classified in the black column. All right? Anyone who's not white, 100% white is now considered to be black.
Wilmer Leon (15:34):
So this takes us to the whole discussion about the one drop rule, and if there's one drop of black blood in your body, you are black. And in the south, particularly, I want to say Louisiana, but it might've been other places you had designations such as quadron, which meant you were one quarter black terone, you were one eighth black. That's where a lot of these designations came from. And I think it's important, I think for people to understand that if you're trying to construct a society that has in it a racial hierarchy, that white people are at the top of the pecking order, and black people are at the bottom of the pecking order, that white people are the dominant black people are the servant, then if you're trying to construct and maintain this type of social order or what you and I'll call disorder disorder, then you need this type of pseudoscience as the mechanism of proving or validating these warped racist theories.
Dr Shantella Sherman (16:44):
Absolutely. And within that same mainframe, Wilma, also understand that because you have so many people who at this time could be classified as mixed race, I could be classified as mixed race at this point based on the fact that I'm not dark enough. But then there were qualifiers that were put into place according to skin tone, even within darkness. So I think that you see the film cast, it touches on eugenics so briefly that I went, but that wasn't their purpose. That's okay. But the reality is you also had these qualifiers attached to different skin tones. So the closer a person was to whiteness, it was also debilitating to that black person.
Wilmer Leon (17:32):
Why do you say, wait a minute, why do you say whiteness and not just white? Are you being grammatically correct or is Oh,
Dr Shantella Sherman (17:38):
Yeah, I'm
Wilmer Leon (17:39):
No, no, no, but or is there a differentiator between, because when you say whiteness as opposed to just saying white, what distinction are you drawing?
Dr Shantella Sherman (17:54):
When I say whiteness, I'm taking on the character. I'm taking on the tone. Thank you. Not just the physicality of it. Thank you. I'm also taking into consideration the mentality of it. So sometimes I use film so that you'll get this, the Birth of a nation, the fear was not about the dark-skinned person that you could know and identify. It was all of a sudden about this mixed race, black person who gets into the White House, who gets into, I want you to pay attention to where I'm going with this. Who gets into Congress, who gets into these places where he does not belong? And so all of a sudden there's a different level of fear that says, if this person who I can't necessarily identify as black, black, see, we started out as docile and lazy and these characteristics, but all of a sudden you mix the parents, white man, black woman.
(18:48)Then they're ledgers that I read that say things like the lighter the person is, they take on the sinister qualities of the white master who produced this person. So all of a sudden he's crafty, he's diabolical, he's a rapist because he's taking on his daddy's quality. So in the birth of a nation, what did the woman say? This is a fate worse than death to have a black man touch me and rape me the way his father, this white man has done previously. This is a part of that white character, eugenically showing itself in this now mixed race, black child, the virtue of white women basically is code. You're putting a mirror to those genes. And basically the fear was these are not just enslaved people or newly emancipated people. These are the sons and daughters. In many instances of the whiteness, the power structure that has been there.
(19:49)So if you're telling me that eugenically within the DNA, all of those things that have been experienced and lived experiences and in the DNA and in the germ plasm of the oppressors are now in their offspring who are free to do whatever it is that they wish to do on the face of the earth, and they have the mobility to move about, all of a sudden this fear is driven into the average white male that says, now I have to be concerned not just with my children, my black children having sexual contact with the white children that I don't want them to have contact with. But I also have a fear that my children will have the type of sinister character that would allow them to elevate themselves in a way that corrupts genetically, socially, medically in every possible way, these children that I'm looking to protect in the first place.
(20:51)And so you end up with, I sometimes call it a schizophrenic nature of racism, which is I must protect, there's a fear of me dying or being annihilated. And so you end up with folks like Starter who's talking about the rising tide of blackness. You're talking about fear of losing genetic power, but if this is survival of the fittest and you are superior, there's nothing in my black jeans that could possibly contaminate you. That's just not possible. So it's not logical, it's not scientific in any way, but it has become the social and medical mainframe for what we do under racism.
Wilmer Leon (21:39):
In your work, you have the ABCs of eugenics, and we don't have time to go through all of them. So folks, go to the acumen group.org, dot com
Dr Shantella Sherman (21:57):
Org.
Wilmer Leon (21:58):
Go to the acumen group and.dot org. So for example, you have the American Breeders Association, the first national membership based organization promoting Eugenics. Talk about just quickly, the American Breeders Association and breeding out and cultural lag, these kinds of constructs and ideas that this whole thing was built around.
Dr Shantella Sherman (22:28):
Well, I mean the American Breeders Association, it was about breeding cattle. It was about breeding animals, farm animals. But the belief was, again, if I can breed out certain things in my animals, why can't I breed them out of my children or the community around me? And so the American Breeders Association understand that they were the first informal university, I would say, because most people were farmers. We were in an agrarian society. Everyone was still building and growing. And so what comes out of that are your beauty contests. So when you had your state fair, you would have the American Breeders Association sponsoring it, and they would have the section for the fattest calf and the biggest cow and the nicest squash and the best tasting cherry pie. And then on the other end, they would have the baby contest, the fitter families contest. And the idea was, if you're going to have this much control over everything else in your environment, why wouldn't you also have that same level of control over your household and over the people around you?
(23:35)And also Wiler, it sets up this thing where we do this all the time without thinking about it, you can go down the street and look at a person and them based on how they look. And I'm not saying, oh, his shoes are run over. You look at the face and you say, oh, his eyes are too close together. There's something wrong with that brother. Or Look at the slope on his head, or his lips are just way too big. Or We do this unconscious, we don't think about it. But these are all those eugenic theories and thoughts that were brought down to a playground level, if you will. And we went through this thing called the ugly laws, where anything that didn't satisfy our eyes, we could then conscript to being unfit. And so people who wear glasses, people who weren't wearing braces at this point, so if your teeth were not quite the way they could be, if your ears were bigger than folks thought they should be, you were nicknamed, you were bullied, you were pushed aside. Usually your teachers or nurse or doctor would say there was something wrong with you when really there wasn't, and you were then segregated from the rest of the children because you were an eyesore.
Wilmer Leon (24:49):
That takes me to, in your ABCs, there's language, and I'm glad you put it at the playground level, because there's language that became adopted into our dialogue that had to do with, I think the word is infirm, putting people in institutions, institutionalizing people. So words such as feeble-minded words such as retarded hearted. There were classifications that were associated or ascribed to people. And again, a lot of that language has become common parlance, but there was eugenic constructs tied to this language.
Dr Shantella Sherman (25:37):
Eugenics birthed that language, and I keep saying it did not exist in that way beforehand. You may have said this person a little slow or we're going to put the dunks cap on 'em, that type of thing. But you still saw that there was value in the person. You wouldn't segregate them from the rest of society or from the village or from the town. This was just the person who was a little slow. They still, for the most part, went to the same school. When eugenics enters into the frame though, what it says is that if other children see this, they will believe that this is normal, and we need to determine not what is natural, but what is normal, what we will and what we will not accept. And so you get terms like moron, idiot, buil, and within those high grade buil, low grade buil, medium grade buil, and each one of these was based upon iq.
(26:27)And so you have early IQ tests. At the time, there was the term test, you had the Goddard test, you had different social scientists and psychiatrists who were coming in and basically saying, if I give this child this test, it shows that they have the aptitude of a two to 3-year-old. If they're in that range, then we're going to say that there are moron. If they have an aptitude of four to a 5-year-old, we're going to say they're an idiot. And you keep going up this way. The problem is not everyone's going to school. Not everyone is in the same region. So I mean, as of
Wilmer Leon (27:05):
20 agrarian cultures did not see the need for advanced mathematics and science and reading. You don't need that to bale hay. You don't need that to chop cotton
Dr Shantella Sherman (27:18):
Wilmer. When I do the research, I find that organizations like the four H Club was originally a eugenic organization.
Wilmer Leon (27:27):
Wow. Did not know that
Dr Shantella Sherman (27:29):
The goal was to keep all of the people who were migrating. See, black people weren't the only ones migrating from the south because this became an economic imperative. You also had white people migrating from the Midwest into these other areas. But when they did, they lost the character of the Midwest and they started doing things. They started doing way too much drinking, way too much partying. The girls went wild. They lost their biblical way, they lost their American way. And so the goal was to give them something that would make them stay in the Midwest. They'll make them shun all of the other stuff that's out there. So you started saying, the folks out there are unfit and you are fit, and you live from the land. And so the goal was to make sure you had four H folks who understood you are America. And so when we look at the IQ test and your SATs and your acts today, all of these eugenic tests were originally designed for the Midwest. And that's why folks outside of the Midwest do the worst on the test because
Wilmer Leon (28:32):
No, wait a minute, I didn't know. Now I've taken the LSAT, I've taken a lot of these tests. I did not realize that there was a geographic basis or higher that I did not know people from the Midwest do better. Why do people from Iowa do better on the exam than people from California
Dr Shantella Sherman (29:01):
Easily? Because the person who designed the test was in Iowa, creating it with the folks in Iowa so that they set the rubric. This is his name is escaped. VP Franklin, the historian who did this great piece about the test is designed for the dog. He said, A cat and the dog kept tapping each other and whatever. The dog wouldn't move. The cat is popping him in the head and running around. The dog is just sitting there. And it's like someone would say that that dog is lazy. No, the test is designed for the dog. The cat is the one with the problem, but you focused on the dog ignoring him. The cat is the one over here losing his mind. The goal is to change how you frame things. How are you looking at things? And so again, Wiler, you have to take a step back from everything that you're looking at and just kind of deconstructing and pull it back up. As a black man, if you go somewhere and you're defending your wife, they say, oh, he's brave. Depending on where you are. If you're a black man in the Midwest and you're defending your wife, I don't care from what it becomes. If it's a squirrel that runs out across her, then he's an animal abuser. Okay? It's all in.
Wilmer Leon (30:18):
He's a squirrel hater.
Dr Shantella Sherman (30:20):
He's a squirrel hater. Get him. It's all in the examination. Masculinity and manhood are defined by patriotism, Americanism fighting the rugged cowboy. It's all of that. When you see a black man stand up, he goes to save the day. They say, why is he looking like that?
Wilmer Leon (30:39):
Why is he so aggressive?
Dr Shantella Sherman (30:41):
Why is he so aggressive? He could have shot one bullet instead of 20. But you don't say that to Arnold Schwarzenegger, come on. How many times can you kill him? It is that. And so you start to pull back from all of that. Why are your children being suspended more than others? All children. It used to be you had psychiatrists, psychologists that would say all children begin to rebel between the ages of eight and maybe 12. And then again, when they hit a growth spurt of 14, 15, 16-year-old child, teenager is one of the worst animals to have to encounter because nothing is logical. Everything is either too much or too little. We used to understand that they're teenagers and they're doing teenagery things. All of a sudden they become criminals depending on who they are. And as the nation and the world becomes majority minority, many of the things that were once considered just to be the trappings of life, this is how people grow. This is a part of what children and teenagers do. They rebel a little bit. This is Jimmy Dean and all of this, all of a sudden that's out the water. It becomes, they're a menace to society. They are dangerous. They are aggressive. They're taking the funds of the nation. It's a waste because the people are a waste.
Wilmer Leon (32:09):
So let's go to, because you mentioned Jimmy Dean. I think rebel without a cause was the film. And I remember when my son was in high school, I had to say to him more than once, look, you can't do what your white friends do. You can't get away with the same things they're going to get away with. The police will come and take them home. They will come and take you away. So you need to be sure that you can't fall for that Okie-doke and the banana and the tailpipe trick.
Dr Shantella Sherman (32:46):
Exactly.
Wilmer Leon (32:47):
Right. Exactly. So you have a book called Pop You EU popular eugenics in television and film. And again, you mentioned Rebel Without a Cause, and Minister Society was the other term that you used, which is a very popular film. So how does this whole eugenics dynamic play itself out in the commercials? In fact, let me just, this is a very long-winded way, but to show my age, I remember when I started seeing interracial couples in commercials. That is a relatively new phenomenon. Folks younger than me, my son, he sees it as normal. When I first saw that, it might've been the Cheerios commercial with the biracial child, the father, the African-American father is on the couch. The biracial child comes and pours Cheerios on him while he is laying on the couch. And that child was obviously biracial. I lost my mind. What am I seeing on television? Because before that, there was no way in the world that you were going to see, particularly an African-American man with a biracial child. That had to mean the mother in terms of this dynamic was white. Oh my God, no. So that's a very long-winded way of me,
Dr Shantella Sherman (34:34):
Wil. No, but you're very right. It's a quick turn. It is been a very, very quick turn. And it's not even as if it's being presented the way it would stereotypically be presented. Again, you have to understand, this man is in the house. He's not, I don't want to mess with him because oj, this isn't something that's volatile. This is something that's very relaxed, and it normalized. It kind of evened it out. Those who had problems with it were ostracized. And
Wilmer Leon (35:03):
Of course, but a lot of people had serious, oh, a lot of folks, they took that commercial off.
Dr Shantella Sherman (35:13):
But what you do is you keep pushing against the breaker. You keep pushing against the breaker. And so one of the chapters that's coming up in the second volume of Pop U, which would be out later this year, it looks at the interracial dynamic and how you can now popularize this to a point where not only is it accept it, but it's lauded. So the series 9 1 1, you get a character like Angela Bassett leading the show who has a black husband starting out who comes to her after 20 years and says, I've been hiding the fact that I'm gay and I don't want to be with you anymore. And then enter this wonderful fire chief who's tall and blonde, and he's given all of the John Wayne in a modern context, and he's overwhelmingly in love with her, and he falls right into place. And everyone was like, oh, it's such a brilliant dynamic. And all I keep saying is, I actually love the show. I love the content, but could you have saved her husband? Could you have left an actual black family intact?
Wilmer Leon (36:28):
And why do you have to be gay? But this interracial, the introduction and the acceptance of the interracial then brought us into the LB two dynamic.
Dr Shantella Sherman (36:48):
You get to the first episode, this happens in the first episode, Angela Bass and this, and I can't, Athena and her husband. This is episode one, Athena. So if you're going to watch this, you're going to grow into this, and you're going to love the characters so much, it breaks that eugenic mainframe open. And I can understand why you have these old traditionalists who are literally watching television saying, it's garbage. It's the left. It's these people that don't, you're feeding us this garbage. They're going deep. But you're right, everything becomes, you have a lesbian couple there who's adopting biracial kids from a white drug addict. They threw in everything except the eugenic asylum. They put it all right there and then made each and every last one of them heroes. So every week you, yay. And they then the fight. So now it becomes normalized, not that it wasn't already happening around you in the first place. So is life imitating art? Is art imitating life? Who's fueling what? And so my thing is, so long as you can find a way of making sure that all sides are represented positively, you may be okay, but that's not necessarily what's been happening. So back to your original question with this, you can go back as far Sidney porter and the blackboard
Wilmer Leon (38:13):
Junk. Oh, I would say that who was coming to dinner to
Dr Shantella Sherman (38:17):
Be a waste?
(38:21)Well, in the heat of the night. So again, I think that he was the original testing ground. All of the isms in our society went through City 48 because he was beautiful and dark and upstanding, and they put him in a good looking suit. And he went in and he did the work. So you can do in the heat of the night when you're talking about whiteness and you have a black man standing in a room where there's a white girl having sex on the top of graveyards in the cemetery with indiscriminate men. And the fight is, why did you let my little sister say that? She's basically a whore in the presence of that black man. How dare you? We all know she's not right, but you made her say it in the front of him. You can't do that. So we're going to skip all of these other reasons why her whiteness is in question. And now the fault is on the white police chief for allowing a black man to understand she ain't really white. All of these are built into that Hollywood mainframe, and when you pull 'em apart, you kind of go, wow.
Wilmer Leon (39:31):
It's interesting that you, well, two things. One, blackboard jungle wasn't that set in London?
Dr Shantella Sherman (39:37):
No, no, no. That was the other one to start with. Love.
Wilmer Leon (39:41):
Oh, to start with love. Okay. Right.
Dr Shantella Sherman (39:44):
I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Wilmer Leon (39:45):
Well, Sidney Poitier, not African-American. Does the fact that particularly at that time is one of the reasons or one of the factors that enabled him to have those roles was because he was an African-American. Because we know at that time that foreign blacks were given much more latitude than African-Americans. That's why, for example, there were many African-American musicians that changed their names to foreign sounding names. I can't remember the brother, but there was one musician that used to wear this turban. The brother was from Cleveland, I think, and he used to wear a turban so that the promoters of the shows would think he wasn't from here, and then he would have more latitude. But you're saying that had nothing to do with Sidney Poitier.
Dr Shantella Sherman (40:55):
I think with him, he may have been slightly different. One, visually he fit the optics. And again, I think that you had a whole series of directors and producers at this point that were really trying to push the envelope. So I think originally in the first book, I deal with the fact that you have Sidney Poitier doing three different films that are dealing with discogenic children, the bad children, the teenager thing. So you get the blackboard jungle first, and then 10 years later you get to serve with love where he's in England dealing with British kids. And the first one, he is one of the students like Gordon General, he is one of the throwaways and they're calling them waste. Now, the concept of human waste, that's eugenic. There's certain people that should not be born. There's certain people who are burdened on society, and what you do is you put them in a garbage can and you have the school system sit on the lid all day so that people, you're babysitting, but you're not to teach them anything because they don't have the capacity to learn.
(41:53)The second one, you get British students, but it's Sidney Poitier teaching young white girls that you don't do the things that they were doing in the film. He's teaching manhood to British white kids. So once again, you're like, but it's him. And then the third film is a piece of the action where you have him back in America in an inner city, and you'll see the difference in how the children are viewed and what happens when you put Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby in front of these discogenic black kids in the middle of Chicago. How do you place them at that point? And so all of these things optically, what are you saying? Where are you trying to go with this? And so what are you saying about these kids? Are they still throwaways? And as they talk
Wilmer Leon (42:44):
About the objects, I want to be sure if you could spend just a couple minutes on, because I think a lot of times folks will look at these films and they don't realize what they're looking at. They don't understand the optics.
Dr Shantella Sherman (43:01):
Anytime you find a particularly dark-skinned man, see the darker person is the closer they are to their primitive ancestry. So anytime you get a beautifully dark black man and you put him in front of a screen, what the average person is looking for in this country is someone who's scratching their head and Yael Boston and scared and running, and whose eyes get big Manan Morton and someone who has the capacity of a child, he will have to be saved by whoever is the white hero because he doesn't have the capacity to think, to learn to do anything, but still scream and run. But you put Sidney Poitier in there, again, being beautifully black and eloquent and having integrity. Notice in each one of these films, Sidney Poitier is coming in unquote whiter than the white person that's in the film. He's coming in, they're more educated than the white people in the film.
(44:08)He's coming in as a sex object in many of the instances that you start to see. And that was not just taboo. It was literally turning the eugenic theories upside down. It literally cut out the bias. It slid it. And so it made you have to think, am I judging the elevator operator because he's doing something else? He actually has a brain. Am I conscripting people to places where they actually have a capacity beyond what it is that I'm seeing? If he's this dark and he's this brilliant, he has this type of mind and he has this type of integrity, and he has a wife and children back, and he's making money and all of these other things. And he attended college understanding everything that we're seeing in television and film was going against the reality of what was in front of people. That's the other thing.
(45:07)It's fantasy. It was fantasy. So all of a sudden, if folks don't have the capacity to know the difference between what is real and what is imagined through Hollywood, and all of a sudden I start giving you beautiful dark men who are brilliant and bright, I start giving you black women who have integrity and who are business women and who are matriarchs of their household and don't curse and beat their kids. And I'm walking around with the on welfare and this, this, and this, and all of a sudden you start to look at the people around you and realize you've been in fantasy land for a long time. The people around you really are wonderful and brilliant and American and all of these other great things.
Wilmer Leon (45:50):
Guess who's coming to dinner 1967. So this is a year before Dr. King is assassinated. Sidney Poitier. Talk about that dynamic in, and I think Spencer Tracy plays the father of the woman, the white woman that Sidney Poitier falls in love with.
Dr Shantella Sherman (46:12):
Well, and the whole thing, women becomes hokey after a while because it's almost as if they're preaching to you. Spencer Tracy is like, and as we go through the annals of history and just like, right. I love the fact though, in this film that you have the older black characters. You have the maid saying, you know, ain't got no business up in here with this girl coming into a house like this. Years ago, it wasn't even that you would've gone into the back door. You'd have been swinging from a tree. You ought to know better. And because you can't separate that,
Wilmer Leon (46:45):
You have to know your place.
Dr Shantella Sherman (46:47):
And I really did not like the fact that you had his parents, Sidney Poitier's parents are trying to warn him off like, listen, I didn't like that. Because it's like, in reality, those warnings are real today. Oh, absolutely. Hey, you watch where you step, right? Again, you don't do what they do
Wilmer Leon (47:06):
Well, so take us with that, because I wanted to try and show some type of lineage here. So where are we with this today? Because a lot of people would think that eugenics and how it manifests itself, that was then, we're not really seeing that. Now. You touched on it with 9 1 1 and all, but give us some examples of, because you spend an awful lot of time researching in terms of what we're seeing today. How is it manifesting itself today
Dr Shantella Sherman (47:43):
At the pendulum, wil, we quite frankly, you can swing too far in one direction and then it flips over. The reality is that many of the eugenic theories that we started with, we still have, we call them by different names. We don't say that a person is an idiot buil all of that anymore. What we say is their sub normal. We say that they need an emotional assistance program within the school. We say that we don't want to segregate them out, but we're going to find a way of pulling these things together. So even I
Wilmer Leon (48:18):
Think it's called a EP and alternative educational plan.
Dr Shantella Sherman (48:21):
Absolutely. But you keep everyone in the same space. And even the rubric is not really, it's still a eugenic rubric. Do you have both parents in your house? What is the income of the household? It's all of these other things that go back to what we call the three Ds. Delinquent dependent. What's the other one? Delinquent dependent. I always get to that last one.
Wilmer Leon (48:48):
It'll come to you.
Dr Shantella Sherman (48:50):
Yeah. All right. But it's the three Ds that most school systems, most medical systems use that determine how the child will fare in the school. But they start using this rubric when the three or four, and this is the reason why you have three year olds being suspended and expelled from school. They don't listen. They're aggressive. They're throwing tantrums. That's what three year olds do. But now there's a pathology that's attached to it. And so when you look at, yes, if I look at things like the cloning, because we moved into transhumanism and people go, oh, this AI and all of this other stuff, these are just fancy terms so that you don't understand that that original theory, survival of the fittest and white gene power and all of this, covid showed you something. So you're getting television shows where you're talking about cloning people, you're talking about orphan black, you're talking about AI integrated into things. You're talking about, we need to build better humans externally, because internally, white women are not having babies, and when they do, they're having non white men. Okay, the
Wilmer Leon (50:02):
Browning of America,
Dr Shantella Sherman (50:03):
Right? The browning of the world, right? Say there's a reason why they're calling London Stan now, because everybody, these aren't immigrants coming in. These are births in the nation. And so all of a sudden the culture of the nation is beginning to shift. So what we want to do is start having the people who would normally clean the streets or do other things. We have machines that do this now. And so what you're doing is creating a poverty class where folks won't be able to do anything except what you want them to do. And so we are getting back, you can't put 'em in asylums, but you can't put 'em in ghettos. You can't put'em in counsel housing. And so you start to understand that the television is starting to help you do this. You're getting different films about when we create better people that can assist us with being more human, you have more time to be human and go to yoga and do this other stuff. If someone else is doing the thinking for you. That becomes problematic in a number of ways. But what it does supposedly is secure your cells, your good cells, that fitness, because you're now being outnumbered.
Wilmer Leon (51:19):
I'm not even sure how to frame this question, but in listening to what you've just said, it ties to a conversation I was having yesterday in that we seem to be moving away from the collective to the individual with the iPhone and the iPad. It is a whole lot more about me as the individual and what satisfies me as the individual. I remember seeing these dance parties where kids will go with their iPods, listen to music in their own ears, in a group of people. Everybody's listening to different music. Everybody's dancing the same rhythm. Everybody's dancing to different rhythms because they're listening to different things. And this is supposed to be a party. I don't even know if that ties it, but that just came into my
Dr Shantella Sherman (52:21):
Head. No, but it does, because again, when I'm speaking of the term outnumbered, when we talk about transhumanism, the belief is that society, the world is going to basically at this point, because the good, the fit have been outnumbered by the unfit. Those who have the least ability and capacity to raise children are having the most children. Years ago, you would sterilize these folks, you would strike 'em as an idiot, em basil, you put 'em in an asylum or at the public health center for a couple days, you would sterilize them, do full hysterectomies or surgeries for the men, and then you let 'em back out on the street and say, okay, you can do all the damage you can do in your lifetime, which won't be long based upon your behavior, but you will not reproduce this foolishness into another generation. We're going to stop this. They're still doing this in prisons, by the way, today. Alright, so that's first and foremost. But what starts to happen is it's not that you want to be individual in and of yourself, you also want to be a celebrity. So everywhere you go
Wilmer Leon (53:26):
Likes taking
Dr Shantella Sherman (53:27):
Pictures of yourself,
Wilmer Leon (53:29):
I have to be liked.
Dr Shantella Sherman (53:30):
And then you can't function when enough people don't like it. But I've seen people sitting at a table and everyone's taking pictures of the food they're eating, the food they're drinking, they may look over at each other a little bit, but you all are family and you came together, but you're not even having conversations. So you're in a bubble by yourself and your own self. It's all
Wilmer Leon (53:50):
About this,
Dr Shantella Sherman (53:51):
Right? You're in a bubble by your own self and you can't relate. The mainframe is also speeding up so that I'm feeding you so much information at one time that you can't focus. And since you can't focus, it means it's doing something internally to you as well. At some point, Wilma, we may talk about the Rosetta Effect. Alright, go
Wilmer Leon (54:13):
Ahead.
Dr Shantella Sherman (54:16):
And this is one of my champion causes because it's about size and it's about weight and it's about happiness. Back in the 1950s, sixties, the country was trying to figure out where the healthiest spaces in America were, and they found that it was a little community upstate New York called Rosetta. And when they got there, they were like, this doesn't make sense. It was mostly a Italian spot, and everyone over there was just gargantuan. These are some big people.
Wilmer Leon (54:42):
This sounds like a Twilight Zone episode. No,
Dr Shantella Sherman (54:44):
No, no. And I don't mean I shouldn't say it like that, but it was the men had bellies out in front of them. The women were B, and people were short and styled. Some of 'em were tall, but based upon the eugenic theories, these should be the most unhealthy people with hypertension, diabetes, heart conditions, just heart attacks waiting around the corner. Their BMIs were just ridiculous. They got there, they started testing them, and they realized, yeah, they just eating crap. They eating prosciutto and ham and cheese and melon walking down the street. One guy says, I want to die with a meatball in my mouth. And they did that right? And they just, Kiki can and laughing and drinking a lot of wine. What they concluded in the study was that the people felt safe, they felt loved, they felt nurtured. They felt respected. The old people lived into their nineties and hundreds because they had people looking out for them.
(55:42)The children felt free to walk around in their neighborhoods and they had other people looking after them. And the middle aged, the birthing folks realized we have a community that will look after our children to keep them safe. We used to have that in the south, even under the duress of the lynching tree and other things. And that's why the lifespan was as long as it was, even though we were eating chitlins and hog malls and whatever else, it wasn't until the duress of society comes in and starts telling you, you're too this. You're too that. You're not enough of this. This is what causes this. This is how you get to that. You're not enough. They're giving you too much of this. And that is what we are dealing with. Now, within three years of the study coming out, we came in, America came in and told them, you don't want to live up underneath your grandparents all your lives. Sell the house and put them in a home. Send the kids to daycare. They'll get behind in school. They started feeding information to them about being more American. As soon as they became more American, guess what? They
Wilmer Leon (56:44):
Started dying faster.
Dr Shantella Sherman (56:46):
Hypertension showed up. And so the eugenic mainframe right now with transhumanism is going back to this and basically saying, you need yoga and water and to rest and music therapy and chelation and all of this. And the truth of the matter is, let the robot do the heavy lifting and you just live. Let the machine carry the baby.
Wilmer Leon (57:10):
Let me give you what I think is somewhat of a parallel here. The first time I went to Iran, I'm sitting in the lobby of my hotel. When we weren't in meetings and lectures and whatnot, we would sit in the lobby of the hotel and drink coffee and interact. I saw all these women with surgical tape on their faces, Muslim women with surgical tape, and it was just odd. So after about the second or third day, I turned to my interpreter, I said, Ali, why am I seeing all of these women with all this surgical tape on their faces? And he tells me that Tehran is the nose job center of the Middle East. And that fairly wealthy Muslim women come to Tehran to get their eyes done and get their noses done. And I said, Ali, that's insane. These women are beautiful. And he says, yeah, but they're reading Western glamor magazines and they want to look like women from the west.
(58:41)So I'm in this interview, I'm on this television show on press tv, and the host asks me my thoughts about, I was there the first time I was there for 10 days, and he asked me my thoughts and I says, well, let me tell you something. I says, you guys, you don't have to worry about General Schwartzkoff. You got to worry about Colonel Sanders. And he says, excuse me? I said, based on what I see your adopting of the Western aesthetic is for your women. When that three piece in a biscuit hits, you guys are done. Hypertension, obesity, diabetes. I said, once you get a taste of those additives in American food and that salt hits you, I said, America will take you over in a minute.
Dr Shantella Sherman (59:45):
It's a wrap. It's literally a wrap. I mean, when we have folks right now, if you go the next time interview are out in the streets, go into the nearest target of Walmart, go down the aisle, not for cosmetics, but for things like deodorant and lotion, they're now putting additives in that specifically for melanated skin. And the goal is to bleach your underarm. Pitts. The goal is to lighten your skin as you're putting on your lotion. So it's not listed as a skin bleacher, but the combination and compounds that you would actually lighten your skin with are now in soaps, deodorant, lotions, anything that you can think of. And it's for every part of your body. Understand what I'm saying? And so I'm thinking, who really needs this?
Wilmer Leon (01:00:42):
Is that where this whole, because I've noticed these new commercials with the total body deodorant. Is that where that's coming from?
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:00:50):
That's also a part of it. Yes. Come on, come had baby soda since you've had life. So come on. Say that again.
Wilmer Leon (01:00:58):
You've had
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:00:58):
What? Baking soda. Oh,
Wilmer Leon (01:01:00):
Right.
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:01:00):
Everybody said if you were worried about sweat, I mean, come on, sweat and odor. We know how to deal with this. Again, country folks, you've been Virginian and lower. You got it. So the fact that you're now creating through Suave and Dove and shame motion, every brand now has something that, and they call it melanated. They're letting you know this is for people who are brown, who don't want to be brown anymore. This is for folks who don't want to be to appear unfit. They're now girdles for your feet. They're now, you want a smaller size foot. We got some tape and stuff that we can wrap your feet in so that you get a smaller size shoe. It's bizarro, but fit over unfit.
Wilmer Leon (01:01:51):
The Acumen Group is we could talk, well, you and I, we go through this for hours. The Acumen Group, you're holding your first annual eugenics conference in the United Kingdom in October. Talk about that. Give us a little bit of that, please.
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:02:07):
Well, we're still pulling all the logistics together at this point when we're, but I'm grateful to God that we're celebrating our 10th anniversary as of this year. 2024 is also for us, the 100 year anniversary of a lot of the eugenic legislation that came about in 1924. And it's still occupying spaces in the parameters of our policymaking today. So we are partnering with a number of universities in,
Wilmer Leon (01:02:35):
Well, wait a minute, A minute, just So in 24, you had the Eugenic Sterilization Act, you had the Racial Integrity Act, and you had And Immigration Go ahead.
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:02:45):
And the Immigration Act.
Wilmer Leon (01:02:47):
Okay,
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:02:47):
So those three and two of the three came out of Virginia right up here where we are. So one just basically limited the number of immigrants that can come into the country. The second one said that anyone within a state that's considered to be socially inept and or mentally inept through those IQ tests and measurements can be sterilized for the better of the country. And then the third, the Race Purity, race Integrity Act basically said, once again, there are only two races. We aren't going to do Mongolo and Caucasoid and all of that. There are only two races, white and non-white. So even that praxis understanding that today when someone says black people are 20 times more likely to have X, Y, and Z, they aren't necessarily talking about black this way. They're talking about non-white. And so you really have to get to a point where you learn how to read these studies if you're going to repeat the information in them.
(01:03:44)Alright, so the goal, the universities, the goal is to get all of these wonderful students from around the globe into one space, along with working scholars and the public to sit down and talk about the tentacles of eugenics and how it's become a sprinkler system. And it's still very much alive. It's still very healthy, it's robust, and it's right in front of us, but we don't necessarily recognize it. So we want to give a platform to scholars, to students, and to the public, the general public to come in, learn a little bit, share information, and go away with workable tools to combat this when and where we see it.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:23):
And for those who want to get more information, where do they go
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:04:28):
To the website? www.theacumengroup.org. You can visit us on all of the social medias, either as Dr. Chantel or as the Acumen Group.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:40):
An Acumen is A-C-U-M-N-E-N?
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:04:45):
Yes.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:46):
E-N-H-C-U-M. Hey, don't say I'm feeble-minded, please. I just can't spell. Don't do it. I went to Catholic school so I can do math.
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:04:57):
Don't do it.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:59):
Oh wow. Doctor Cantella Sherman, as always, you bring it. You brought it as you always do. Dr. Chantel Sherman, I have to thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr Shantella Sherman (01:05:12):
Thank you. Always a pleasure. Anytime
Wilmer Leon (01:05:15):
Folks. Thank you all. So much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe, review, share the show. You can follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Please go to that Patreon link and make a contribution so all the assistance that you can provide will be greatly, greatly appreciated. If you have any questions or you would like to suggest show topics, please make those suggestions as you communicate with us through the links below with your comments to the show. Remember folks, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis is just chatter and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you allall next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out
Announcer (01:06:22):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
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In India, Prime Minister Modi Suffers Defeat?
6 Jun· Connecting the Dots with Dr Wilmer Leon
Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube.
Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Wilmer Leon (00:00):
Did you know that the world's largest democracy India is holding its lo Saba or lower house elections right now? And I don't think we can talk about India without talking about nuclear weapons. India is a nuclear power. How does that play out on the world stage?
Announcer (00:32):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Wilmer Leon (00:41):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. And I'm Wilmer Leon. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which these events take place. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode. The issues before us are what will the election results mean for India? What will the results mean for the global geopolitical landscape? And we'll throw in a few other things as well for insight into this. Let's turn to my guest. She's a professor in the Department of Political Studies and director of the Global Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg Canada. She's the author of numerous books. She's recently returned from a couple of trips to her home country of India. She is Dr. Rekha Desai. Dr. Desai, as always, welcome back to the show.
Dr Rekha Desai (02:03):
Great being with you again. Wilma
Wilmer Leon (02:06):
Narendra. Modi is a Indian politician. He has served as the 14th Prime Minister of India since May of 2014. He had a simple campaign slogan of Good Days are Coming. Those who support him seem to love him. His opponents argue he's done little to improve their quality of life and the quality of life across the country. What's going on with the current elections in India?
Dr Rekha Desai (02:38):
Well, this election has, it's actually, I should say that the election itself is not going on today. The election has been going on for the last seven odd weeks, 45 days. So it started more than 45 days ago and it ended, the last voting day was June the first. It was a seven phase election in which the Election Commission organized elections in different parts of the country over seven phases. The counting is what's going on today. It's not complete yet. So we basically have an idea mean roughly a little over half the votes have been counted, and we can say that pretty well. The trends seem to be set. Nothing has changed very much over the last two or three hours. And what we see here is that Mr. Modi has been humiliated. Let me explain why Mr. Modi went into this election campaign with the Hubristic slogan of this in Hindi, you say ispa.
(03:49)So this time we will go beyond 400, 400 seats in a 543 member Loba or Parliament, the BJP at the moment, I mean that was for the larger alliance, the NDA, the National Democratic Alliance, of which the BJP is the biggest part by far. And the BJP itself was supposed to get about 370 seats. At the moment the BJP is at 240 seats, so that is 130 seats less than what they had projected to win. So that is a pretty big humiliation. What's worse for Mr. Modi is that it's going to be in the past two elections, what has been remarkable, and one of the facts which has permitted many people to say that he's some kind of very unique, amazing sort of leader who is much beloved by the country and so on. In 2014 and 2019, his party won a parliamentary majority that is more than 272 seats in the Parliament.
(05:02)On its own, it didn't need its allies. And this is the first time a single party has won a majority since the election of 1984 when if you remember, Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated and the Congress party rode to power with the highest percentage of vote and highest seat count ever in its history on a sort of sympathy wave. And so since that time, no party has ever won a majority, and Mr. Modi won a majority twice. Now in this election, it does not look as though he's going to have a majority. If the present trends continue, he will be somewhere around two 40 seats and he needs 2 72 for a majority. This will be an even bigger humiliation for him.
Wilmer Leon (05:49):
What does this mean, if anything, in the context of governance? I understand in the parliamentary system that you can win and lose seats and that can be a humiliation as you've just indicated, but that doesn't necessarily translate into your ability to form coalitions, your ability to govern. And if you still have the ability to govern, how difficult does it become? So for example, we can look at Netanyahu in Israel and now you got Morich and others threatening to leave and that's going to break up his coalition. What does this mean for Prime Minister Modi in terms of governance?
Dr Rekha Desai (06:34):
Well, it means that he will have to concede a lot to his coalition partners if he needs them. But before we get there, let me just say two other things, which is that depending on how, what is the final result, two additional things may or one of two or two or more things may happen, which will put into question more these ability to form a government. The first thing is that if the BJP is truly humiliated as it seems to be, it is going to be, it is very possible that there will be big opposition within the party, within the BJP knives will come out for him because he has basically ruled again in this very hubristic fashion disdain pretty well, all the second level leadership of the party, disdain, all the other organizations with which his party is affiliated and so on. So we will have to wait and see what will happen. The second thing that could happen, I'm not sure that it will, but it could happen, is that his coalition partners who he now needs may abandon him particularly sensing that this Mr. Modi is going nowhere. Good.
Wilmer Leon (07:54):
So it's that dramatic.
Dr Rekha Desai (07:57):
It could be is what I'm saying. We are not sure at the moment I'm looking at it and it's still showing me BJP at two 40 leading in two 40 seats, 63 seats short of its previous tally. That's pretty bad when you are claiming, and you asked me another question, and I just want to throw this one thing in there, contrary to what has been reported in most of the mainstream media in the West and certainly in India, because in India, the Modi government has the mainstream media in its back pocket. So contrary to what these sources have reported, the Indian economy is doing exceedingly badly. It is not doing well. And if you ask me the most fundamental reason for the bad performance of the BJP and Mr. Modi is that imposing the kind of economic pain that he has imposed on the country for the last decade, I would say, and we can discuss what happened in 2019, why did he get reelected? But he has imposed nothing but economic pain on the ordinary Indian for the last decade. This cannot be electorally, costless. And this time around the cost has caught up with him.
Wilmer Leon (09:14):
So when you talk about economic pain, the word that comes to my mind, well, two words that come to my mind are neoconservative and austerity. Are those, because I also, if I looked at some of the data, I want to say that youth unemployment is incredibly, incredibly high in India. And when your youth unemployment is that high, boy, you're the economist, not me, but you're setting a groundwork for discontent going forward amongst your youth. Those youth grow into adults and they carry that mindset forward. Speak to that please.
Dr Rekha Desai (10:03):
Okay, so I would say that there are a number of points I want to make. Number one, India's growth figures are highly exaggerated. That's the first thing is that they have changed the way in which they compile growth statistics, which depending on which economist you are talking to is exaggerating. India's growth rate anywhere between two to 4%. And if you factor that in, then India's growth rate, which is often touted as being the fastest of any major developing country faster than China's, et cetera, does not have any of those qualifications. India should be growing much faster, has in the past grown much faster and Mr. Modi's performance is actually very poor. The second point I have to make is that even the growth we have has been powered by unsustainable stimuli and it has created exceedingly high levels of inequality. So that is a problem.
(11:02)So growth is low, inequality is high, inflation is high, unemployment is high including youth unemployment. So the unemployment crisis in India is very high, even though India's labor force participation rate, that is to say the number of people who are actively either employed or seeking employment out of the working age population is actually quite low. So even with this sort of social, shall we say, benefit that India has, granted, the BJP unemployment levels are very high. Youth unemployment is so high that for individual jobs, maybe the government advertises or some company advertises a dozen jobs and there will be literally hundreds of thousands of applications for a dozen jobs. I'm not kidding you. And there have been riots around issues of employment and so on. So we can again discuss that. So unemployment is that. Now, if this whole litany is not bad enough, Mr.
(12:10)Modi has willfully in order to show what a strong man he's who can take decisive decisions and actions has imposed pain on the Indian economy on at least three separate occasions, which is completely, it's uncalled for unnecessary. But again, to do this, the first was if you remember the demonetization exercise when overnight the government declared that currency notes over the value of 500 rupees were considered invalid and gave everybody a short period of time to go and exchange them for lower denomination notes. Now, for an economy which runs on cash primarily, this was a disaster. Remember that India's economy, the formal employment in India's economy is only about 7%. So 93% of Indians work in an informal economy where cash is king. These people were suddenly thrown into a crisis. People who had squid away savings in high denomination notes had to go and exchange them. And many very often they had to stand in long lines and it created a huge mess. Secondly,
Wilmer Leon (13:25):
Well, wait a minute, what was the objective of doing that?
Dr Rekha Desai (13:28):
Well, he claimed that he was going to try to create a cashless economy and remove the black money from the economy, et cetera, but none of this was proved true. I believe that he was simply talking to certain, shall we say, big financial wizards who want to introduce cashless payment systems in India and want to benefit from the bonanza. And he basically doesn't talk to a lot of people. So one or two people who have his ear can actually get him to take these decisions. I mean the demonetization exercise. And a third thing was that he was trying very desperately to win an election in the giant state of UTA Prade elections were due. And he thought that somehow by doing this, he would prevent the opposition from essentially spending any money. So then he declared a covid lockdown at a time when there was no covid detectable in India.
(14:26)And then a year later when you saw all those bodies floating down the Ganges and all those funeral pies, he was nowhere to be seen. He was missing in action. There was no government policy. People just had to somehow make do with what they had. State governments did do a lot, but not, he did not. And then finally he imposed a goods and services tax, which again, given that India operates on so many small and tiny enterprises, it was simply another burden on people who are already too stretched to keep records in order to pay taxes. And moreover, it's a regressive tax. There is so much inequality that the need of the R is to tax the fabulously wealthy. So in India, we now have literally a two tier society where if you are one of the five or 10%, life's never been better. And if you are one of the 90 to 95%, it's really, really bad.
Wilmer Leon (15:23):
So please forgive my ignorance of Indian culture, but I understand that there's a cultural strata within India. So you add the economic strata to the cultural strata, and then I would think you have a big mess on your hands.
Dr Rekha Desai (15:46):
Well, it exacerbates the inequality. What you're referring to is the caste system, which is quite widely misunderstood. But let me just, I mean the caste system people think is a kind of a layered, like a many tiered wedding cake with a small number of, so-called twice born cast at the top and then everybody else. But in reality, caste works in the sense of having, there are various caste groups and each caste group is either higher or lower in the hierarchy and that, so a small number of caste groups are in the, so-called twice born casts that are essentially the high castes, and then there is a big fat middle of the middle casts. And then there are the, so-called untouchable cast, and then there is a group of tribals who are outside the caste structure. So the thing, I don't want to give a long disposition on that, but the thing to know about the class structure in India is that the upper cast are also generally the upper classes, the well to do. So, the cultural or social privilege and economic privilege largely coincide, not completely, but largely. So this creates an additional layer of resentment and so on. So that's the situation.
Wilmer Leon (17:13):
I want to get back to my austerity question because I know that Modi is very, very close to Joe Biden, and that's why when you mentioned early on about the economic issues, Neo Khan and austerity were the two words that came to my mind. So are there similarities between the objectives of Modi's economics and the economics of the West?
Dr Rekha Desai (17:41):
Yes. Essentially the Modi government, like the previous BJP government engages in a certain politics of neoliberalism or economic policy of neoliberalism where you privatize as much as you can, you reduce social expenditure, you reduce state capacity, you contract out, that sort of thing. And that has really penetrated very deep. Now the Indian economy, so for example, he has recently privatized Air India sold it off essentially, and many other state assets have been privatized. A lot of the way I look at it, I think that this would go for President Biden as well as Narin Modi, essentially they have a one point economic policy. The one point economic policy is to do what benefits the really big corporations. And India has a lot of big corporations, so that that's the economic policy Bohi has pursued. So essentially there is a handful of big titans who destroyed the Indian economy.
(18:54)You must have heard of Gata Madani who is a particular favorite of the Prime Minister. There are the Bannis and a few others. And essentially what Mohi has done in terms of economic policy is initiate projects. For example, building roads or bridges or highways or ports or airports or what have you, which involve giving very lucrative contracts to a small number of big corporations. And that's, those are the ones who have benefited. Whereas he claimed that he had a make in India a policy or program which was going to expand the manufacturing sector. Well, if anything, the manufacturing sector has shrunk under Modi. So the kind of good jobs that manufacturing tends to create has actually shrunk under Modi rather than expanded. So this is the kind of economic policy you have. And of course that makes India all the more unequal,
Wilmer Leon (19:52):
As I have read, particularly in Western media, it's been portrayed over years that it was expected that India would rival China. That modi's objectives were to the one China policy, I'm sorry, the Belt and Road initiative and that China China's economy, one of the leading growth economies in the world, and that Modi was trying to rival China and in the West it was being portrayed as though he was actually successful in doing so. Speak to that, please.
Dr Rekha Desai (20:33):
Yeah, I mean the West would dearly love India to emerge as an economic giant and
Wilmer Leon (20:40):
Competitor to China.
Dr Rekha Desai (20:41):
Exactly, and a counterweights to China. And so India would be sort of in the Western camp and help count to China. Unfortunately, the West has had to swallow considerable amount of disillusionment because I noticed that even in some of the more mainstream western media, which would, as I say, which have been praising India until recently, there has been a certain amount of stepping back, realizing that Modi has been not as economically successful, and also realizing that Modi has been very authoritarian so that India's democracy is often has been rated by under, Modi has been rated by some international agencies as an electoral autocracy, the press freedom in India, India has been criticized on those grounds. And I think that if anything, the west has been forced to come to these conclusions and it has reluctantly come to these conclusions. And if anything, criticism of Modi is still much milder than it should be, but it is there because the facts are too difficult to look away from.
(21:53)Having said that, as I said, the West's desire for India to be this counterweight to China has not gone away. And I should also add that particularly this party, the BJP to which Mr. Modi belongs, has historically pursued a policy of getting closer and closer to the United States. And I should also add in the process, getting closer to Israel, reversing a very longstanding Indian policy of anti-imperialist support for the Palestinian cause and so on. So these trends have certainly been exacerbated under Modi, and we'll have to see now what happens in the coming weeks and months and so on.
Wilmer Leon (22:35):
India shares, I want to say about a 2200 mile border with China. India is part of bricks, the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and now a number of other countries have joined that economic block. So it seems as though Modi is trying to walk a very fine line in terms of being a member of Brix, which means good relationships with China working, I'll say working, working relationships with China, working relationships with Russia, while at the same time trying to be the friend of the United States. Is that a fair assessment of his effort? And that I would think that's a very, very difficult and fine line to walk.
Dr Rekha Desai (23:26):
I think it is. And at the same time, Mr. Modi has not had much choice because for several reasons. Number one, Modi would really love to distance himself distance India from Russia, which of course has had longstanding economic ties as well as defense cooperation ties.
Wilmer Leon (23:51):
But wait a minute, let me jump in. And just to that point, didn't India just sign a huge oil and gas deal with Russia and they are buying Russian gas in rubles?
Dr Rekha Desai (24:08):
Yes. So let me exactly. I was about to come to that.
Wilmer Leon (24:14):
I'm channeling my inner, not
Dr Rekha Desai (24:16):
Really like that. But what has happened in the interim, of course, is that with the Ukraine crisis, India and the rise in the price of oil, and remember India imports a lot of oil and the rise in prices of oil in India has ripple effects throughout the economy because the cost of everything goes up because transport is a central part of the cost of anything. So inflation is already bad enough in India. If India did not have this oil deal with the Russians, then it would be even worse and it would tell on Modi even greater way. Secondly, some of his best paths like Mr. Adani and Mr. Banani and so on are actually engaged in the lucrative and shady practice of buying Russian oil at a discounted price and then processing it to power, not for that matter, and then selling it forward to essentially Europeans who can say, well, we are not buying Russian oil, but we are buying these oil or oil products from the Indians.
(25:18)And so this India has become a sort of conduit for this oil trade and so on and gas trade with the Europeans. So that's another important thing and why India needs Russia. Secondly, India also has these border disputes with China, which go a long way. And Mr. Modi, of course, loves to sort of rattle his saber every so often in order to Ghana support across the border with China. But in India has also become dependent on cheap Chinese imports, inexpensive Chinese imports, I should say. I don't want to suggest that they're low quality, but because Indian manufacturing has declined and India's has become ever more reliant on importing cheap Chinese products. So in all of these ways, India's room for manure is actually shrinking largely thanks to the sad state of its economy, which Mr. Modi is doing nothing to improve. So in that sense, what Mr. Modi would like and what he must do are increasingly further apart.
Wilmer Leon (26:33):
Here comes a very basic simplistic question. India, I believe is the largest population in the most populous country in the world. That says to me that there's a very large accessible labor force. The United States is moving or trying to move off of Chinese labor and fine labor elsewhere. Allah, Haiti, why isn't Modi, or why isn't the US trying to tap into that unemployed labor force, expand production in the country? Because when we think of India, a lot of people in West think of, for example, call centers. They think about engineers, but not necessarily with IIT, for example, the Indian Institute of Technology, which is supposed to arrival. MIT, supposed to be one of the best engineering school in the world, but people don't necessarily think of engineering coming out of India. So why isn't the world or why isn't the west tapping into this labor force? Is that a sensible question to ask?
Dr Rekha Desai (27:58):
No, it's a good question to ask. So let me take another step back. You are right. India is the most populous country. India has a very large young population, and people often have been talking about the demographic dividend that India has the opportunity to employ these people and to grow much at a very fast rate and benefit from this. However, in order to harness or in order to benefit from India's demographic dividend, you have to invest in your young people. You have to educate them, you have to give them the skills
Wilmer Leon (28:34):
You need like China has done,
Dr Rekha Desai (28:36):
And then you have to create the larger kind of ecology, which will stimulate growth. None of these things are being done in India. Primary education is basically, I mean, as opposed to China, where the state puts in a lot of effort into primary education in public schools, what you have is essentially a proliferation of private schools, which if your parents can afford it, you're lucky, and otherwise you go to a sadly and badly run state school, which often does not even have a sufficient number of teachers or teachers who show up, et cetera, et cetera. So there is this problem. Then on top of that, increasingly what used to be a rather good university system has also been allowed to essentially be privatized the proliferation of private universities and colleges which charge enormous fees for questionable forms of education, which is also why you see an enormous flood of Indians, Indian young people leaving the country to obtain education abroad.
(29:44)I mean, I was educated abroad, but as a graduate student, what's happening now is lots of Indian young people are leaving as undergraduates and going abroad to various, usually other English speaking countries, but also places as you, I don't know if you remember, but when the Ukraine war occurred, there was a crisis of Indian students having to return, and I had no idea that there were Indian students in Ukraine, but are, and there are Indian students all over the place. So the government is not doing anything. And finally, there is another problem, which is that in general, the Make India program was supposed to be, which Mr. Modi advertised with great fanfare. It was supposed to attract foreign direct investment into India, but then the idea was that India would then become a platform for producing export products for the whole world market, et cetera.
(30:37)But in reality, in general, foreign direct investment only comes in when or only comes into countries like India because these countries, these investors are interested in selling to the Indian market. They don't particularly want to sell to the foreign market. And secondly, also, the contracting out where the kind of contracting out that happens with China, and increasingly now with Vietnam and so on, that also has not been particularly good because we basically don't have a layer of manufacturing firms that are able to deliver quality timeliness and all those sorts of things. So essentially we haven't had any kind of big flood of contracting out either.
Wilmer Leon (31:27):
I'm going to go back to the same question because as I was listening to you, this thought just popped in my head. When I look at again, the Belt and Road initiative from China, when I look at China meeting with African countries, India has, again, it's the largest most populous country in the world. That means markets, people are there to sell to and a labor force. So I'm wondering why, and I remember, I think when Modi came in in 2014, he met with President Xi. There was a, I think 20 billion of investment deals signed. I'm thinking about Russia wanting to come in. So there's an incredible growth opportunity there in terms of markets. So China can come in and build railroads. China can come in and build bridges, build electric infrastructure, build water infrastructure. Is that not happening? And if not, why not?
Dr Rekha Desai (32:34):
Well, because, well, okay, let me take
Wilmer Leon (32:39):
Again, is that a sensible question to ask?
Dr Rekha Desai (32:42):
Yeah, yeah. No, no, it is. So first of all, let me say that the Indian market, you talked about the Indian market markets are not just composed of people of people. Markets are composed of people who have money. And if you are running down your economy in the way that I've just described, ordinary people in India do not have the kind of money that makes India an attractive market. The market in India, as far as foreign capital is concerned, is basically a small sliver of the upper 10% or so of the Indian population. And that is not a very big market. I mean, India may have 1.4 billion people, but if only 140 million of them are capable of consuming at anything like the level of the rest of the world, and it's not, it may have a small one or two or 3% who are,
Wilmer Leon (33:36):
I should have used the word potential. Yes, I should have used the word potential. And what comes to my mind, and if I'm historically inaccurate, please correct me. Many economists and others will say, and this is maybe a stretch of an example, but one of the things that brought about the end of slavery or enslavement in the United States was an understanding we've got this newly formerly enslaved population. We need these people to be consumers, not a drag on the economy. So we're going to create an economic system that allows the manufacturing access to this labor force. So that's what was driving my question.
Dr Rekha Desai (34:23):
Well, exactly. And the thing is that unless you have adequate levels of employment, and not only adequate levels of employment, but adequately well compensated employment, that is to say with high wages, you're not going to create a market. You've got to create a sufficiently, you've got to create good jobs, essentially. And that is not something the government has done that, in fact, it has done everything to retard that process because as I said earlier, the government's policy is to favor a small number of big corporations. Now, the vast majority of the Indian economy is accounted for by what we call SMEs or small and medium enterprises. These are the guys who actually create the jobs. They may not be very high paying, but at the very least, they're paying jobs. And even that with the imposition of GST, for example, with demonetization, all for that matter, with covid policies in every possible way, the SME sector has been set back and it is not creating, it's not allowed to create the kind of employment that you do. And if you give a contract to Mr. Adani to build a port, that's not going to create a of employment because what Mr. Adani does is he has all the freedom in the world to import all the things that he needs. So he imports high technology products from the west and so on, and he creates a state-of-the-art port, but that is not going to create a lot of jobs for Indians.
Wilmer Leon (35:54):
Does he import labor as well, or does he access Indian labor, or does he import labor as well?
Dr Rekha Desai (36:02):
No, no. He accesses Indian labor, but it's a very small amount. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what Indians to actually absorb and to realize this demographic dividend, you need to create a lot more jobs, and they're not going to be created by Mr. Adani and his friends. And in fact, in the absence of such a strategy to really create a larger market, to create more employment, to create more opportunity in India, in the absence of a strategy to do those things, India is not going to enjoy a demographic dividend. India is at the moment sitting on a demographic time bomb because, and we have seen some of the results of that. Let me also give you an example. Not only does the government not create employment, it does the reverse. It creates, it removes good jobs and replaces them with bad jobs.
(36:54)Consider the Indian army. Now, you think Indian army is one of the largest armies in the world. It's a large standing army, and that was one of the relatively secure forms of employment that people in many parts of India, young men in particular, but there are also women in the Indian Army would aspire to. What this government has done is replace the ordinary soldier's job, which could then you join the army as a soldier, and you move up the chain if you are good and so on, you get promotions to higher levels. This has kind of been the number of such jobs has been reduced, and they have been replaced by the so-called Agni vu scheme, which sounds very fancy. You are a fire hero or something. Anyway, this Agni Vu scheme essentially will hire soldiers for four years on a four year contract. So at the end of those four years, you could be let go. There is no guarantee of employment. Now, even if you are a right-wing, security obsessed nut, you will say this is the wrong way to have a good army.
Wilmer Leon (38:00):
But
Dr Rekha Desai (38:01):
That's
Wilmer Leon (38:01):
What you need career soldiers.
Dr Rekha Desai (38:05):
Exactly.
Wilmer Leon (38:06):
Exactly. And you don't form careers on four year contracts.
Dr Rekha Desai (38:09):
And in this election, I have noticed that in all the areas which have, traditionally in every country, there are some parts of the country that are recruitment from which the army recruits disproportionately, and there are such parts of India as well. And in all those parts of India, the BJP vote has gone down because people are so sore about this scheme. In fact, the other thing, because in India what happens is that when the counting takes place, they count the postal ballots first. And very often the postal ballots have a disproportionate number of army veterans or army people in them, because army people tend to get posted around and they use the postal ballot to vote in their place of registration. And so these postal ballots also showed a significant decline in the vote of the BJP. So that was quite interesting as well. So you see, Mr.
(39:03)Modi thought that he could visit this kind of economic punishment on Indian people, but somehow then still win them over by showing them what a strong leader he is. And through spewing hate, because you see in the, as I told you, this is a seven phase election at the end of the first phase, which occurred on the 19th of April. That was the first day of voting within a couple of days, I'm sure the BJP, which is backed by the way, absolutely generously by the corporate elite of India. So they have plenty of money. They must have conducted exit polls for themselves. You're not allowed to publish them, but you can conduct exit polls how you're doing. And it became very clear to the BJP and to Mr. Modi that their party was doing badly. And so within two days of that, the entire campaign rhetoric changed.
(40:00)It went from how we are going to create a developed India with a 5 trillion economy and the whatever, the third largest economy in the world, and all this completely castles in the economic castles in the air. But we've seen that to essentially demonizing Muslims, which is what the BJ does. Whenever they realize that they're in trouble, they shift to this anti-Muslim rhetoric. So this, and the kind of rhetoric that has issued from the mouth of Mr. Modi has been absolutely horrific. I mean, it has plumbed depth of, how can you say, of coarseness that has never been witnessed, ever. And people have criticized him, but it is very clear that they were already panicking, and now the results are out and they're panicking because as I say, this kind of economic pain that you are visiting on Indians cannot be electorally costless. And you see, in 2014, Mr.
(41:04)Modi won. It was a novelty. He was fully backed by the corporate capitalist class. The propaganda machine was in full motion, and the opposition was divided. It was not united. In 2019, they would've lost, actually, many people were saying that they were going to lose. Many seasoned psychologists were saying that. But at the very last minute, Mr. Modi pulled a defense and security rabbit out of his hat. There was an incident in which he claimed to be striking, making strikes across the border on Pakistan, on a place called Bako. And that these strikes were going to show that India was ruled by a tough leader and who was not going to give into Pakistans dastardly infiltration, et cetera, et cetera, and terrorist activities and blah, blah and so on, all of which is heavily you should take with barrels of salt. But nevertheless, this apparently transformed the election campaign, and there was the pre court assessments and the post bar court assessments, and he won. And even then he won, but he added a mere 20 something seats to his tally. So it was not such a great thing. Even with the Bala coat effect this time around, he wanted to add fully 70 seats to his tally. It's not going to be that. It's not that easy, as you can see. So there were exceptional circumstances, and this many people are saying is a more normal election. And in this normal election, Mr. Modi, it looks is headed for a humiliating setback, if not defeat. We'll have to see.
Wilmer Leon (42:43):
And I don't think we can talk about India without talking about nuclear weapons. India is a nuclear power. How does that play out on the world stage, in spite of all the things that you've just articulated and very clearly, thank you very much. That's always in the background. India is a nuclear power. How does that play on the world stage as related? Go ahead.
Dr Rekha Desai (43:15):
Yeah, I mean, in India, so the India's nuclear weapons are really not very substantial or not very many. I think it matters most in the confrontation between India and Pakistan. Pakistan, but also to some extent this border of dispute that India has with China, which we can discuss. But historically, if you think about it, India went in for a nuclear weapons development program in the sixties after being defeated in the 1962 war with China, in which China did not take any territory. China inflicted defeat on India and then withdrew to the original position just to say, look, we don't wish to solve this problem militarily. We wish to solve it through negotiation. And the Chinese have more or less stuck to that. But China has always been a very big factor in India's nuclear program. And so as you know, in 1972, India had conducted its first nuclear test.
(44:19)India has never joined the nuclear non-proliferation treatment. And then in 1998, when Mr. The Prime Minister who headed the previous JP government, BJP LED government, I should say, that was a coalition government, but the BJP was the leading element of that coalition. Mr. Wapa, within days of coming to office, conducted a second nuclear test and then wrote a letter, this was back in 1998, wrote a letter to President Clinton, more or less explicitly saying that India having conducted its next nuclear test, was available to the Americans as a counterweight to China. So that is the larger configuration. I don't think India imagines that it is going to win a war with China, but I hope they don't anyway, because it was certainly not going to. But the weapons are supposed to be some sort of a final defense. So the nuclear weapons matter to India vis-a-vis Pakistan, and to some extent vis-a-vis China.
Wilmer Leon (45:25):
And quickly you've made reference to the India China relationship. Elaborate on that before we get into the discussion about American domestic politics.
Dr Rekha Desai (45:36):
Well, very briefly, I would say that India is increasingly outclassed by China. China is economic dynamism, puts India to shame. I would say that the previous government, the UPA government that ruled India from 2004 to 2014 began to embark on a strategy of creating greater employment and putting more money into the pockets of ordinary Indians and taking care of basic needs and so on, which if continued, would have put India on a much better track. Certainly not as good as China, but certainly on a much better track. But of course, Mr. Modi interrupted that, and we've had 10 years of exceedingly harmful economic policies under Mr. Modi. So economically, India is outclassed by China, and I would say that India, whereas up until now 2014, when Mr. Modi was elected, India was making small progress in resolving some of the border disputes with China, which can easily be resolved.
(46:46)Some progress was being made. Mr. Modi has largely reversed that progress. Now, very briefly, let me just say that really I think that if India were to give up its insistence on lines on the map, which were drawn by the colonial powers, and try to seek an amicable, try negotiate with China amicably in a way that takes the interest of the people in these border regions, places them foremost, rather than claim to this or that piece of territory, I think that India and China can easily resolve their border disputes. Think of it this way, China has many borders with many countries, and it has resolved all its border disputes with all its neighbors except the one with India. India by contrast also has many neighbors. It has many border disputes, and it has resolved none of them. So that's the one very simple way of looking at it. So India's position has been unreasonable that Unreason was beginning to be unraveled to considerable extent, I think under the previous Congress led government. But under Mr. Modi, all that progress has been reversed
Wilmer Leon (48:04):
In your explaining India's inability to resolve those conflicts is part of that, because in the minds of many leaders, conflict brings about coalition that Israel is an example of that. One of the tenets of Zionism is, and Netanyahu says this all the time, you all need me to protect you because the wolves are at the door, and if I'm not here, they'll devour us all. Joe Biden, many believe right now is in deep trouble and is trying to create himself to be a wartime president. Is that in any of the thinking or logic of why these border disputes are not being resolved?
Dr Rekha Desai (48:52):
Well, okay. So first of all, let me just say that I think conflict brings consolidation, consolidation of your social base, not necessarily coalition, because you have to remember one very important respect in which the Israeli electoral system is completely different from the Indian election.
Wilmer Leon (49:08):
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I was speaking on a very broad level.
Dr Rekha Desai (49:13):
Well, because Israel has an exceedingly permissive form of proportional representation, so that parties with even a tiny number of votes can have representation in parliament. And this allows the more extreme parties, extreme right parties to also get representation in the Israeli parliament. India does not have a PR system at all. It has a first pass the post electoral system. And that of course, can translate a small, for example, in this election, a relatively small change in the percentage of the vote can translate into a very big change in the number of seats won by a given party. So India has this first pass, the post electoral system, and that has been very important in giving Mr. Modi his majorities. And yes, rattling the Sabre and raising the issues of defense and terrorism can certainly help. Mr. Modi has helped Mr. Modi in the past, in 2019 in particular, to essentially win a majority, again, even a slightly increased majority. So that certainly helps. And historically, yes, defense issues have been to consolidate a social base, but on the whole, I would say that the Congress has been much less willing to sort of weaponize defense issues. And the BJP has been much more willing to do. So
Wilmer Leon (50:43):
Switching to, well, is there anything else you want to be sure that we cover on this election issue before we move on?
Dr Rekha Desai (50:50):
No, I think it's good. Okay.
Wilmer Leon (50:54):
Okay. Alright. Well then with that, quickly, your thoughts on the current state of the Biden administration. His numbers are horrible. According to real clear politics, he has a 55.8, or we could say 56% disapproval rating. He has a 65.8 or 66% of those believe the country's on the wrong track. In the wake of Trump's guilty verdict in the New York Business Documents trial, Trump is still up by nine percentage points. And also when you look at the Battleground states eight, by many calculations, Joe Biden isn't winning one of them. It's becoming harder and harder to see how Joe Biden gets to the 270 electoral votes that he needs. Your thoughts?
Dr Rekha Desai (51:58):
Well, I think that what you're looking at in the United States is really the sort of cumulative result of following neoliberal policies basically, so that essentially neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden are anything other than neoliberal. Mr. Biden will pepper his neoliberalism with a certain amount of socially progressive politics, but that's the only difference between them. And so what you are seeing is on the one hand, a very large protest vote against these sorts of policies going to Mr. Trump because Mr. Trump is essentially saying to people, I know you guys are suffering and I know how to solve your problems. You're suffering because of China. So instead of saying that you're suffering because of neoliberalism, which he's not going to give up on, he's offering a false solution to the problems of the people. But nevertheless, this seems to work better than what Mr. Biden is saying, which is offering more of the same.
(53:02)And Mr. Biden's. So-called omics is actually not working either. So that, because again, it is not that different by the way, from the policy pursued by Mr. Modi. Mr. Biden also pursues a policy whose overriding priority is to look after the interests of the big corporations of the United States, not to solve the employment crisis or solve the housing crisis or to solve the health and indebtedness crisis or anything like that. And in the United States, the only people who seem to be talking a different type of economic policy are the non duopoly candidates, chiefly Jill Stein, and of course to Dr. West. These are the people who are talking about progressive economic policies. The existing duopoly has nothing to offer the American people. And let me say that by contrast, one of the heartening things about this election and the last few years in India has been that Congress, which was, I would've faulted it in the past 10 years ago, for still being too neoliberal Congress, having suffered a drum in 2014.
(54:15)And in 2019 has improved its game on two fronts very, very well. Number one, it has engaged in some major exercises of reconnecting with the people, particularly essentially this walking journey that that Rahul Gandhi did across the country from south to north, stopping in everywhere and literally walking thousands of miles. That was a very good way of reconnecting and re-energizing the Congress organization. And very importantly, they seem to have understood that if you are to win in India in the present circumstances, you need to proclaim and pursue a far more progressive set of economic policies that look at issues of employment. And I haven't even mentioned, you asked me whether there was something else I should mention. I haven't yet mentioned agrarian distress being squeezed on both sides on the one side, by rising prices of inputs, which are increasingly produced by big corporations, and on the other side by diminishing prices of outputs, which again, which are typically bought by big corporations. So you can see these poor farmers being squeezed. The spate of farmers suicides in India are very high. So Congress has learned from all this that you need progressive policies for farmers, for the urban sector, for creating employment, for dealing with debt issues, providing education, all of these things. And they have actually come out with a pretty decent manifesto. And I would say that if they were to get a chance to implement it, I'm sure that they will only go further in a progressive or left-wing direction rather than pull their punches.
Wilmer Leon (56:07):
Interesting. You mentioned that the suicide rate of farmers is up in India because the suicide rate is up dramatically, particularly among white males in the United States. You mentioned the omics, Joe Biden doesn't mention omics that much on the campaign trail, and we hear the American economy is doing so well. But to your point about Joe Biden as looking out for the elite, that's the financialized side of the American economy that is doing well. The banks are doing well, corporations are doing well, but the regular part of this economy, debt is up dramatically. Prices are up, inflation is up, and unemployment, if you really look at the numbers in terms of the number of people working compared to people here have a, I think, try to make a false equivalency that every job means one person working. What we're dealing with here is one person working multiple low wage jobs just to remain poor. Hence we see the unhoused, the rate of the unhoused in the United States is up. So when you look at the real numbers and speak to this, please, as an economist, when you look at the real numbers, things aren't going nearly as well as Joe Biden and the Biden administration would want people to believe.
Dr Rekha Desai (57:55):
Absolutely. I mean, the whole employment issue has long been a boondoggle in the United States. The United States loves to advertise itself as this job generating machine of an economy, but what is the quality of the jobs generated by them? If you have to have two or more jobs in order to keep body and soul together in order to feed your children, then what kind of a job is that?
Wilmer Leon (58:18):
And many of those jobs don't come with health benefits don't come with vacation. They're low wage. In
Dr Rekha Desai (58:25):
Fact, I don't know if you remember, but this is not a new problem. This goes back to the election of George Bush Jr. When he was running for reelection. Apparently some poor lady said to him that, oh, she was working three jobs and so on. And she said, look, she's such a great hero. She's working three jobs, completely missing the point that why should anyone have to juggle three jobs in order to make a living? And that too, as you rightly say, not really a living in order just to be poor. And this is the situation. And by the way, in India, as I say, a lot of people are also claiming that they are going to look at so many, there's so much entrepreneurship in India. There's so much self-employment, a lot of what is called self-employment in India isn't self-employment. It's desperation. If you have no job, of course you will do anything. You'll buy bottle brushes and go sell them on or buy peanuts and go sell them on the train for the few rupees you will make. And the difference between your buying costs and your selling costs. And that may still not give you anything more than a meal or maybe half a meal or two square meals a day if that. But what about clothing? What about food? What about what? I mean housing, what about education? All these things are not there for people.
Wilmer Leon (59:43):
It's the difference between living and existing.
Dr Rekha Desai (59:46):
Exactly. Exactly. So this is the situation in India, and I think that these election results are showing that. And as I say, I think by the way, there was another parallel between the American situation and the Indian situation. A lot of people felt essentially unenthused by this election. So they may not have those people who Modi was trying to enthus to support him, may have simply sat at home and said, we are not going out. And as you know, the election campaign was very long drawn out because it would give Mr. Moy a chance to campaign in each phase. You see, because he regards himself as the only board deliverer of his party, which means there is no second level leadership in the party, which
Wilmer Leon (01:00:39):
Is in fact, isn't he on record as saying, I don't have a successor. The people are my successor. Isn't he on record as saying something ridiculous like that? He's
Dr Rekha Desai (01:00:50):
Been saying some pretty peculiar things recently. In fact, one of the most outlandish things he said recently, he said some, he gave a spate of interviews just before the election, and in fact during the election, and the purpose of this was that some phoning media person who is not a tall critical, who throws them all sorts of soft balls in order to make him look good. So one particularly phoning interviewer asked him, Mr. Modi, where do you get your amazing energy from? You've been campaigning, blah, blah, et cetera. So he said, he says, well, as long as my mother was alive, I didn't quite credit this, but I have always felt that I'm not biological, essentially, that I have not been born of my mother, that the Almighty has created me and sent me here to fulfill a certain purpose. Now, I mean, just imagine the guys, I mean, it's, it's madness. If you told me this and you were a politician, I would say Wilma. Okay, it's all right. You told me this. But don't tell anyone else. Just keep quiet about it, even if you think so.
Wilmer Leon (01:01:58):
In fact, you'd say, I have a friend I'd like for you to talk to who is trained to talk to people like you.
Dr Rekha Desai (01:02:10):
So anyway, so he's been saying some completely nonsensical things recently because as I say, he has been in a panic mode and he'll say anything basically and trying to, so anyway, he's been trying to garner votes. And the other really interesting thing is that you will remember that in January, the Mr. Modi elaborately conducted this elaborately stage managed consecration of the temple to Lord Ram, which is being built on this moss that was destroyed back in 1992. It's a big vo. We can't discuss all of this. But let me just say that this consecration exercise, which was, as I say, carefully choreographed to highlight Mr. Modi and his role, and he was, in fact, it was not the priests who were consecrating it as though it was he who was consecrating it. And it was a practically fascistic exercise I'll have. And he thought that this was going to be his baah court, that in the now 2019, there were those strikes and that this would deliver him the votes. There was next to zero temple effect in the electorate. You asked people, most of them didn't bring it up. They said, where are the jobs? Look at the inflation. How are we supposed to eat well enough? Et cetera, et cetera. So this did not work.
Wilmer Leon (01:03:34):
And as we get out, you mentioned anticipated low voter turnout in India. I have been saying for a very long time that a huge problem that is on the horizon for President Biden is not going to be people changing parties, is going to be and voting for Donald Trump or voting for Joe Stein or Dr. West. It's going to be people staying home raking leaves. That's going to be his huge problem. Your
Dr Rekha Desai (01:04:07):
Thoughts. I think that certainly this year in India, the voter turnout is only marginally lower than the previous time. But given that it is in roughly two thirds of the people have voted in the last election and this one. But I suspect that it's a question of who votes, right? So maybe his supporters stay at home and the supporters of the India block, which is the Congress led coalition, came out and voted. It's very possible that that's kind of what's happening.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:38):
Well, let me say as always to you, Dr. Ika Desai, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr Rekha Desai (01:04:48):
It's always a great pleasure, Wilma.
Wilmer Leon (01:04:50):
Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. And by the way, if there are issues, if there are topics that you need me to connect the dots on for you, then please provide your suggestions in the comments below. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, go to the Patreon account and please make a contribution. This is where analysis, culture, politics, and history converge. Talk without analysis is just chatter. And as you can see with brilliant guests like Dr. Desai, we do not chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. We're out
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