Whyte Racism, Black Liberation feat. Charisse Burden-Stelly (Dr. CBS)

[00:00:03][music] >> Welcome to episode I think it's 79 or thereabouts of the Psych Lib series of the resistance is fertile podcast universe. I'm your co-host Benji. I think my co-host Cindy has gone to bed because we've had to reschedule this episode due to the great transportation system in that [ __ ] place that some call a country also known as Ameri-K-K-K-A US-ian El Hall. Today I am extremely happy to welcome Dr. CBS also known as Touré Botden Steely.

[00:00:54]You are on Substack. You've been doing this absolutely great series daily series until 4th of July about what America really is. You in that series you describe yourself as a communist Pan-Africanist black radical and you give that kind of perspective on 250 years of this racist settler colonial empire. You're also the author of the 2022 book Black Scare Red Scare Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States in which you argue that anti-communist repression and anti-black racial oppression are not actually distinct historical phenomena or panics but they are conjoined and mutually reinforcing technologies of state governance. So we're so very interested in that because we look at anti-imperialism and liberation from a sort of psychological lens here. Just to tell our audience you have actually made time for us. You are at the moment in a restaurant at Denver Airport, so there might be some background noise when you speak, but I think everything will go well.

[00:02:14]Uh I'll also start by saying that as our regular viewers know, we think anti-imperialism is not just about yapping the right yap, but also about giving material support. We need to walk on those two legs, and the material support that we are giving is to families in Gaza who actually resist by existing. So, this week we are Our highlighted fundraiser is for Lana and her young family. So, that's one of the fundraisers I host. You can also, of course, donate to Lifeline for Gaza, Samidoun project, and all sorts of mutual aid projects down in Gaza. In the first live we had this morning, we already had 11 donations, so hopefully we'll get some more as we speak today.

[00:03:06]Uh so, Dr. CBS, as I've decided to call you, um can I start I will start with the traditional question with which we start to episodes, which is to if you could give us a sense of your political psychological journey to the position the perspective that you that you hold today and from which you speak and also write very eloquently.

[00:03:33]>> Yeah, sure. So, just one thing, my so, Black Scare was published in 2023.

[00:03:38]And then, um with respect to the how I describe the business of America project, what I'm saying is that the kind of quotes and people I'm lifting up are communist or pan-Africanist or black radicals, not necessarily that I identify that way, although I do. Um okay.

[00:03:54]So, and again, I'm sorry if you all hear things in the background. I'm at the airport. Um how did I come to this political position? Honestly, like it was through study. Um I think that as um especially as an undergraduate, um I started to develop um a political consciousness.

[00:04:14]Um uh some of my professors, like I had a a professor in undergrad named uh David Hinds, who was a member of the WPA. He's Guyanese.

[00:04:24]Um and so he introduced me to the first time to people like Walter Rodney and you see Kwayana and um you know, the PPP PNP and that that type of politics. I had a professor named Dr. Lisa Aubrey, who teaches African politics and diaspora politics.

[00:04:43]And so there I was introduced to people like Kwame Nkrumah and um a whole bunch of other thinkers. And so it really was through study. Like some of my one of my best friends, Layla Brown, she comes from like a movement family and that wasn't my experience. It really was just through, you know, first, it's funny um often times people who come to a particular type of political consciousness and they are of African descent in the United States, they go through like um like an Afrocentric phase. They watch like a Great Mighty Walk by John Henrik Clarke and um you know, these different uh you you read like the the Nile Valley Nile Valley contribution to civilization. So, you know, I went through an Afrocentric kind of stage. I went natural, you know, and became the president of the Black Student Government and all this type of thing.

[00:05:32]Um and then as I kept continuing to study, I moved more and more to like a Marxist position.

[00:05:37]Um Marxist and Pan-Africanist position. And I came to Marxism really through studying like Claudia Jones, Harry Haywood, Walter Rodney, Amílcar and global South thinkers as opposed to the other way around. And so I have a you know, I always say I'm a bad Marxist um because you know, as Fanon says, we have to stretch Marxism when it comes to the colonial question. And likewise, the kind of like um the internal colonial question, if you will. And so um and then I just think being I'm from Arizona. I grew up in Arizona. So there's not a whole There's a a large kind of um uh Chicano population, but there's not a whole lot of black folks there. Um and in the sort of education system that I was in, which was kind of like, you know, GATE gifted and talented education. And then I went to a college prep high school. Being one of a few black folks. Um I was quite actually quite conservative um as a younger person, I think. Kind of like a bootstrap negro, if you will. But then it was a through studying and being exposed to different types of thinking and then different types of organizing activists that my political consciousness developed.

[00:06:45]Um so that in a nutshell is kind of how I got to where I am. Which again, is kind of a combination of a Marxist, Pan-Africanist, so Marxist-Leninist, Pan-Africanist, kind of radical black perspective, revolutionary nationalist, like somewhere in that milieu.

[00:07:02]>> So it sounds Do I get this right that you kind of run from being a conservative, you know, pick yourself up by the bootstraps to a global South Marxist without uh the West up uh of uh Western Marxism.

[00:07:20]>> Well, you could say I went from a sort of like a maybe a a a Booker T. Washington minus the kind of don't vote. So more, yeah. Probably like a particular stage of the Boisean conservatism to like Afrocentric-ish ish to uh yeah, kind of third world Marxist and then from reading those people I circled back to like Marx, Engels, Lenin and other things Bukharin and those types of people. So always the kind of I I would say like the negro question so to speak and the colonial question were like my locus of annunciation.

[00:08:04]That kind of brought me to Marxism and dialectical materialism.

[00:08:09]>> Nice nice. Excellent. So you don't need to wash out the western Marxism from [laughter] from your theory which is a beautiful thing.

[00:08:19]It's taken me decades to try and get rid of mine so.

[00:08:23]>> Oh so this is like Rockhill right and he's getting so much smoke for that book. People don't don't the west the left you know western left is not happy with that book. There's kind of a trifecta of a critique that's happening right now that's like Rockhill, racial capitalism and black studies slash wokeism and it's a really fascinating kind of triple movement. I think obviously they're all related but western Marxists are not happy.

[00:08:50]>> [laughter] >> Yeah Rockhill calls it imperialist Marxism and I think it's the probably the the better descriptor for it of course.

[00:08:59]So on your substack you started this this is America project. I think you're on episode 14. It's a daily thing.

[00:09:08]I'm actually struggling to see them on your substack. It goes all the way to seven and then I get the I have to go to the whatever notifications I get to actually >> Yeah yeah got to subscribe.

[00:09:21]>> I'm a free subscriber. I'm a free subscriber.

[00:09:25]>> If you're a free subscriber you can see everything past seven. Up to seven is for anyone.

[00:09:29]>> Oh gotcha gotcha gotcha. That's why I'm not seeing the others. Okay great.

[00:09:34]So tell us a little bit about about that project. This is America.

[00:09:38]>> You know, it came sort of out of nowhere and it basically was like, you know, this is the ses sesquicentennial of the United States, right? And so, part of what I was doing and there's so much kind of like propaganda that we're inundated with from like I love your mud. That's so funny. But, [laughter] anyway, there's so much >> And someone is saying they they love your uh color hair.

[00:10:00]>> Oh, my hair. Thank you.

[00:10:01]>> My color >> It is so crazy. It's plain here right now, but anyway, um so, you know, we're being inundated with propaganda and like that from airports to kind of like all of these celebrations that we see and I'm like, well, you know, there are a lot of people, some who identify as American and some not, but who have very a very particular view of this place because of their racial or political minorities or both. And so, part of what I'm thinking, you know, I I most of the time when people think of a critique of like the US, they think of like Frederick Douglass, like what is the 4th of July to a slave? And I'm like, there's so much more critique of this place, some of which still holds a promise for what the United States could be and some um some that is like a complete rejection and I'm so sorry. I I'm seeing the comments. I'm so sorry about the back of the background noise, y'all. It's um it is I'm in a restaurant. But, um hopefully you can still hear the crux of what I'm saying. Yeah. So, so that's kind of what drove the project and then it kind of I just started making a list of all the people that I wanted to lift up and I want to have a combination of like US folks and then diaspora people.

[00:11:07]So, they're it's all black black and African people and then kind of just going through some of the readings and kind of pulling out um I had much I had much longer excerpts, but I have a friend named on um Instagram his name is John Paul Fart, which is hilarious. But, he knows all the social media stuff. I know nothing about it, but he's like, you can't have these long videos. It needs to be, you know, he told me a minute and a half and I'm like, there's no way that that's possible. So, then, I cut the excerpts into kind of like short quotes, but then I post the longer excerpts as well as the document on my Substack. So, it's just kind of like, you know, believe whatever you want about this place, but just know that there all are alternative perspectives. And, you know, and I'm trying to do a combination of people that are like more well-known.

[00:11:51]So, um I did Glenn Ford. I don't know if Glenn Ford is well-known. Um like George Jackson, but then also people who I love and who aren't very well-known. Like the Sojourners for Truth and Justice and Louise Thompson Patterson and William Patterson and that. So, just trying to um combine those, too.

[00:12:10]>> Yeah, you have uh I I think it's on day two you have this quote from William Patterson about uh So, so you you call them bars. I actually learned last week was a what a bar is because I'm like not really into a rap culture, as you can tell.

[00:12:27]I'm not one of those white guys that was brought up on thinking they were on gangster rap or something. Uh so, here is a bar from the longer excerpt. It's from So, that's from William Patterson in February '54.

[00:12:42]And it goes, "Historical lies have a place in the program of those who would destroy the very essence of democracy.

[00:12:49]Only those who are enemies of mankind can seek to deny to nationals of their own country a record of the fruits of their sweat and blood because those nationals bear different color or worship at a different shrine. Such is the course of savages ruling in a modern exploitative society." So, as I read this and uh the the longer excerpt, I couldn't help but think about Palestine.

[00:13:20]>> Of course, of course.

[00:13:21]Yeah, and I think, you know, in that in really like anti-black racial oppression and like anti-Muslim position, um, which which leads to like, you know, the anti-Palestine orientation of this country.

[00:13:35]Um, these have been historically linked.

[00:13:37]So, if we think about slave revolts, for example, that were happening in place like places like Bahia, Brazil, these were These were, um, Muslim enslaved Africans, right? A lot of the quilombos are formed by, um, enslaved Africans who are of the Muslim religion. And so, these kind of the hatred of like these things are really, really intertwined.

[00:13:56]If you think about the, you know, Crusades and all these type of things.

[00:13:59]And so, um, you know, the That is the question of our time and like the denigration, the erasure, the, um, equivocation, the trying, you know, the ubiquity of even the liberal position like Gaza is the question of our time.

[00:14:18]And so many people have, um, come to to consciousness as a um, as a result of this current iteration, right? The post the post-October 7th iteration because as we know, this is the This is why I've always I've always referred to it as a war-intensified genocide because after studying the document like we charge genocide, um, we have to acknowledge that genocide is the practice of trying to, um, you know, to It's a punishment of trying to get rid of a people in whole or in part. And so, oftentimes we will associate genocide with extermination, but it's not just extermination, which is to say that this genocide has a much longer history. It's not just something that that is happening with the war intensification. So, all of that to say like, um, there's so much And then just literal erasure. Like there are whole life worlds that are being destroyed like thousands of years of culture in Iran as well. And so, and this is justified through so-called civilization, but as Patterson points out, it is only savages who would think that this ecological and human and psychic destruction is a pillar of civilization. So, I really love that quote.

[00:15:33]>> Yeah, and there's that and there's always this sense of uh you know, I I um resonated a lot with Ali Kadri's concept of social nature.

[00:15:43]And there's always this sense of destroying not just, you know, not just weakening the people, destroying the means of uh existing and their social uh institutions and modes of social organization, but there's also uh deliberate assault on the memories, on the memories of struggle. It's done, of course, very much in terms of anti-communist, you know, how all the memories of uh successful struggle for socialism, for communism are systematically erased or uh distorted and uh this is a very long practice of, you know, on on this podcast we call it white empire to kind of give its historical uh long durée, if you like, from the moment that uh really uh that you know, the the drags of uh godforsaken uh [ __ ] all uh European countries went off to uh to plunder, genocide, and rape their way across the world. And so, it's it's always been there and there's this um and it comes as uh you know, as uh William Patterson says in the quote, with this kind of um arrogance of, you know, doing it in the name of civilization.

[00:17:05]And then it's in course it also the crusading society, right? You're doing the worst of it, doing the worst onto other people, but it's always in the name of this uh higher civilization that supposedly you're you're carrying. And again, we're seeing the same thing in in occupied Palestine today. As the worst atrocities are being live 4K live streamed.

[00:17:27]>> You know and I to be honest I don't know what's worse the live streaming or the complete blackout in a place like Sudan, right? Because we know that there are there the complete dehumanization and just violence that these words don't even describe what's happening in in Sudan and we know almost nothing about it, right? And in fact it is what's happening in Palestine that has sort of drawn some attention to Sudan and Congo. And sometimes in really a cynical way where it's like well you you only care about this nobody cares about Congo or Sudan. It's like well you don't either because if you did then you would be lifting it up not only as rebuttal to why people should care about what's happening in Palestine. And so so I don't know what's actually worse, right? I don't I the knowing about it or knowing about it but not having any evidence.

[00:18:20]They're both terrible.

[00:18:21]But you know as well part of part of the sinister nature of US imperialism is like it's not only that they want to kill, plunder, murder, and erase but then they want you right? They want you to be grateful for it which is why they do things like call it civilization or call it you know progress or call it bringing democracy [clears throat] or freeing women or whatever. It's like they want to make you basically reduce you to bare life and then have you be grateful for the intervention. It's just it's so that just adds a a layer to the barbarism.

[00:19:01]>> Yeah. Yeah and and not to try of course to rank atrocities or anything.

[00:19:07]I wonder if one of the differences in what what let's start with the similarities in Congo and Sudan and uh occupied Palestine Gaza in particular is the catastrophic uh fall in life expectancy, right? In in those three places they've really gone down. I think in I saw recently in Gaza it went from 75 down to 35 during the genocide and uh Congo also I forget the numbers but I recently saw the same kind of uh you know, catastrophic fall in um in life expectancy and Sudan is similar.

[00:19:45]So that's you know, the the similarity and to the uh I guess two differences one is the one you pointed to that one is live streamed and the other one is almost uh you know, absent from any of our our screens.

[00:20:02]But also I think the isn't that difference in the sense that in occupied Palestine they really openly do it. I mean, it's the you know, public uh tip of the spear of uh white civilization white you know, so-called civilization in a way that maybe it isn't in Sudan and Congo. It's it's done more kind of you know, nobody says okay, we are uh genociding Sudan and Congo in the greatest uh greater interest of uh civilization. So I wonder if if there might be a difference there or it's a distinction that doesn't make a difference.

[00:20:42]>> Well, I think that in the case of Sudan it's it's ethnic cleansing for sure. So it is there is a sort of ethnic component to it and as we know like what is now the RSF started as the Janjaweed.

[00:20:53]So this is also a very long and protracted um issue and we and Sudan you know, for a long time has been under and I think all of the connections is the interest of US imperialism and its support for all of these um all of these atrocities that are happening that are being produced for example the civil war. But these are not civil wars, these are international internationally backed forces that then because we assume that for example Africa is just a place of disorder and corruption and failed governance that this is something that's internal to African people. And so I do think so it's not like Congo and Sudan aren't the same type of civilizational narratives but rather like a normalization of a failed civilization narrative that tends to permeate the continent. So they're probably two sides of the same coin. We can't forget that Africa was also supposed to be a potential site of the settlerism. So Uganda for example was going to be was also and is still being settled, right?

[00:21:58]Um there's parts I want to say of Kenya that are being settled and so it's the same type of settler logic. And we cannot also so much so much of the time when we speak about settler colonialism we forget about Southern Africa, we forget about Rhodesia, we forget about South Africa and these places that are also Namibia, right? These are also settler colonies. And so they're the same types of logic but again there's a way that because we generally know so little about the African continent and two because it's been so normalized that this is a place of um of backwardness and disorder that there's so much more violence and destruction that happens there that's legitimized um and anti-Africanist. So I think they are distinct but they're also very much linked by these kind of global international processes.

[00:22:50]>> Absolutely. And and and and you mentioned Namibia and I think I saw recently like 72% of all land is actually in the possession of whites in Namibia but you know you rarely hear about it. What you do hear about immediately is when Zimbabwe does land reform and actually takes the land away from whites to from settlers and to give it to to Africans, then immediately it becomes a failed state, becomes this totalitarian hellhole and all and all the rest of it.

[00:23:19]And it brings to mind this this quote from Mumia Abu Jamal that you published in the seven days that you published publicly. Uh which really says, you know, the one thing that is just not allowed black people are not allowed to do whether it actually be in in the belly of the beast or indeed in Africa is to is to rebel against the the white order, right?

[00:23:47]>> Yeah, and that's kind of linked to the post that I that is up today about Ida B. Wells where she talks about the ways that the legitimation of lynching um was kind of narrated, right? And that basically one of the before the kind of um rape became like the primary way of legitimating lynching, one was that they're controlling like race riots.

[00:24:09]That they're controlling um sorry.

[00:24:13]>> [laughter] >> I don't know what kind of riot is going on behind you, but you >> [laughter] >> Um so yeah, so one of the legitimations is that like blacks there's these race riots and as Ida B. Wells says, it's very peculiar.

[00:24:26]Only black people were murdered and all the white men survived these race riots, right? So this this idea that simply existence, simply insisting upon a dignified life and to be able to um have some semblance of determination is considered to be aggression. It is just it's completely anathema. And this is the basis of like a particular argument about racial capitalism because this leads back to kind of the deep fear and hostility about slave revolts, right? Especially after the Haitian Revolution, that our economy will be upended if this these black folks are free. And then of course, after the civil the Civil War um led to the greatest probably the greatest expropriation in history because unlike the British, the Americans did not compensate slave owners. And so there's a way that it seems as if like Southern culture is about wresting back that wealth that they feel was stolen in the form of black emancipation.

[00:25:28]And so any any defense, any kind of um means of asserting one's humanity and citizenship becomes an affront and it becomes by its very nature violent because it is a way of contesting the reigning order.

[00:25:46]>> Yeah.

[00:25:47]Um and so in does this other quote that you give also from Harry Haywood who looks at the racial question in the US from the angle of a national question. So I'd be really interested to hear you uh talk about this in a bit more depth if you can.

[00:26:09]>> Yeah. Yeah, I'm a big fan of Harry Haywood. I'm in my Harry Haywood bag as I say. So we so just recently Haymarket republished Negro Liberation, which is his 1948 text and I wrote the new introduction for it. Um and basically part of what Haywood is arguing is that um black people especially in the five contiguous Southern states constitute a nation. And so he's building on kind of the Stalinist understanding of a nation um while acknowledging also that all of the elements of the nation like a common economy, um language, etc. that these aren't fully developed, but precisely the workings of imperialism are to stymie the development of a nation. But basically the the upshot of that is that we cannot describe the conditions of black people as merely discrimination or exclusion or reduce it to like the hearts and minds or the heritage or customs. I think this is a structural reality and it is a form of oppression and exploitation or super exploitation akin to that which those who are externally colonized experience. And so on the one hand, it's a way of linking up the conditions of African Americans to black people throughout the diaspora, but it is also a way of fundamentally understanding how the political economy of the United States and the social relations therein have resulted in a very peculiar experience for black people has been mis- misnamed as like cast or you know, racism. So he argues that racism is the ideology, but national oppression due to imperialism is the kind of the structural foundation. And so I find that to be quite compelling. And of course, there's been a number of pushbacks against, you know, this idea with the CP itself kind of moving away from the the both the self-determination and the and the kind of national oppression line, but Haywood from 1928 until the 1980s stood ten toes down on that.

[00:28:04]Um even as it was like out-migration, he said that the argument still holds.

[00:28:09]Um and so all of that to say, I think understanding ourselves as nationally oppressed or internally colonized is a way to think about like what is to be done that you can't really vote you can't vote your way out of national oppression.

[00:28:23]Um and you know, at a certain point we have to be very sober in our analysis of like what's actually possible through reducing politics to electoralism.

[00:28:38]>> Yeah, when you say there's been pushback about about that. What kind of a pushback and what's your response to the pushback?

[00:28:49]>> What What was the pushback to Haywood?

[00:28:52]>> Yeah, the pushback to the analysis that says well, it's national oppression and racism is, you know, the way it is delivered, but the problem isn't racism on its own.

[00:29:04]>> Well, interestingly, a lot of black communists actually did not agree with the national oppression and self-determination line because they felt like especially in the 1920s it's reproducing Jim Crow. Some like Haywood's brother um Otto Hall argued that it's it was sort of more Garbyist than Garvey himself.

[00:29:25]That right this is that it's vulgar a vulgar nationalism.

[00:29:28]Others argue that it is not self-determination that black people have historically been striving for but rather integration. And so then the the line was modified in 1930 to talk about national oppression and self-determination as the goal in the south and then full rights and integration in the north.

[00:29:45]Um and you know, there was a way a way that people pushed back on it by making the argument that all of the elements that Stalin named that Stalin named that constituted a nation did not apply to black people that they really didn't have a separate culture outside of American culture. So there's been various arguments but I think that Haywood addressed many of them over time while he was in the party and then after he was expelled in 1957 or 1958.

[00:30:15]>> Right.

[00:30:16]Shout out to sister Khadija Khadija Hayes which is uh Hi. Um Yeah, and and I think is is this turn away from the line of uh national liberation for black people in in the United States is it is it is it the change of line that kind of uh made the uh Communist Party lose a lot of support amongst black folks or Is it linked to that or?

[00:30:52]>> So I think it was that and coupled with like the Khrushchev revelations. So the first kind of larger exodus, well, there was maybe three. One was the What is the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of '39.

[00:31:08]Second was the turn away from the black belt thesis. So that was uh So there's a turn away from the black belt thesis in '35.

[00:31:17]The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in '39 and then the Khrushchev revelations in '56.

[00:31:23]Those were kind of the three big exo- exoduses. But I do think that like if you read kind of like Robin Kelley's Hammer and Hoe for example, he'll argue that the self-determination line was probably the biggest impetus because that is what because whether or not one believes that black people are massively oppressed, but what that line did do was push the work in the South where the majority of black people were and it forced both the black and white comrades to confront like that Jim Crow and and the structural oppression that was happening there. And so a move away from the self-determination line was simultaneously a move away from the commitment to battle in the South where quite frankly even still we still I think suffer from that we we automatically assume or we we kind of legitimate the neglect of organizing in the South because it's like, "Well, don't have your conferences there. They're racist or they passed this or that gender law." When in fact everything that's happening in the South impacts the rest of the nation. So part of what Haywood argues for example is that the very low wages and the very low working conditions of workers in the South follows black people then also has a direct effect on white folks and their living conditions and their access to public education and their access to health care as well. And so, to to neglect the South is to worth being contemporary is to continue the sort of national immunization because the baseline is so far pushed down.

[00:32:52]>> Right.

[00:32:53]Would you say that's still the case today, or is today um US imperialism within the belly of the beast regulating itself also through um immigration from, you know, uh the global South and uh Central and South America?

[00:33:13]>> Thank you for coming out. I'm sorry.

[00:33:15]>> I think that it is, but then this current regime is sort of shooting itself in the foot because of the draconian um immigration policy, some of which have been rolled back, but many of many of which have not. The ones that have been most directly targeted are those that are affecting sort of high-earning immigration. It's not um you know, the people who are actually central to the economy, who are like picking the food, and who are working in the service and who make the service industry run. So, I but immigration has obviously um immigrant workers have had a huge role in the development and maintenance of the US economy and thus US imperialism, but of course these this xenophobia and jingoism and attack on immigrants is nothing new. I think [laughter] this was the case for like the Internal Security Act of 1950, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and all also it waxes and wanes, right?

[00:34:12]Based on a number of things that are happening, but I do think that the what the great the immigration question is doing is um is tearing the clothes off the emperor, if you will, right? Like the emperor has no clothes. And so, one example of this is like the dismal numbers for the World Cup. Nobody's here and all of these people who are trying to price gouge all of these hotels, all of this, you know, all of these companies and corporations are planning to price gouge folks are losing millions of dollars cuz nobody's coming, right? Cuz it's very difficult for people to get in and then the harassment that like some of these teams are experiencing. So like the Somali referee who wasn't allowed in, the treatment of the Irani Iranian soccer team. Like people are seeing this and they're like, are you kidding me? So I think that whatever soft power that the United States was using in order to kind of prop up US imperialism is eroding in real time.

[00:35:12]So that's just a very errant answer to that question.

[00:35:16]>> [laughter] >> But it's very much you know, I get a sense that it's just decided that soft power was not um or was needed or was still possible and now you you know, you said the emperor is has no clothes and it seems as though the emperor doesn't mind strutting on the stage and you know, whatever fondling it's it's private parts and pissing on people right, left and center. There's a there's a sense of things becoming much more obvious, much clearer and much more brutal, right?

[00:35:56]>> [snorts] >> Well, that's because I think the emperor is a scammer. I fundamentally believe that this is foundationally a kleptocratic regime. This present presidency in particular. I think that everything that is happening is to loot the public purse as much as possible and to allow for rapid accumulation of a very tiny group of people. Um and we can see this happening all around with the being building projects and who is in charge charge with um, is being put in charge of like student loan servicing. Like I really think Trump is like putting all his homies on, like everybody can get this money and he really doesn't I don't I think that that is his primary motivation. He doesn't care about foreign policy, he doesn't care about domestic policy. I really think it is all a cash grab before this thing really like goes pear-shaped. I think that that is a fundamental objective. Now he is surrounded by people like Rubio who have particular types of foreign policy objectives. Like Rubio is the arch pessimel. He is committed to overthrowing the Cuban government. I think that Stephen Miller really is interested in like a white nationalist, um, takeover and so he so Trump is in what he's interested in is abetting or allowing for those around him to also engage in their own sort of sinister, villainous, like pet projects and so we're in, you know, we're in bad shape.

[00:37:23]>> Mhm.

[00:37:24]>> Yeah. Oh yes, everybody please donate.

[00:37:26]This is that [laughter] is the point of this after.

[00:37:29]>> We've already had a couple of donations, so thank you very much and keep it up, guys.

[00:37:34]Um, yeah, it's you know, um, my co-Cindy calls it, uh, imperial fire sale. Like everything must go and it's done full kind of, uh, mafia. He always plays this little clip from, I think, uh, Goodfellas or something.

[00:37:52]And, uh, but at the same time do you think like it's a kleptocratic clique that's taken over the, uh, US government or is it really that particular stage of, uh, of imperialism that's gone full-blown genocidal and kleptocratic and scammy and just, you know, pumping bubbles and, uh, pulling rugs and all the rest of it and that's that's all there is to it.

[00:38:20]And then on the other side there's this more, you know, fascistic uh essentially nationalist uh racist that comes in in different shapes and sizes like you have the the kind of liberal form of it that's all about civilizational superiority and goes all the way down to, you know, the basis uh racial superiority, white supremacy, and anti-black, anti-Arab, anti-um Latino racism, you know?

[00:38:55]>> I mean, I think I think all of it is happening at once, but I think this particular regime and Trump and Trump and his like family in particular, they're loot like they are looting. That is their objective like from stealing votes from business and it's like they're just they're pirate it's it's literally like piracy. So, you know, Cabral calls imperialism piracy on dry land, but they're taking that like quite seriously. But like I said, I do think So, I don't think it's just I don't think it is inevitable that kleptocracy um in this kind of naked involvement is it I don't think imperialism has to look like this, for example. So, I think that for example, if Kamala Harris had won, US imperialism was still beyond the decline, but it would look very differently. It it'd be more of that kind of genteel multicultural imperialism.

[00:39:43]Um I don't know necessarily that we'll be in at war with Iran. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't.

[00:39:49]But, we might be at war with Russia. So, like, you know, the dynamics would be similar, but but the form would be different. And to be fair, like all oligarchic formations in which we are um have a level of of stealing, right? Looting, plunder. That is the the function. I think that the really again, like you felt like the mafioso approach to it where it's like the IRS thing for example. Like seriously, even even some of his homies were like, "Bro, you just can't be that blatant about it." Like that that $1.8 billion fund that was set aside for, you know, it's this type of thing. It's It's this type of open corruption where they're just like, "Oh well." Right? And so And then the courts are so overwhelmed, the people are so overwhelmed that they're And it's, you know, with like kind of the blitzkrieg of it all that they're able to just kind of do these huge cash grabs and that will take decades, if ever, to kind of undo and recover. So, you know, that's But again, I don't think that it's indicative of where US imperialism is. I think it's indicative of who's at the helm at this particular moment.

[00:41:04]>> Yeah.

[00:41:06]Um You know, it's so clearly in your in your analysis and in your work, you link uh anti-imperialist analysis, class analysis, and uh racial analysis, and and the racial dynamics of of empire. And you you do this not at the same time.

[00:41:27]There's this kind of uh what I see as an imperial kind of uh psyop that seeks to use intersectional struggles to actually divide and there's of course always this anti-communist, anti-Marxist um uh campaign, you know, that tries to go uh it takes different forms, but one of the of its forms is like, "Well, it has nothing to offer uh racial liberation struggles or the struggle against racism." It also tries to say it has nothing to offer national liberation struggles, but you know, most of the nations that have actually successfully liberated themselves seems to have uh used Marxism in a in a very uh Can you hear me?

[00:42:11]>> Yeah, no, that's I was hello is like agreeing like hello.

[00:42:14]>> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:42:15]>> people are [laughter] like Sankara, Cabral, [snorts] Samora Machel, and Nkrumah after he's overthrown. He got it together, right?

[00:42:24]That boo, like come on. There's a reason why that it is the anti-imperialist politic, like it's completely obvious. And it's only through and it's the sort of racial reductionism that argues that because Marx was European that it is fundamentally European. That's fundamentally negating the fact that it's a science and a methodology that has to be articulated to its particular historical and material context, which is what Cabral, Rodney, they spent a lot a lot of time arguing this out. And so those who believe it are those who have a class who who are have a stake in reproducing the system or they think they do or who have particular class interests or they're just uneducated because this is a really dumb country.

[00:43:17]So, um, we kind of can't fault people for believing it's a dumb and highly propagandized country. So, we can't necessarily fault people for believing what they believe and it's really a failure of the left that we haven't been able to to effectively challenge that. That's our failure. Right?

[00:43:35]It's hard, but it's still that's our work to do is to be um is to be to make revolution inevitable.

[00:43:44]Right?

[00:43:46]>> So, how do we make good on this particular failure?

[00:43:52]>> Um How do we make good on this What do you mean by that?

[00:43:59]>> Well, you say it's a failure of the left, you know, so so my question is what can we do to uh stop feeling in that way.

[00:44:12]>> I think that in the United States the thing that I've been saying is that the best that we can do is just not be an enemy to movements that are actually effective because all around the world, people don't have the same level of confusion that we have here.

[00:44:30]Um people don't have the same level of um backwardness that we have. People cuz historically they have had a a much longer or much stronger labor and working class like labor and union movement. So I think that what we can I you know and I know that people say that like West you know the left in the West especially the US is a glorified study group.

[00:44:54]We need to We need it. Cuz 40% of our population is functionally illiterate.

[00:44:59]Um and if we preoccupy ourselves with simply understanding history and the world, then we won't be trying to we won't be agreeing with the destabilizing project.

[00:45:12]I think that that is where we are as a people. But that means also means looking to the global south where like look look at Ecuador.

[00:45:20]They like there is a reason why they are able to stage an actual general strike. We try to do it and we have these one-day kind of boycott general strike situations, but they're able to shut their country down.

[00:45:31]>> Did Did you mean Bolivia?

[00:45:32]>> Bolivia, sorry. Bolivia. They're able to shut their country down because they are organized because they have a long history of labor movement, a long anti-imperialist movement in ways that we don't. And so all that we can do here is build it now.

[00:45:47]I see something about my dental care.

[00:45:49]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, something like >> academic and my health insurance is tied to my job and it does include dental. I would not say I'm part of the 1% but >> Yeah.

[00:45:59]>> and I do brush my teeth and floss.

[00:46:00]>> I I I have to say that I I put the person in time out for 5 minutes because personally attacking guests is not really what we we tolerate on this show. So >> Right. And it's like, you know, with with with academics it's like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. If you have the politics and you speak out, then it's like yes, with your white teeth, which is a particularly American thing, too.

[00:46:30]Though, Americans are very concerned with the color of their teeth. Um whatever.

[00:46:34]But then if you don't say anything, then it's like you're you're class reproduction. So, it's kind of like, you know, I'd rather just speak truth and, you know, I can be pretty like Walter Rodney does say. He says black academics are enemies of the people until proven otherwise. All I can do is try and prove otherwise, right?

[00:46:51]Work towards that.

[00:46:53]So, it is what it is, but I I take the critique with alacrity because, you know, it is what it is.

[00:47:01]>> Very good. Um you know, when you talk about um blacks in America being um engaged in national liberation struggle and internal colonized um group, I I think in the Was it in the early '70s, late '60s, there was a link with the um the indigenous movement in uh the US and there was some kind of alliance, I think Was it between the Black Panther and the AIM or other movements?

[00:47:34]And as today we are uh you know, supporting the decolonial anti-colonial struggle and anti-imperialist uh uh people's war of liberation in Palestine, how can we do that while not uh you know, fighting and arguing for the same kind of decolonization here in the belly of the beast.

[00:48:01]>> Mhm. We can.

[00:48:03]Next question. Like we have to we have to have this analysis. And I will say this is one of the fundamental flaws. So Jora Warren is very good on this. It's one of the fundamental flaws of like the Communist Party here in the US is that there's no is as if the indigenous are gone, right?

[00:48:18]There's there's not even part of the question. And even even this idea of of self-determination and the black belt thesis um updated by the Republic of New Afrika in the '60s and '70s and they are and I they have a better position on the indigenous question about how that needs to be negotiated, how black people um have to work with indigenous folks to be stewards of the land, how we understand that this is stolen lands. Um and so I do think that the decolonizing project or it all settler colonialism is bad, right?

[00:48:52]Even here. And that is this is ongoing, right? It's It's ongoing settlerism. Um that didn't stop just because time has moved on. And so um I don't know what that looks like. I feel like uh I don't think I personally don't think black people are settlers. I I say that they're involuntary denizens, which I got from Joel Kovel as well. Um but there is certainly any any any land question must involve indigenous folks here, period. It must Any land question anywhere has to involve indigenous folks. If only because um we want the land to be here if the Europeans are in charge of everything forever, we're not going to have anything. Look around.

[00:49:32]>> [laughter] >> They don't care about this [ __ ] So.

[00:49:35]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, those are great points. And also in your um This Is Jamaica series you you say somewhere that, you know, you can't get to liberation through voting, which doesn't mean not voting, but it means being clear as to, you know, what the strategy should be about. And there was a question from Khadija that I can maybe relate to this point where she asks what do we think about Rocky's recent comments on tactics versus strategy in terms of supporting nominally progressive candidates? I don't know if you heard those comments from Gabriel Rockhill. I heard him say something along those lines on Black Agenda Liberation Media's conversation with Two Black, I think. Possibly also the one on Saturdays with Renee, although I didn't get to the end of that conversation, so I wouldn't be exactly sure, but it sounded like he was saying something like you have to make alliances with the people, you know, inside those organizations that um put up candidates. It wasn't clear if he meant the Democratic Party and some kind of DSA thing or if he meant the PSL or those kind of organizations. And I I certainly have my doubts about that kind of strategy. I think so long as you don't face the land back question, you're just, you know, somehow and actually quite clearly part of um empire compatible left. So, I don't know what uh how you see that.

[00:51:18]>> I regret a great deal.

[00:51:20]>> I deeply regret registering to vote because I have jury duty next month.

[00:51:25]So, that's how I feel about >> [laughter] >> I deeply regret it.

[00:51:29]Um No, I think um No.

[00:51:36]One thing that we have to respect about the right wing is that every single thing is up for grabs.

[00:51:43]Every single Everything is a terrain of struggle.

[00:51:46]from bodies to education to elections, everything. And so if that is the case, then we also need to battle.

[00:51:58]We have to be sober and clear and honest about what that what is actually the outcome of that. And like I said, I think that one of the benefits of of like kind of third-party candidates, if you will, is that is part of exposing the contradictions, organizing locally. And there's a lot of organizing you can get out of like voter registration campaigns, for example, like political education, people knowing who their aldermans are, who's on like their city councils, like that type of thing. I think that's really valuable and useful for like power mapping, for example. Um, you know, and there's a lot of organizing It takes a lot of work and organizing for voter registration. So like I think in that regard, getting people to do something is important because it's a very inert society as well. But you cannot lie to them because then then, you know, if you're like, "We're doing this and we're going to win."

[00:52:48]And and you don't win, which you're not going to as third-party candidates, like be so for real.

[00:52:53]The people get deflated, right? When it becomes a outcome as opposed to a strategy, then it becomes problematic.

[00:53:01]And so I'm not I'm not opposed but I'm not against it. And quite frankly, no Nobody has the answers. Unless Nobody here is waging armed struggle, then nobody can sit here and turn their nose up at any strategy. So I think that it's putting vote if you or you know, organizing people to vote. If it's fighting the police, fight the police.

[00:53:18]We organize to do that. If you think it's sort of creating international solidarity, link it with international organizations. There's so much going on that we need all hands on deck and nobody Everybody needs to have some political humility. And so but I do think we need to be honest.

[00:53:32]We have to be honest. Like As the boss says, we have to expose lies wherever they're told and hide nothing from the people because part of the problem is that over time, we've been saying easy victories.

[00:53:44]And we have not been um we we haven't been truthful with ourselves and therefore we cannot be truthful with others about like what this actually means.

[00:53:53]But there's a reason why our ancestors pushed the boat. There's a reason why our ancestors wanted public education because they're like you know, this is as much ours as it as it is anybody else's and at the very least you can try to like stop the bleeding, right? Because to say that there's not a difference between being um in sort of To say that there's not a difference between Mahmood Mamdani and Eric with the Adams and whatever the guy dude's name was, the black guy that's is just dishonest. We know that there is a difference but to say that Mahmood Mamdani is this sort of revolutionary is also dishonest. So I just think that we have to be clear about what's possible and what happens.

[00:54:38]>> Oh my gosh. I don't know what to do with the comments today.

[00:54:41]Um >> [laughter] >> Your hair has been colonized by the the your hair has become Zionist occupied territory or something.

[00:54:54]>> And transhumanism.

[00:54:56]>> Yes and trans transhumanist [laughter] as well.

[00:54:59]Oh my gosh.

[00:55:00]Yeah, the sort of the counter argument to that is well certainly inside the the Democratic Party but campaigns like Mahmood Mamdani's uh you know, you can also see them as in the broader counterinsurgency framework in the sense that they suck up a lot of activist energy and then they dissipate it by putting people in positions of office where they very soon discover that they have the choice to either kiss the ring or on on a Mickey there and this is you know, the arc that we see and and the other thing I see also in the US and it's increasingly the case in all the bourgeois democracies is the voting itself like you know the the struggle to get registered as a third party to actually appear on the ballot and all the rest of it makes it so that unless you've already kissed the ring the the chances that you'll even ever get a get in front of the electorate are very very small and then you dissipate all your energy trying to just get on the ballot right and every state has a different rules about it and I I don't know what kind of an education service it provides for you know for revolutionaries for radicals >> Well I don't think that I don't think the question of whether or not voters for revolutionaries or radicals is I think the fundamental ballot is like it takes it sucks up a lot of energy Well the assumption is that people would have been doing something else right the people who are going to be something else are doing something else anyway they're doing the kind of campaigning in addition to doing other things and so I think that that's a it's like a false choice type of situation I do think it's a boondoggle though there's a lot of money that goes into this stuff and like a lot of you know asking people working people ordinary people for money that is um an issue I think that the monetary part of it is an issue because because it's a way it's you know and I feel that way about a number of things costing radical revolutionary things but the money is important the money piece I think is something I can't quite get on board of but I do think that there is there's a type to me for people who are who are apolitical or nonpolitical and getting them involved in stuff like there is there is like so for example in California you know which way he's doing whatever he's doing. A lot of people didn't know that writing in candidates is a thing. So, people are just getting basic electoral knowledge.

[00:57:40]That's important in a in a society that doesn't know anything, that knows nothing about the political system. Even if people are learning up there at three branches of government and what the Constitution is, that's important for people who don't know anything because truth is systematically hidden from us, right? So, in that regard, I think that it can be important, but again, I think that the process and not the outcome is what's important. Like the >> [laughter] >> um the organizing potential of these campaigns is what should be the focus and not sort of lying to politicians.

[00:58:11]>> Yeah, this question of of process and outcome is absolutely central. And it's almost as though I mean, not almost, but like one of the side ups in a way is to make you focus heavily on the process and never look at the outcome. I mean, like this is, you know, typically the way of bourgeois democracy where you look at the process and spend a lot of time learning lots of stuff about the process.

[00:58:37]And it totally obscures that when you look at outcomes, you know, it's an oligarchy. It's a system in which it's always the same folks who come out on top and any kind of even popular policy never makes it to uh to any kind of legislative body.

[00:58:57]>> Mhm. So, when I mean outcome, what I mean is precisely that, right? That the benefit of running the these campaigns is not that you're going to win cuz you're not, even if you elect one or two local candidates, you're not going to break the duopoly. It's just not going to happen. But the process, like the the organizational process, the kind of getting people used to getting outside and not being online all the time, getting people used to talking to other human beings. You have to go door to door to register people to vote.

[00:59:24]Getting people to learn about stuff in real time. think that those are those are the lasting impact of that type of um of that type of process. It's not if this person wins election because even if your person does win, we know that they're going to be co-opted.

[00:59:40]Anybody that we've ever had faith in that's progressive ultimately been to the will of the Democratic Party, right?

[00:59:49]It's happened to every single person.

[00:59:51]And generally speaking, none of them are anti-imperialist.

[00:59:55]If you want to be at the helm of government in this country, you cannot I just don't see any anti-imperialist doing that, right? Because you because you know what this is.

[01:00:05]Yeah, I don't know. And who wants to work with a whole bunch of dirt dirt bags all the time? That's crazy.

[01:00:12]>> Yeah.

[01:00:14]And and of course, you know, as we said before, if you want to be a anti-imperialist, you will soon need to be uh internal anti-imperialist. So, you need to, you know, your enemy is the empire and inside the belly of the beast. Uh it it it has to go through Lambach, doesn't it?

[01:00:32]>> Yeah. You got some weirdos in your chat.

[01:00:35]>> I know. I >> [laughter] >> I bring them up.

[01:00:37]>> I think you you um I don't know what happened because we haven't had them before, but I'm trying I'm trying to ban them as much uh as fast as I'm able to.

[01:00:48]>> That's so funny. Sorry about the trolls.

[01:00:50]Um yeah, so I do I think that And again, so part of like like the third party tour running with there's like PSL, um what is it? Peace and Freedom, um Working Working Families. Like these type of uh uh parties, like part of their objective should be political education. It should be pointing out what the primary contradictions are and um educating the population on them because especially because it's like you're probably not going to win this election, right? But to me, that is very important and that's historically why like the Communist Party has run candidates. So, for example, when W. B. Du Bois ran for the Senate in 1950, he didn't think he was going to win, but it allowed him to talk about peace and to talk about, you know, civil rights and that type of thing on a very large platform like reaching, you know, tens of thousands of people. And so, in that regard, I think it's important, but then you also have to there has to be organized organizing people and not just mobilizing people.

[01:01:47]It has to be the objective because that is what I think is sorely lacking is a sustained organized the ability to turn mobilization into life-sustaining organizing.

[01:02:01]>> Yeah.

[01:02:05]So, as I'm as I'm busy banning the banning the Zionist trolls, let me grab firmly the third rail of this whole thing. Do you Do you get a sense that um using the Epstein scandal, calling it the Epstein class, the kind of, you know, uh life-hating class is kind of a way to cut through all the anti-communist propaganda and all the rest of it and kind of make it clear that we are really in a stage where it's kind of life against death, isn't it?

[01:02:46]>> I'm ambivalent about the Epstein class thing. I'm I'm in the anti-imperialist like me and Lee kind of had a conversation about this. I think that on the one hand, it is being used by by national liberation struggles or people who are decolonizing like Southwest Asia in real time. So, like um the um IRGC, for example, and I think it is resonating with people. Um but at the same time, I do think that it can obfuscate, right? Because we understand the Epstein class to be a very tiny class or a very small class of very rich, very elite people. And they are a problem, but they're not the problem, right? It's not just billionaires. It's It might It's millionaires, quite frankly. It is It's It's um and it's not just people who commit sex crimes, these like extraordinary sex crimes. It is people who engage in this these routine forms of dehumanization and oppression and exploitation. And so, I don't know that we're necessarily making a link between like the Epstein class, as it were. It kind of reminds me of like the Illuminati. There was all this discussion about like the Illuminati at one point, right? And so, to me, if it is work if it's working for people to actually um clarify and illuminate things, then that's great, right? Um if it is just working to kind of narrow our focus, then I don't I then I think that it's not as effective. But, I think that there's a lot that the Epstein class It's like about like espionage.

[01:04:24]It's about like, you know, um how foreign policy is manipulated and distorted through these particular types of nefarious relationships. It's about misogyny. It's about all kinds of It's about our hatred of children. Um so, there all of those things are in there, but sometimes when we use things like short hands like Epstein class, it doesn't necessarily clarify all of those different dynamics.

[01:04:50]>> Yeah, that that's interesting. Uh my way of looking at it and I think the way we we try to use it is go what we link it to the history of white empire, you know, we go actually the minute like 5 minutes after he set foot in uh in America, Columbus himself was uh starting, you know, was uh getting into uh sexual trafficking and sexual slavery and abuse. So, you know, it's Turtle Island turned into uh Epstein Island before before it was called like this, but it's a way to point to the kind of inhuman nature of um this kind of artificial intelligence that is uh capitalism, you know, it's all about accumulation, which accumulation is done by turning living labor into this non-living thing we call um uh profit. And uh so, and in a sense, it would make sense uh and it's not new like it's not something that Epstein uh invented in any way, but that this the class of people who kind of become slaves to this uh you know, this mute compulsion of accumulating in a way that, you know, to a clinical psychologist like me is actually a pathological. And turns out that uh pathological accumulation, unfortunately, is the hardest thing to uh cure in um in clinical psychology, but I hear there's this uh French invention from the 18th century called the guillotine or something that uh actually solves it quite uh >> I thought it was the machete the machete.

[01:06:31]>> Oh, [laughter] the machete was the Yeah, that's right.

[01:06:35]>> Right.

[01:06:35]>> Yeah, yeah. And it's much uh the machete has uh the advantage of being so much more portable, right?

[01:06:41]>> Mhm, exactly. Exactly. [laughter] Yeah.

[01:06:45]So, I think that that's fair and I think that as long as we're making the broader connections, then certainly it can work.

[01:06:51]But if that's the case, then say why not the Columbus class? Because that is sort of if that that's the originating [music] point, right? I think that um I just always um I balk a little bit at like it can reduce it to one man and make it seems like this is some type of origin or imaginary point when it's not. It's just a continuation.

[01:07:14]And so, um, so yeah, so I'm ambivalent about it. And again, it depends on how it's being used. And if And if And if something that is galvanizing people or in that it's logical people, it has a common vocabulary, then I'm all for it.

[01:07:25]Um But I just think we need to be mindful of like what the other side of its usage could be.

[01:07:31]>> Yeah, yeah, and it can become the kind of rabbit hole into which, you know, you can fall kind of forever. If If he said that the electoral process is a rabbit hole in which energies can be dissipated trying to research all those, uh, you know, all the links of Epstein with whoever is another one of those rabbit holes in which, um, energies can be dissipated.

[01:07:53]But But one thing we were saying on this, uh, podcast with, um, my co-host, uh, Indy was a in, uh, Sri Lanka. He says, "The nice thing about the Epstein scandal and calling it the Epstein class is it doesn't pass the, uh, what he calls the, uh, auntie test, right? So, like, especially, uh, aimed at the comprador class because if you go to your auntie's, uh, Sunday lunch and she asks you, "So, what are you doing these days, you know? What What's your work?" And you go, "Oh, well, I'm actually in the employ of, uh, the Epstein class. I'm in the employ of this, uh, you know, of these people who like to, um, bother children sexually, traffic their own children, and, uh, eat, uh, human flesh, uh, for, um, for dessert.

[01:08:41]It's kind of, you know, maybe your auntie is not going to be, uh, too happy with that, uh, you might ruin the, uh, the Sunday dinner or something. So So, that That was the idea behind it, I guess.

[01:08:55]>> Now, but I think the other side of the other side of that is then that the bad guys are the trafficking cannibals, right? And not the regular the really nice banker who also has like a charity. But they're all bad, right? It become it it creates a kind of caricature of evil and value judgment more than political economy, I guess. I don't know. So so again, so I I think that's fair, right? And again, it's something that it's a readily accessible term that does the work, right? That you just explain.

[01:09:32]But I'm always also like I and I maybe it's the academic side of me like I strive for kind of like clarity and naming things like what they are.

[01:09:42]Um and so again, if like that Epstein class becomes a way to name these processes most processes and those you know, these realities of imperialism and neocolonialism, etc. are drawn out, then I don't have a problem with it.

[01:09:57]>> Uh your sound cut off there.

[01:10:00]>> I don't know what happened.

[01:10:01]>> Oh, I just muted myself. I was just done with my statement. I was saying I have no problem with it. Yeah, I think that's the same thing.

[01:10:06]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And one thing you know you know, looking at West Asia and Iran and I I'm struck by the fact that they call imperialism global arrogance. So they kind of look at it from the psychological perspective, which it is in a way, you know, this idea that you can just try to run the world and impose your will on other people and tell them how they should live and even more frequently how they should die at your hand is you know, the the arrogance of that is off the charts in a way. So you know, capturing that particular element of it, do you do you think that's important to the anti-imperialist struggle or should we just stick to our old categories and you know, kind of defend um more traditional um descriptions of uh Marxism and uh communism.

[01:11:05]>> Well, I mean, I think so again, I think that the you know, the arrogance, right? As well as like the epistemic class, when it's being used in actual liberation struggles, we should attach onto that because it is there's obviously a materiality to it. There's a reason why it's being used versus like if I'm just in my classroom saying stuff. I mean, that matters, I guess, but like not be not as people who are actually again decolonizing South African world times.

[01:11:30]And I do think what's interesting also about the arrogance description is that like the US has not won a war in a very long time and yet you continue to puff your chest out and go around as if people should as if you're some sort of authority. It's like you you have a complete buffoon at the helm of your empire and this is supposed to be something to be lauded. So, I think that that's part of the arrogance piece, too, is that like you cannot face yourself.

[01:11:59]All you can do is project some bloated sense that nobody believes but you. And so, it's also there's an element of like um ridicule like ridiculousness in it as well, you know? So, and I think that that's very important to point out like these um other sort of it's not really affective, but as you're saying, these sort of psychological elements to like the material processes as well.

[01:12:28]>> Yes, and this uh you know, make the the broader links that this is a a class that has has total disrespect and in fact contempt and hatred for everything that is uh alive and free in a way, you know, that they they are and and somebody was talking about it. I I kind of put them in time out cuz it was just too much, but you know, the final project is they when you put yourself psychologically as more worthy than the rest of humanity, which is what, you know, white um white empire does, then eventually you put yourself in the minority, so you kind of exclude yourself out of humanity and you come to hate the rest of humanity, the majority of humanity. And I think that's how you get to transhumanism, right? And then you have the Peter Thiel saying, "Yeah, no, trans people uh the only problem I have with them is they're they're not trans enough. You should trans out of humanity altogether." And then the other guy who says, "Yeah, and then we should uh you know, peace off out of this planet and once we've uh totally destroyed it, of course, and then go and colonize another one."

[01:13:47]And I think that is the actual, you know, psychological logic of the unfolding of um of capitalism, of imperialism on on the psychological front. And I believe there's a lot to be gained by making, you know, bringing those out and saying, "Look, guys, it really is a fight between the this life-extinguishing machine on this one and and life in all its diverse and imperfect and ever-learning forms on the other hand. And, you know, it's time it it's time to choose."

[01:14:31]>> Yeah, it's it's I have a quote from Islam Robeson coming I in a couple days where she talks about she talks about it in an American context that white people's hatred of black people also characterizes their hatred for workers, for anybody who's of a lower social status than them. And so it is, right? You if you hate living people, it's very easy to hate nature and to hate anything that is easily devalued. And I do think that's sort of part and parcel, you know, and then Rodney says, of course, like one group, for example, in the concept of race, like one group can't enslave another for centuries and that develop a sense of superiority.

[01:15:18]And then that sense of superiority transfers to everything else. So your children, your partner, right? Your environment, all of these things. And so it is it's just it's death dealing and it's not just, you know, so it's both it's dehumanizing but it's also just death dealing in all of these forms, which is why, you know, you can have all of these deregulations in the United States where it's like, okay, we're we're forever chemicals, they're back, you know?

[01:15:47]We've cut rollback regulations about species in our water. We have all of this food product that's not even real food, so it's like the willingness to poison people in every aspect of their lives. So environment, food, water, like that's that's bad.

[01:16:08]That is not people who should be in the >> Yeah, but on the other hand, it's good for the bottom line, so you know.

[01:16:12]>> Exactly, right? And yet the bottom line, very few people even, you know, benefit from that. So it's just it's And the what I always say like what's so perplexing about this is that this is somebody's ideal world.

[01:16:28]This is something that a group of people have worked very, very hard for.

[01:16:34]This is something that people this a group of people think that this is the pinnacle of where we should be. And that is just so that's almost as bad as being a racist.

[01:16:45]>> But I was um I was having this conversation with my partner the other week and I she we were reminiscing about the days of the heyday of the Oprah Winfrey Show, right?

[01:17:00]Which apparently she she told me in addition to starting all sorts of liberal platitudes and new age um you know, bromides. Um at the end of the show every person who was in the live audience would be gifted some kind of you know, whatever she called them, the things I love or whatever, right? And you don't have this anymore. And and but I think it's very interesting because it's peak end-of-history peak, you know, liberalist. So we can have we can be all for the nice things and against the bad things.

[01:17:39]And we can make our own reality by thinking the good thoughts. And by the way, there are all those you know, all those this cornucopia of consumer items that I love so much I'm going to give to you my fellow humans. And and that's completely gone. And I think the actual space for this is over, you know, the time is over.

[01:18:02]People have trouble holding two, three jobs, getting getting food on the table. And it's just not delivering anymore, right?

[01:18:13]And if you want nice things, you have to to get them from China. But then the tariffs would stop you from getting them at a good price. And so we're at the point where the material basis for this kind of you know, idea of liberal imperialism, if you like, is just has been pulled from under from under society.

[01:18:37]And the only thing left is this absolutely you know this monstrous uh cannibalistic uh psychopathic uh mafia mafia system and I would I would tend to think that gives a a historic opportunity to rebuild a revolutionary class consciousness from what do what do you think?

[01:19:03]>> Well, it's socialism or barbarism.

[01:19:08]And unfortunately I think it's probably going to be barbarism at least at in this particular epoch. But it's but it's not eternal, right? If we are if we are think dialectically, it's not eternal, but it might be the case that things have to get so bad, right? That people are looking forward to concentration camps because at least they don't have to pay rent.

[01:19:29]It might have to get that level of bad before that fight back happens.

[01:19:34]I think that as long as we have our little trinkets, as long as like people can be distracted by social media or um be entertained, right? Bread and circuses. We just had the NBA finals. We got the World Cup. As long as there is something that can sort of cushion the blow. Even the cuz we have for since you know capitalism makes us negotiate the terms of our immiseration down to the last right down to the cans. And so and I think that as bad as things are, we're not there yet for some reason.

[01:20:10]So the hope is that at some point we will get there.

[01:20:15]Um but I don't think that that is inevitable.

[01:20:18]That is That takes a lot of hard work.

[01:20:21]That is happening in some kind of piecemeal ways, at least in the context of the United States, but not nearly enough. So um as they say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now, so you know?

[01:20:39]>> Yeah.

[01:20:40]Yeah.

[01:20:41]And [laughter] and when we look at the international scene, I mean, to me it's quite clear that imperialism is in um terminal decline, you know, but it's it's kind of it's sort of about the uh genociding.

[01:20:55]>> That's the narrative.

[01:20:56]>> Uh the question is, you know, will it collapse in on itself or will it actually turn to the Western Hemisphere and try to uh double down in there cuz it might get much worse in the belly of the beast as a result. But how how do you see that? Do you also see declining or do you think it will find a way out of this and uh just carry on pretty much as before?

[01:21:24]>> I think the way to accelerate the decline through a sort of crisis of legitimacy is if a war is fought here.

[01:21:31]The last time that a war was fought here in the United States was the Civil War, and that is why this population has no conception of what war is. It's always out there. It is, you know, it is something that we feel it economically, right? That's why, you know, our schools are terrible, but there's all this money for bombs. So, people can make that connection, but until there is a war fought here, that is what is going to raise people's consciousness because you actually experience war along with the economic devastation.

[01:21:58]That is what's going to raise your consciousness in real time. And so, like I think it will take something like that where people are actually even even beyond like the ice raids, even beyond the fact that there is a concentration camp apparatus that's being built up.

[01:22:12]When people when there is when you're when there is a war that you have to fight, there's a particular consciousness that is raised. And short of that, um you know, I think um this thing is going to sputter along because there there has to be an internal disruption. There has to be an internal um insurgency to to to aid what is happening around the world and we just aren't It's true, Americans are soft, fat, and dumb.

[01:22:48]You know?

[01:22:49]>> Wow.

[01:22:50]>> It is true and and it is sad and like I don't need and I'm not trying to be fat-phobic because that's just the reality. Right? Because we eat poison.

[01:22:58]We don't have We are We are unhealthy.

[01:23:01]And so, you know, that that is that is the function of our decadence. And until something There's a big big big shock, I don't know that. I'm not sure how things are going to go.

[01:23:15]>> Yeah, we try to end our episodes on a positive note, so I'll try my best. I know you have to go in a minute. And yeah, I think you know, I think on the global scale, it's actually on its last leg. And so, if it does lose global hegemony, it's going to find it very hard to keep, you know, to keep the kind of Well, to pay, you know, to pay the the US working class such as it is in blood money. But of course, as a settler colony, you always can rely on your, you know, settler base to to go into very dark places with you.

[01:23:56]So, that may happen. But you talked about the war, so I was thinking, "Okay, so Iran needs to improve their their missile range." Yeah. Of course, the other possibility is things get so disorganized in the belly of the beast, which they might do, that you actually get something similar to to the US Civil War you had before. But yeah, until there is strong disruption, it might well continue. But, uh strong disruptions do happen. And before they happen, uh you know, it it looks like it's eternal until it collapses and then it looks like it was always going to collapse. So, I think it might be like this.

[01:24:42]>> So, Dr. C >> As as Gramsci said, just, you know, the old is dead. The old is dying. The new is struggling to be born. And now is the time of monsters.

[01:24:53]>> Yeah, and that interregnum appeals to sort of morbid symptoms. I think was the was the good the time of monsters.

[01:25:02]>> Exactly.

[01:25:03]>> Thank you very much for making the time as you are, you know, experiencing the hardships of the American absence of any public transport system.

[01:25:13]>> Yes.

[01:25:13]>> From live from a Denver airport restaurant. That was Dr. C.

[01:25:19]Thank you very much. Thank you for those of you who have donated. If you haven't yet, you can still do it, of course.

[01:25:25]And as we say at the end of all of these episodes, free Palestine and swift victory to the free people of the world.