A fiery takedown of mainstream Black politics!
Filmed at the United National Anti-War Coalition in NYC on Feb. 22.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
We are fully certain that Russiagate actually started in the national security state, which became very nervous when Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, for whatever reasons, expressed grave mixed misgivings about the US regime change policy, about US free trade policy, about US relations with NATO, about the entire global security, which is a code word for US imperialist framework in the world. And that really upset the national security state.
What we saw for the first time ever was current and past heads of the CIA and other intelligence agencies come out of the dark, so to speak, and actively engage in the 26 electoral contest. They engaged as Democrats and they engaged in ways to isolate and discredit those statements that Donald Trump had made that they felt were weakening the US imperial framework.
And then Donald Trump wins and the stuff hits the fan. The Democratic response to that win in the electoral college and the national security state response to it become the same and Russiagate is born. Russiagate comes straight out of that document that was authored by the CIA and co-signed, endorsed by two other intelligence agencies. And then, of course immediately becomes part of the Democratic National Committee line and it’s not just against Trump.
We in the left are of course all opposed to Trump, but what is thrown into the pot of Russian collusion and meddling is basically all of the left and a black list is drawed up with Black Agenda Report on that list along with another of other left websites, all dissidents. All those who critique the corporate consensus in foreign policy are now lumped together, not just with Russia, but with Trump, which means that Black politicians have now taken the side, become and allied with the CIA, which used to be anathema overall in general in the Black community.
We see the spectacle of Black congresswoman from Los Angeles, Maxine Waters, who used to denounce the CIA, rightfully, for taking and playing such a role in bringing crack cocaine into her city. Now she’s walking around, strutting around waving American flags and siding directly with that national security state.
2016’s election creating Russiagate has actually really made this new Cold War, this internal McCarthyism a part central to the American political scene. It’s become a war, a Cold War, against left dissent in this country. It was anti any deviation from the corporate consensus and the national security state’s consensus on US foreign policy. Trump deviated from that, which caused a panic in the national security state, but it’s not just against Trump.
Trump has since been tamed. He has extended sanctions even farther than Obama. He has sanctioned Russia with which he’s supposedly all cuddled up and colluding with in far greater sanctions, far more punishing sanctions against Russia than Obama, and he’s attacked Syria and dug his heels in, in Syria. Something he said he wouldn’t do. That’s the premier US armed regime change target in the world, and Trump is right there. But Russiagate continues because it’s not just about Trump, it’s about any dissidents from the imperial line.
This is a larger battle about what the narrative of history and of contemporary events is going to be. That’s why the battle has shifted to Facebook and Google who have adjusted their algorithms to actually perform in the opposite matter from which they were invented.
The Google search mechanisms were supposed to bring before the reader those articles, that information, which they were searching for. But instead, if the reader asks for information that should bring them to Black Agenda Report, they will, instead of finding a whole page of references as it would be usual, they’ll find maybe, if they’re lucky, one or two articles from Black Agenda Report. The algorithms have been tampered with, rigged, by their inventors, so they do the opposite of their intended purpose. This is a battle over the narrative. This is a battle to impose on people a picture of the world only exists in the mind of imperialists.
In terms of working with the Democrats, there is no escaping Democrats in the Black community. Democratic politics, Democratic organizations dominate the Black community. Our civic organizations every four years become annexes of the Democratic Party. Our sororities and fraternities become annexes of the Democratic Party during campaign years. So there is no escaping the Democratic Party. But Black Agenda Report, of course, carries on a nonstop analysis of what that party is doing and to who it is serving.
But we maintain at Black Agenda Report that the Black worldview, Black aspirations will forever be trapped in a corporate cage until there is a breakup of the Democratic Party. That the duopoly system is an even worse cage for Black folks than anybody else in the country because in this system if there are two parties, one of them will be the white man’s party. The Republican party now occupies that position, the Democratic Party used to. But the white man’s party is one whose organizing principle is white supremacy.
And of course, the masses of Black people cannot be part of the white man’s party. You only find insane or mercenary Black people in the white man’s party. And that forces them to participate in the Democratic Party. But what it further does is since what, when Black folks go to the polls in primary elections, what their, what they believe is their main purpose in exercising their franchise is to stop, to defeat the white man’s party.
And so typically, and this year is no exception, majorities of them will support whatever Democratic candidate they think is the strongest to defeat the white man’s party candidate, this year, Trump. Almost invariably they perceive that the strongest candidate is the one with the most money, the one who has the most support in the corporate media and that of course, would be the right wing Democrat. So even though Black folks are the most left-leaning constituency in the United States historically and still, they will in large numbers support the corporate candidate during the primary elections.
That means Black people are not voting their own aspirations. They are not voting their own left-leaning ideology. They are simply voting to defeat the white man’s candidate and are therefore neutralized politically in this country, and the left is weakened in this country by not having the active left-ish participation of the most left-leaning constituency.
This big Black support for Biden was based on the perception that he was the strongest candidate to beat Trump, to beat the white man’s party candidate. It was based almost entirely on this aura of electability, an aura that was created by the corporate press. It was not an ideological identification.
Those same Black voters who were supporting Biden were also overwhelmingly and in fact, in bigger proportion than any other group, in favor of Medicare For All and that whole list of Bernie programs, which are in fact super majority issues in the Democratic Party certainly and absolutely among Black Americans. But Black Americans, again, see the existential issue, the existential question as being defeating Trump.
It was very clear to us that Biden’s super majority of Black support would deteriorate as soon as his aura of electability was punctured, which happened in the first two primaries. It will further be eroded before this South Carolina primary. It’s quite possible that Bernie might beat him, even in Black votes. They’ve come much closer together.
Black folks are to the left of Bernie Sanders. The Black political spectrum is a totally different spectrum from the white political spectrum. Black people that call themselves moderate or conservatives bear no political resemblance to white people who call themselves moderates and conservatives. This very, very different Black political spectrum should have its own independent means of expression, but it never will have it as long as it’s locked in this corporate Democratic cage.
Now, if there is going to be a switch by the electability Black folks, the ones for whom the strongest white candidate will still be the one whose buttons they’ll push, it would be to Bloomberg who is strong based on his billions. It wouldn’t be to Buttigieg or to Klobuchar who don’t appear to be the strongest white candidates and are very, very white. That’s why they’re only in two or 3% in terms of Black American support and that’s more than negligible. It’s probably a statistical error.
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