therealnews--2020-08-14--Congress, Trump-appointed CEO battle it out over latest purge at federally-funded network

In a move Congressional leaders are calling “ illegal retaliation , ” Trump-appointed U.S. Agency for Global Media ( USAGM ) CEO Michael Pack on Wednesday suspended top leaders of the Agency and stripped them of their security clearance .
USAGM oversees five federally-funded media networks with global reach .
Rep. Eliot Engel , head of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs , which provides oversight for USAGM , has said in a statement that the removals of chief financial officer Grant Turner , general counsel David Kligerman , executive director Oanh Tran and others “ smack of illegal retaliation.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the inspector general ’ s office , Engel explained .
“ I understand that a number of the individuals who have been relieved had tried to make agency leadership aware of potentially inappropriate or unlawful actions during Mr.
Pack ’ s first months in his position , ” Engel ’ s statement says .
The statement goes on to say : “ It is a clear attempt to cover up his wrongdoing to date and to silence those who might voice concern about his future actions.
” Pack has already fired the heads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sparked a backlash from Congressional leaders , including from the Republicans , fearing Pack intends to turn federally-funded broadcast networks into Trump propaganda machines .
Pack is a conservative filmmaker and has previously been an associate of Steve Bannon—President Trump ’ s former political adviser .
VOA , which served as the propaganda arm of the US government well into the Cold War years , is overseen and funded by the USAGM along with four other US taxpayer-funded broadcast networks .
These include Middle East Broadcast Network ( MBN ) , Radio Free @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Free Asia and Office of Cuba Broadcasting .
Pack is scheduled to appear and testify before the Committee of Foreign Affairs in September , where he is expected to be grilled by the congressional leadership on account of the continuing suspensions at the USAGM .
TRNN has earlier reported that Pack recently led a string of accusations against the VOA including publishing Pro-Biden content and violating VOA ’ s charter and federal laws , resulting in the suspension and possible termination of four contract journalists .
Among those suspended are seven USAGM managers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ financial officer Grant Turner , USAGM general counsel David Kligerman , and the executive director Oanh Tran among others .
According to one source The Real News spoke to , the action was tied to the alleged “ security failures ” and procedural lapses in vetting the credentials of foreign journalists brought onboard the VOA and four other USAGM affiliate networks .
CEO Pack made these accusations last month and alleged “ severe and systemic security failures at the agency , many of which have persisted for years.
” USAGM did not respond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A statement by a USAGM spokesperson on the suspensions maintains : “ We took action today [ Wednesday ] to restore integrity to and respect for the rule of law in our work at USAGM .
We will take additional steps to help return this agency to its glory days.
” Also on Wednesday , VOA Urdu language service chief Kokab Farshori and the managing editor for digital operations Tabinda Naeem were suspended .
They are under investigation on charges of editorial negligence and violating the federal law by providing a platform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through favorable coverage in a video .
The 2-minute video included clips of Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden speaking at a July 20 Million Muslim Votes event .
Captioned with Urdu subtitles , Biden is seen telling American Muslims that his administration would overturn a Trump administration imposed “ Muslim ban.
” The policy banned immigration for 90 days from seven Muslim-majority countries but applied to all citizens of the countries included in the ban .
Under the federal law known as the Hatch Act , all federal government employees are barred from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Pack ’ s office alleged the video “ can only be described as an apparent election advertisement for [ the ] presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
” VOA Urdu managers were suspended following an investigation by The Real News Network ( TRNN ) , which revealed that USAGM management was suspending their contract journalists but not their supervisory staff .
At VOA , the contractors have no editorial or supervisory powers and all decisions rest with full time federal employees .
The four journalists on contract who were originally held responsible for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office on Tuesday following a 14-day suspension .
The notices say their contracts will be terminated if they fail to make a convincing case in their defense , VOA Urdu sources told The Real News .
Sources familiar with the case said the news of the service chief ’ s suspension was communicated through official email Thursday morning .
According to one VOA source , VOA divisional chief Rebecca McMenamin sent out an email to the Urdu language service employees announcing the additional suspensions that read : “ Good morning – Please be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ managing editor Urdu TV ] will be temporarily leading the service for the coming days .
Please give her your full cooperation.
” Since assuming charge as CEO in June , Pack singled out VOA for providing favorable coverage to Trump ’ s political foe Joe Biden and also accused USAGM of multiple security failures with regards to the background security checks of foriegn journalists on J-1 visa .
His office has since continued with the freeze on renewing or issuing new J-1 visas , landing more than 70 VOA journalists in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ required to leave the US within a month after the expiry of their visa , which in some cases begin as early as late August according to affected VOA staff who spoke to TRNN .
“ We have no rights or recourse available against this injustice , ” they said .
“ We came here legally and have worked to earn our right to stay .
But our managers are not saying a word about visa renewal which is a very painful experience.
“ Editor ’ s Note : The author is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics and international affairs .

In a move Congressional leaders are calling “illegal retaliation,” Trump-appointed U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) CEO Michael Pack on Wednesday suspended top leaders of the Agency and stripped them of their security clearance. USAGM oversees five federally-funded media networks with global reach.
Rep. Eliot Engel, head of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which provides oversight for USAGM, has said in a statement that the removals of chief financial officer Grant Turner, general counsel David Kligerman, executive director Oanh Tran and others “smack of illegal retaliation.” The move merits an investigation by the inspector general’s office, Engel explained. “I understand that a number of the individuals who have been relieved had tried to make agency leadership aware of potentially inappropriate or unlawful actions during Mr. Pack’s first months in his position,” Engel’s statement says.
The statement goes on to say: “It is a clear attempt to cover up his wrongdoing to date and to silence those who might voice concern about his future actions.”
Pack has already fired the heads of all five USAGM-affiliated networks, which sparked a backlash from Congressional leaders, including from the Republicans, fearing Pack intends to turn federally-funded broadcast networks into Trump propaganda machines. Pack is a conservative filmmaker and has previously been an associate of Steve Bannon—President Trump’s former political adviser.
VOA, which served as the propaganda arm of the US government well into the Cold War years, is overseen and funded by the USAGM along with four other US taxpayer-funded broadcast networks. These include Middle East Broadcast Network (MBN), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia and Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
Pack is scheduled to appear and testify before the Committee of Foreign Affairs in September, where he is expected to be grilled by the congressional leadership on account of the continuing suspensions at the USAGM. TRNN has earlier reported that Pack recently led a string of accusations against the VOA including publishing Pro-Biden content and violating VOA’s charter and federal laws, resulting in the suspension and possible termination of four contract journalists.
Among those suspended are seven USAGM managers in leadership positions, including the chief financial officer Grant Turner, USAGM general counsel David Kligerman, and the executive director Oanh Tran among others. According to one source The Real News spoke to, the action was tied to the alleged “security failures” and procedural lapses in vetting the credentials of foreign journalists brought onboard the VOA and four other USAGM affiliate networks. CEO Pack made these accusations last month and alleged “severe and systemic security failures at the agency, many of which have persisted for years.”
USAGM did not respond to TRNN’s requests for comment.
A statement by a USAGM spokesperson on the suspensions maintains: “We took action today [Wednesday] to restore integrity to and respect for the rule of law in our work at USAGM. We will take additional steps to help return this agency to its glory days.”
Also on Wednesday, VOA Urdu language service chief Kokab Farshori and the managing editor for digital operations Tabinda Naeem were suspended. They are under investigation on charges of editorial negligence and violating the federal law by providing a platform to the democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden through favorable coverage in a video.
The 2-minute video included clips of Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden speaking at a July 20 Million Muslim Votes event. Captioned with Urdu subtitles, Biden is seen telling American Muslims that his administration would overturn a Trump administration imposed “Muslim ban.” The policy banned immigration for 90 days from seven Muslim-majority countries but applied to all citizens of the countries included in the ban.
Under the federal law known as the Hatch Act, all federal government employees are barred from indulging political activities or favouring political candidates. Pack’s office alleged the video “can only be described as an apparent election advertisement for [the] presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.”
VOA Urdu managers were suspended following an investigation by The Real News Network (TRNN), which revealed that USAGM management was suspending their contract journalists but not their supervisory staff. At VOA, the contractors have no editorial or supervisory powers and all decisions rest with full time federal employees.
The four journalists on contract who were originally held responsible for the video received notices from VOA human resources office on Tuesday following a 14-day suspension. The notices say their contracts will be terminated if they fail to make a convincing case in their defense, VOA Urdu sources told The Real News.
Sources familiar with the case said the news of the service chief’s suspension was communicated through official email Thursday morning. According to one VOA source, VOA divisional chief Rebecca McMenamin sent out an email to the Urdu language service employees announcing the additional suspensions that read: “Good morning – Please be aware that starting today Aisha Khalid [managing editor Urdu TV] will be temporarily leading the service for the coming days. Please give her your full cooperation.”
Since assuming charge as CEO in June, Pack singled out VOA for providing favorable coverage to Trump’s political foe Joe Biden and also accused USAGM of multiple security failures with regards to the background security checks of foriegn journalists on J-1 visa. His office has since continued with the freeze on renewing or issuing new J-1 visas, landing more than 70 VOA journalists in the lurch.
These foreign journalists will be required to leave the US within a month after the expiry of their visa, which in some cases begin as early as late August according to affected VOA staff who spoke to TRNN.
“We have no rights or recourse available against this injustice,” they said. “We came here legally and have worked to earn our right to stay. But our managers are not saying a word about visa renewal which is a very painful experience.“
Editor’s Note: The author is a former VOA international broadcast journalist and covered politics and international affairs.
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-08-14--Supreme Court ruling prevents 1.4 million from voting in Florida

Eddie Conway talks with an attorney about what the impact of this ruling will be in one of the most @ @ @ @ @ .

Executive Producer
Eddie Conway is an Executive Producer of The Real News Network. He is the host of the TRNN show Rattling the Bars. He is Chairman of the Board of Ida B's Restaurant, and the author of two books: Marshall Law: The Life & Times of a Baltimore Black Panther and The Greatest Threat: The Black Panther Party and COINTELPRO. A former member of the Black Panther Party, Eddie Conway is an internationally known political prisoner for over 43 years, a long time prisoners' rights organizer in Maryland, the co-founder of the Friend of a Friend mentoring program, and the President of Tubman House Inc. of Baltimore. He is a national and international speaker and has several degrees.


therealnews--2020-08-14--Kamala Harris; It’s Complicated

Kamala Harris; It’s Complicated

All donations in the US and Canada are tax deductible .
To make a secure donation by credit or debit @ @ @ @ @ location , or select PayPal .

Stir Crazy! Episode 78: Today we are joined by sociologist Taure Brown, political consultant Adriel Hampton, and Communications Director for Detroit Action Kenneth Williams. Hosted by Kim Brown.
Email us your questions/comments/suggestions at stircrazy@therealnews.com
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-08-14--Silencing marginalized voices is not ‘good trouble’

When Former President Bill Clinton spoke at Congressman John Lewis ’ funeral last month , he used the occasion to discuss the very real ways that Lewis put his body on the line to make this country better .
He noted in his speech that Lewis carried a backpack with him the day of Bloody Sunday—the 1965 Selma , Alabama clash named for a particularly violent attack on protesters by police .
Lewis , he said , packed some fruit and a toothbrush and toothpaste .
This would have been a fine enough send off for a man who truly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was this , too : Clinton discussed the events that helped shape Lewis ’ character and cited Lewis ’ loss to Kwame Ture for leadership of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee ( it should be noted here that Clinton identified Ture by his birth name , Stokely Carmichael , which Ture , inspired by African socialist leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sekou Toure , changed in 1978 ) .
“ I say there were two or three years there , where the movement went a little too far towards Stokely , ” Clinton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more strident Black Power politics .
“ But in the end , John Lewis prevailed.
” This line stung many on the left , who have watched the Democratic party as an organization contract , squeezing out diverse and marginalized voices in the wake of Trumpism and another rise in state sanctioned police violence — rather than expand .
Especially taken together with another line in Clinton ’ s speech in which he shouted out Congressman James E. Clyburn for “ ending an intrafamily fight within our party , ” a reference that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for endorsing Joe Biden rather than Bernie Sanders .
Kwame Ture died in 1998 but is still apparently living rent-free in at least one former U.S. president ’ s head .
Clinton ’ s comments show that the fight for Black freedom and safety isn ’ t solely up against Trump and his Republican party but against Democratic moderates .
Clinton ’ s comments were relatively small moments in a weeklong celebration of Lewis ’ life but they were important .
They illustrated a Democratic party that isn ’ t leading the charge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perhaps even resents change .
How far is too far ?
What leaders will the American people accept and who won ’ t they ?
And now , in a time when it feels like many of the civil rights gains that activists fought for with their blood and bones and spirits have been lost , where do we go from here ?
Lewis himself ran up against all of this himself when he was selected to speak at the 1963 March on Washington .
At 23 , he was the youngest speaker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( Ture would be elected over Lewis in 1966 ) .
According to Lewis ’ autobiography , Walking With the Wind : A Memoir of the Movement , the speech he originally wrote for the occasion pissed a bunch of people off : Robert Kennedy , NAACP head Roy Wilkins , march organizer Bayard Rustin , and more .
They didn ’ t like that Lewis skewered calls for patience from America ’ s Black citizens .
They didn ’ t like that he referred to Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scary , I guess ? )
.
They were worried that his more strident stance would link their cause with Communism .
Lewis writes that he was allowed to speak only after a round of edits to his speech made the very day he was scheduled to speak .
The speech that Lewis gave still packed a punch .
Considering the speech in the year 2020 , it sounds less like a speech that a Democratic leader would give and more like one that would be shouted from a megaphone by a protester @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic leader standing up there on the stage .
“ My friends , let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution .
By and large , American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political , economic , and social exploitation , ” Lewis said .
Lewis even challenged the efficacy of the Democratic Party : “ Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham ?
Where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the citizens of Albany , Georgia , ” he asked .
On July 19 , in Chicago , just two days after Lewis ’ death , 18-year-old Miracle Boyd had her front teeth smashed out by a Chicago Police Officer .
It happened at a protest at Grant Park , over a Christopher Columbus Statue .
Boyd saw a fellow protester being arrested and started to film the encounter .
Another police officer then knocked her phone out of her hand , and the phone hit her in the mouth .
Protesters on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the teenager all over social media , her face twisted in a grimace of pain , jagged teeth visible , blood splattered on her lips and top .
“ There is no way I should have left a protest abused and battered exercising my freedom of speech and freedom to assemble , ” Boyd told local news .
“ I never thought I would have become a victim of the biggest gang in America.
” What happened to Boyd is happening to activists all over the United States .
Videos from Portland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Chicago show activists being brutalized by local or federal police organizations .
To watch them , one need only pull out their cell phone .
This reality—right now , police are beating protesters in the streets as they beat John Lewis—seemed a million miles away as America went through the process of memorializing Lewis .
In fact , some of the lawmakers who have maligned protesters in their own cities , spoke glowingly about the way Lewis put his body on the line to push back against racism in the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see this language from Black lawmakers , who should know deeply how police violence hurts the communities they serve .
“ I was deeply moved a couple of days ago when his chief of staff Michael Collins shared with me that the Congressman was intently watching the news of Atlanta and proud of the leadership that ’ s been shown , ” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at the Capitol Rotunda .
“ And so governor , when the good trouble continues , know that it is with the blessings of Congressman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lit fires in front of CNN ’ s Atlanta offices to protest both the death of George Floyd and the harmful racist narratives CNN and other news outlets have promoted , Lance Bottoms told protesters to go home : “ This is not a protest .
This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr .
This is chaos .
A protest has purpose .
When Dr. King was assassinated we didn ’ t do this to our city .
So if you love this city , this city that has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black police chiefs , and people who care about this city…if you care about this city then go home , ” Bottoms said .
Lightfoot delivered a more damning message about the destruction of property that happened there in response to police shooting .
She had more to say about storefronts damaged than the violence enacted on Boyd or other protesters : “ I do not care , whatever justification was given for this , ” she said .
“ There is no justification for criminal behavior , ever .
You have no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of others .
Our residents deserve to be safe.
” The recent election of Cori Bush , the Ferguson protester who won a seat in Congress last week in Missouri seems , simply by winning the election , to best honor Lewis .
Bush ’ s election is heralded as a win for progressive ideals—the Black single mom unseated establishment Democratic incumbent William Lacy Clay Jr. , who had been on the job for over 20 years—but it was also a victory for those looking for elected leaders who like Lewis , understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an activist who says she still carries the pain of Mike Brown ’ s death with her every day .
She remembers being tear gassed by police herself , after the uprising that followed Brown ’ s death in August of 2014 .
Many are adding her to a wave of progressive politicians who have recently won seats in Washington , D.C. or are headed there soon : Jamall Bowman , who defeated longtime Democratic politician Rep. Eliot Engel , is another example of this , as are members of The Squad made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Ayanna Pressley , and Rashida Tlaib .
These people all bring what seems to be a fire for change , but also a perspective that comes from being not white , not wealthy , and decidedly working class .
But they won ’ t be effective for long if they are worn down and watered down in the ways that the Democratic party has always allowed themselves to be watered down in the past .
It was announced today , for example that Ocasio-Cortez will be speaking at the upcoming Democratic National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whispers leading up to the announcement that she wouldn ’ t .
None of the other people mentioned above—Bowman , Omar , Pressley , Tlaib—are speaking .
These people must be embraced and protected by party leaders not pushed to the side .
I should also note here that Ocasio-Cortez will only get to speak for a minute at the upcoming Democratic National Convention next week .
Progressive members of the party must have their ideas supported and must be protected from attacks from the right .
It ’ s more than that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a primary driver of mass incarceration has picked former prosecutor Kamala Harris as his running mate—it is an extremely carceral ticket .
If Democratic leaders want to actually honor the legacy of John Lewis , they can not allow attacks on protesters in the streets to continue .
They can ’ t just try to patch up a broken and dangerous system .
They have to link John Lewis ’ broken bones to the bones and bodies of people being snatched up and maimed by police officers right now .
And so far @ @ @ @ @

When Former President Bill Clinton spoke at Congressman John Lewis’ funeral last month, he used the occasion to discuss the very real ways that Lewis put his body on the line to make this country better. He noted in his speech that Lewis carried a backpack with him the day of Bloody Sunday—the 1965 Selma, Alabama clash named for a particularly violent attack on protesters by police. Lewis, he said, packed some fruit and a toothbrush and toothpaste.
He figured he’d be arrested.
This would have been a fine enough send off for a man who truly was an American hero. But there was this, too: Clinton discussed the events that helped shape Lewis’ character and cited Lewis’ loss to Kwame Ture for leadership of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (it should be noted here that Clinton identified Ture by his birth name, Stokely Carmichael, which Ture, inspired by African socialist leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sekou Toure, changed in 1978).
“I say there were two or three years there, where the movement went a little too far towards Stokely,” Clinton said, referring to Ture’s more strident Black Power politics. “But in the end, John Lewis prevailed.”
This line stung many on the left, who have watched the Democratic party as an organization contract, squeezing out diverse and marginalized voices in the wake of Trumpism and another rise in state sanctioned police violence — rather than expand. Especially taken together with another line in Clinton’s speech in which he shouted out Congressman James E. Clyburn for “ending an intrafamily fight within our party,” a reference that seemed to suggest Clinton was thanking Clyburn for endorsing Joe Biden rather than Bernie Sanders.
Kwame Ture died in 1998 but is still apparently living rent-free in at least one former U.S. president’s head. Clinton’s comments show that the fight for Black freedom and safety isn’t solely up against Trump and his Republican party but against Democratic moderates.
Clinton’s comments were relatively small moments in a weeklong celebration of Lewis’ life but they were important. They illustrated a Democratic party that isn’t leading the charge for change, and instead fears and perhaps even resents change.
How far is too far? What leaders will the American people accept and who won’t they? And now, in a time when it feels like many of the civil rights gains that activists fought for with their blood and bones and spirits have been lost, where do we go from here?
Lewis himself ran up against all of this himself when he was selected to speak at the 1963 March on Washington. At 23, he was the youngest speaker at the march and Lewis was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Ture would be elected over Lewis in 1966). According to Lewis’ autobiography, Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, the speech he originally wrote for the occasion pissed a bunch of people off: Robert Kennedy, NAACP head Roy Wilkins, march organizer Bayard Rustin, and more. They didn’t like that Lewis skewered calls for patience from America’s Black citizens. They didn’t like that he referred to Black people as “masses” (too scary, I guess?). They were worried that his more strident stance would link their cause with Communism. Lewis writes that he was allowed to speak only after a round of edits to his speech made the very day he was scheduled to speak.
The speech that Lewis gave still packed a punch. Considering the speech in the year 2020, it sounds less like a speech that a Democratic leader would give and more like one that would be shouted from a megaphone by a protester in the crowd, angry at said Democratic leader standing up there on the stage.
“My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic, and social exploitation,” Lewis said.
Lewis even challenged the efficacy of the Democratic Party: “Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham? Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia,” he asked.
On July 19, in Chicago, just two days after Lewis’ death, 18-year-old Miracle Boyd had her front teeth smashed out by a Chicago Police Officer.
It happened at a protest at Grant Park, over a Christopher Columbus Statue. Boyd saw a fellow protester being arrested and started to film the encounter. Another police officer then knocked her phone out of her hand, and the phone hit her in the mouth.
Protesters on the scene of the incident posted images of the teenager all over social media, her face twisted in a grimace of pain, jagged teeth visible, blood splattered on her lips and top.
“There is no way I should have left a protest abused and battered exercising my freedom of speech and freedom to assemble,” Boyd told local news. “I never thought I would have become a victim of the biggest gang in America.”
http://twitter.com/GKMC18/status/1284312594052939777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1284312594052939777%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fblockclubchicago.org%2F2020%2F07%2F18%2F18-year-old-activist-had-teeth-knocked-out-by-police-at-columbus-statue-protest-alderman-state-senator-say%2F
What happened to Boyd is happening to activists all over the United States. Videos from Portland, New York City, Atlanta, and Chicago show activists being brutalized by local or federal police organizations. To watch them, one need only pull out their cell phone.
This reality—right now, police are beating protesters in the streets as they beat John Lewis—seemed a million miles away as America went through the process of memorializing Lewis. In fact, some of the lawmakers who have maligned protesters in their own cities, spoke glowingly about the way Lewis put his body on the line to push back against racism in the United States. It’s especially jarring to see this language from Black lawmakers, who should know deeply how police violence hurts the communities they serve.
“I was deeply moved a couple of days ago when his chief of staff Michael Collins shared with me that the Congressman was intently watching the news of Atlanta and proud of the leadership that’s been shown,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at the Capitol Rotunda. “And so governor, when the good trouble continues, know that it is with the blessings of Congressman Lewis.”
In May, as protesters lit fires in front of CNN’s Atlanta offices to protest both the death of George Floyd and the harmful racist narratives CNN and other news outlets have promoted, Lance Bottoms told protesters to go home: “This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. This is chaos. A protest has purpose. When Dr. King was assassinated we didn’t do this to our city. So if you love this city, this city that has had a legacy of Black mayors and Black police chiefs, and people who care about this city…if you care about this city then go home,” Bottoms said.
Lightfoot delivered a more damning message about the destruction of property that happened there in response to police shooting. She had more to say about storefronts damaged than the violence enacted on Boyd or other protesters: “I do not care, whatever justification was given for this,” she said. “There is no justification for criminal behavior, ever. You have no right to take and destroy the property of others. Our residents deserve to be safe.”
The recent election of Cori Bush, the Ferguson protester who won a seat in Congress last week in Missouri seems, simply by winning the election, to best honor Lewis. Bush’s election is heralded as a win for progressive ideals—the Black single mom unseated establishment Democratic incumbent William Lacy Clay Jr., who had been on the job for over 20 years—but it was also a victory for those looking for elected leaders who like Lewis, understand police violence first hand.
Bush is an activist who says she still carries the pain of Mike Brown’s death with her every day. She remembers being tear gassed by police herself, after the uprising that followed Brown’s death in August of 2014. Many are adding her to a wave of progressive politicians who have recently won seats in Washington, D.C. or are headed there soon: Jamall Bowman, who defeated longtime Democratic politician Rep. Eliot Engel, is another example of this, as are members of The Squad made up of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Illhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib. These people all bring what seems to be a fire for change, but also a perspective that comes from being not white, not wealthy, and decidedly working class.
6th Annual Mike Brown, Jr. Memorial
He didn’t have to die. If those in power won’t act, I will—and I’m bringing our community with me.
We ST. LOUIS STRONG. pic.twitter.com/qNQo7UBCtt — Cori Bush (@CoriBush) August 11, 2020
But they won’t be effective for long if they are worn down and watered down in the ways that the Democratic party has always allowed themselves to be watered down in the past. It was announced today, for example that Ocasio-Cortez will be speaking at the upcoming Democratic National Convention, although there’d been whispers leading up to the announcement that she wouldn’t. None of the other people mentioned above—Bowman, Omar, Pressley, Tlaib—are speaking. These people must be embraced and protected by party leaders not pushed to the side. I should also note here that Ocasio-Cortez will only get to speak for a minute at the upcoming Democratic National Convention next week. Progressive members of the party must have their ideas supported and must be protected from attacks from the right.
It’s more than that. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden, a primary driver of mass incarceration has picked former prosecutor Kamala Harris as his running mate—it is an extremely carceral ticket. If Democratic leaders want to actually honor the legacy of John Lewis, they cannot allow attacks on protesters in the streets to continue. They can’t just try to patch up a broken and dangerous system. They have to link John Lewis’ broken bones to the bones and bodies of people being snatched up and maimed by police officers right now. And so far, they have not.
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-08-14--Thinking beyond representation: progressives weigh Harris’ past

Oakland native and Berkeley professor Brandi Thompson Summers tackles the contradictions wrapped up in Harris’ nomination.
Story Transcript
Mark Steiner: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Mark Steiner. Good to have you with us. As we all know by now, Joe Biden has made his choice, and it’s a complicated one for progressives especially. Kamala Harris evokes a lot of response in people and yawns as well. Her past as San Francisco DA and California Attorney General were mixed, with many feeling her tough-on-crime stances outweighed her restorative practices. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, she sounds like she’s part of BLM. This is significant, though. She could be the first woman of color, first Asian American, first Black American to become Vice President, and with the growing power of progressive movement within the Democrats, this is an important step. It’s not a minor issue.
Some, like Jeet Heer, who writes for The Nation magazine, wrote this. He said, “Perhaps the best hope that America has is that the ambition and flexibility of a Biden-Harris team will ensure that they will yield to popular pressures they almost certainly will face,” and we’ll see if that’s true. Others think she’s proven much less and has not proven her to be a progressive voice and that they can’t support her.
Well, what is reality about what we’re facing with Trump, and where will this take us? We welcome now to The Real News for the first time Dr. Brandi Thompson Summers, who is Assistant Professor of Geography and Global Metropolitan Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and grew up in Oakland. Her book is Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City, and she’s also working on a new book now that’ll be coming out in the spring, I think, and joins us here at The Real News. Dr. Summers, welcome. Good to have you with us here on The Real News.
Brandi Thompson Summers: Thank you so much, Mark.
Mark Steiner: Talk to us first as a Californian, as an Oaklander, as someone who’s experienced, with others, her as DA and as Attorney General. What were your initial thoughts when you saw that she was nominated?
Brandi Thompson Summers: My initial thoughts? So, again, thank you for having me on today.
Mark Steiner: My pleasure.
Brandi Thompson Summers: It’s not only this connection to Oakland, but also Berkeley and thinking about my family lived in San Francisco. They migrated from Louisiana to San Francisco, so there’s a lot of connections, thinking about Kamala Harris. My initial reaction, I wasn’t surprised. I think that there’s a way in which the Biden group, his team, is looking to hope that representation means a whole lot to a lot of people. So to have this first woman of color, specifically identifying as a Black woman of color, but also Black and Indian woman of color, is something that’s very significant and really is a nod to the work that a lot of Black women and other women of color have done in terms of putting really important issues to the fore.
For me, I think I have been skeptical generally of the Biden campaign, but then also seeing the ways in which Kamala has … like you said at the outset, that she’s had some policies that particularly are troubling for Black communities, specifically for working class and poor Black people in San Francisco. So I’m curious to kind of imagine how they intend to first attack Trump, but then, on the other hand, if they’re successful, then what happens once they win an election? I’m still unclear as to what it means in terms of our future.
I mean, we think about the protests that are happening worldwide. It’s not just the United States. It’s certainly worldwide. Thinking about Black Lives Matter and the political climate that’s happening right now really requires us to think beyond representation and think more so in terms of … I’ll say, for example, she’s focused a lot on attacking crime, right? But it really hasn’t seemed to attack criminalization. So if we shift the conversation to focusing on why different populations are criminalized rather than be victims or perpetuators of crime, then that might be shifting kind of this conversation to a different lens, hopefully.
Mark Steiner: Well, I was thinking about her record, which a lot of progressives are really focused in a very serious way around her record as both Attorney General and as the District Attorney for San Francisco.
Brandi Thompson Summers: Yes.
Mark Steiner: They raise cases like the Larsen case, Danny Larsen’s case, which people thought was a total travesty. He was being set up by the police, and she wouldn’t let him out of prison and kept prosecuting him. There are other cases and how she was criticized by judges for some of that behavior. Even though she fought against the death penalty for someone who killed a police officer, instead, she was, again, putting people in jail for life for minor crimes after three strikes. She really, as a result of her work, put a lot of black and Mexican American and other people of color in prison in California for crimes they probably should not have been in jail for, that she could have done something different. She could have been the progressive voice, but wasn’t. So what does that say to America? What does it say to the Black community, to communities of color in this country that are terrified of Trump on the one hand, but are skeptical? Well, where do you think that politics lives?
Brandi Thompson Summers: Well, I mean, I think it’s really complicated. So on the one hand, she’s flip-flopped on a number of issues. So if we think about the legalization of marijuana, first, she was against it. Then she was in support, and Biden hasn’t come around yet in terms of supporting legalization. But then there are others who are touting her progressive record in terms of thinking about the $25 billion settlement against Wells Fargo and other institutions after the Great Recession, right, how that was a huge feat, but then, at the same, she didn’t prosecute One West Bank for the foreclosure violations.
So it seems as though there are steps in the right direction, and then there’s some kind of intractable move back. I think for a lot of people … Oh, and we can’t forget the truancy laws, right? [crosstalk 00:06:16].
Mark Steiner: Right, right.
Brandi Thompson Summers: Right? So mostly Black and brown mothers were essentially cited, intentionally arrested for their children not going to school. So people have long memories, especially in terms of fear that’s been evoked, the criminalization, surveillance, the policing that has happened under these conditions. But then I think right now, as she’s being attacked from the left, as “Kamala is a cop,” right? We we’ve seen that happen, and it’s probably going to come back in true form now, but her claims that she’s spent her career trying to reform criminal justice and reform incarceration, it rings hollow, I think, for a lot of people. It’s difficult to think about this as a progressive move when, in reality, it seems more of an outdated way of attacking, again, crime, rather than criminalization.
So I think with the last few months, these crises that are happening concurrently, the system and its way that we’ve kind of existed has been challenged by more progressive Black activism. So for those people, I think they’re now seeing that there are other options, that you don’t necessarily have to go with someone who’s a corporatist or who might make some movement in terms of reform, but not really interested in abolishing the systems that are keeping them oppressed.
Mark Steiner: So I was thinking about this election in terms of where she stands, and people like Jeet Heer, who I’ve interviewed a number of times from The Nation, and when he said that … There are a couple of different views here. One is that what Jeet would point out would be saying that Kamala Harris can be pushed to the left by movements. It makes me think of the election of 1860, when abolitionists, many of them reluctantly, backed Abraham Lincoln, but were able to push him once he got into office and push him further. Some people argue that the Left [inaudible 00:08:15] the Progressive Movement can do that and she would mold herself to that. Others would argue, looking at people who finance her campaign, that she would be very close to the corporate elite, and that’s where she’ll live.
So this is an election where people are really torn about that. So in the process of the election, we’ll have to weigh where we are and what all this means. I mean, I think it’s a very complex thing, and it seems we’ve also got a moment now where I’ve been reading a lot of blogs by Black conservatives last night. The line is going to go out there, “Kamala Harris is not really black.”
Brandi Thompson Summers: Ah, okay.
Mark Steiner: I’ve seen that in five different blogs, from five African American conservatives who are friends, who I read their stuff. I said, “Oh,” and I write back, “What are you talking about? Does that mean my children aren’t Black? What do you mean?” So I wrote them that stuff back. Then, on the other hand, you’re also seeing that Republicans are not going to use her prosecuting and putting people of color in prison as a wedge, even though they were part of it as well. So I can see a real complex political battle taking place between now and November.
Brandi Thompson Summers: Absolutely. I mean, I think the argument that she can be pushed or at least she can push and hold Joe Biden in particular accountable for different measures that he’s had in the past, if we’re thinking about ’94, if we’re thinking about the Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas hearings and the other areas where he’s … I mean, we can go down a laundry list of reasons why there’s been some critiques, a lot of critiques of Biden from the Left and progressive people. But I think her record is being someone who’s supported neoliberal, public-private partnerships, even in terms of support services and jobs for people in California. It’s difficult to kind of see those solutions as being pushed further left or becoming more progressive, if you have a particular ideology in ways that can help people.
So I think there were similar arguments made about President Obama, that there’d be a possibility that he could move people to a more progressive space, but for so many, that wasn’t necessarily the case, or at least it didn’t meet out that way. But certainly she is going to and she has received unbelievable and unprecedented sexist and racist commentary about who she is, about her record. I did see some conservative, I can’t recall who it was, but he made an argument, and maybe it was even Dinesh D’Souza, was talking about how because, “Well, she’s not African-American, because her father is Jamaican,” and that not recognizing how Jamaica became Black in terms of … There was no recognition that there were slaves in Jamaica, and therefore she has no connection to slavery.
So those types of arguments to diminish her identity I think is probably their attempt to play into kind of these questions of diversity and culture and multiculturalism. But I think a lot of people have and continue to have and are fighting against the concept of identity politics. So she’s got to fight so many different battles, and I think that’s the problem that’s going to be really complicated. Then at the same time, there’s the question of who is this ticket trying to appeal? Are you trying to get more people to vote, or are you trying to sway voters who were going for Trump or who were on the fence to now go for this ticket? I’m concerned that let’s say Trump is doing the dog whistling right now, talking about soccer moms or suburban moms. My concern is that with white women, middle class white women, educated or not, that they’re not necessarily going to be swayed to support this ticket and instead might continue, because they did previously vote for Trump.
Mark Steiner: Right. You can already see some of the racist response to the way Senator Kamala Harris interrogates people and pushes hard, whether she did it in debate with Biden, which she does inside the committee, and so you, A, get the misogynist thing about being too tough as a woman-
Brandi Thompson Summers: Sure.
Mark Steiner: … and you get the racist, misogynist combination of a Black woman actually getting in the face of somebody white and telling him something in a very pointed way.
Brandi Thompson Summers: Absolutely.
Mark Steiner: So those are some of the kind of almost unconscious, subconscious, and sometimes conscious ways that people respond to Black women, and that’s going to be part of this as well.
Brandi Thompson Summers: Absolutely. I think what we’re also seeing is the complexity of Blackness and that she can be a Black woman and still have an Indian mother, right? But she can inhabit both of those identities at the same time, multiple identities at the same time. I think that’s what’s troubling for a lot of people, is that they don’t understand that. So their attacks will be on her as a Black woman, despite the fact that she recognizes her cultural upbringing or ways and what she was really exposed to so many different ways of living, ways of seeing, ways of understanding the world. So I think that’s what oftentimes we have to contend with generally, and now we’re going to see this on the political stage in a much brighter light. I’m just not certain what change that’s going to enact.
We’re definitely, again, seeing a lot of excitement around the concept of diversity or, again, multiculturalism. It’s just we’ll really have to reckon with what that’s going to mean for our political landscape and what we do for now. The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and others has really shifted the terrain, or at least it’s opened some people’s eyes up. For the rest of us, we knew this was going on, right, before a lot of others, with the combination of us recognizing the ways that the coronavirus or COVID-19 is disproportionately killing, decimating Black and brown communities. It’s those things together that are requiring us to think differently about how we want to think about the future.
Mark Steiner: So I wonder, also, I think it was Professor Larson in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, as soon as she was nominated, said that Kamala Harris has to break with her past and come clean. That, to me, is a really interesting kind of push people are going to make. So let’s talk about that for a moment. I mean, her record as prosecutor, does she have to break with the past and come clean and really kind of wrestle with what she did then in an honest way, which she hasn’t already done? For many people, her record was problematic. As we’re weighing where to go, as with many people who just like her because they like her or what she stands for, but people do not like what she did in the past. Does she have to break and come clean?
Brandi Thompson Summers: I think that’s a really interesting way to phrase it, because part of it is we do … If we think about politics that we think about our political leadership, we do … and we think about just humans, right? We do have to give people the room and the space to change. We have to give them the room and the space to grow. So we can’t necessarily assume that if she believed something at point A, that she’s necessarily, without any additional information, knowledge, experience, going to change her mind in point B. We do have to provide that grace.
At the same time, I think it becomes challenging to understand how someone can change when, let’s say, their particular stance on views was similar. So let’s say last month, she made a claim about the death penalty, or last month, she made a claim about marijuana. I’m not saying she did, but it’s going to be difficult for us to believe that that shift is going to happen once the nomination has come in.
So I think if we start to look at other examples, like I think earlier referencing the squad, right, in Congress, those women of color who are really kind of pushing for more progressive reform and change, not just reform. I think that might be the crux, that with Senator Harris, it’s going to be she might have to make about-faces. She can’t do gradual shifts. If she really wants to show people that she does want a different way of living, if she does want to convince people that she sees what’s going on and wants to reflect that in the policy that she’s promoting, then she’s going to have to completely break from her past in a lot of ways.
I don’t know. American politics are like theatre. So it’s difficult to know whether you can believe someone or whether you can kind of just be carried on by the hope and thinking about the future as something that’s possible and limitless, right? Ultimately, I know for really astute voters who are doing a lot of the work in terms of research and also kind of paying attention to what’s gone on historically, they realize that this particular candidacy will not get us free. So what we have to do is understand what it’s going to take to get us free or if we just want to change what’s going on, because the empire is not going to fall based on this run. We’re going to have to really understand what our desires are and limitations in order to kind of see them take on this leadership role.
Mark Steiner: That’s really powerfully said. That’s an interesting analysis. Let me conclude with this. I’m curious. As someone who up in Oakland and lives there, in the Bay Area now, I’m curious if you can give us a sense of the tenor on the ground. I’m very interested, especially in the Black community in the Bay Area, especially in the Mexican American community in the Bay Area, what is that sense of Kamala Harris and the past and the present? Do you have a feel or an even deeper understanding of what’s really going on?
Brandi Thompson Summers: So I moved here. I moved back here last year, and I recall even when I was living in Washington, DC, when she was running for Senate, when she was running for AG, I remember all of the different points in time where there were parties. There were celebrations when she’d win. There was a groundswell-ing of support for her, especially from, I’d say, upper middle class Black supporters. So there’s a way in which she’s always had the support of a more elite class of Black people, particularly in the state. At the same time, I think that representation still matters, and so for even working class and poor people of color, to see this woman, this black woman, black and Indian woman be a first in so many different areas of her life, it’s meaningful.
So on the one hand, I think on the ground, this is the challenge of still sheltering in place and having to quarantine, that you actually can’t walk the streets and really see how people are taking it in. But I think just in terms of reading, having different conversations with people, there’s excitement on the one hand, but then at the same time, I think there’s fatigue. So people are tired. People are sick. People have lost their jobs. People are putting their lives at danger because they might be essential workers. So I don’t know that they’re feeling the same kind of excitement that they would have two and three years ago, when everything seemed better.
After the Great Recession, there’s just been this real shift in the Bay Area, and it feels different. It’s affective. It’s, it’s a different sense, a different tone here. So I think, again, the excitement around having these firsts happen doesn’t seem to have the same kind of impact as it might have years before, before people were losing their homes, before people were being displaced and dispossessed. We’re seeing more excitement and fervor around the Moms for Housing activism than I think more of the political theatre that’s occurring on the national stage.
Mark Steiner: This has been a fascinating conversation. I’m glad that our friend [inaudible 00:20:44] introduced us and you joined us here on The Real News Network. It was a pleasure to have you with us today. We’ve been talking with Dr. Brandi Thompson Summers from Berkeley about Kamala Harris. We’ll be talking to her more over the course of this campaign, and thank you so much for joining us today.
Brandi Thompson Summers: Thank you for having me, Mark. I really appreciate it.
Mark Steiner: My pleasure, and I’m Mark Steiner with The Real News Network. Let us know what you think. What do you want to hear next? Take care.
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-08-11--Left-progressive Cori Bush makes her mark—on the neoliberal agenda

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Trump : This will be the most corrupt election in the history of our country .
Crowd : What do we want ?
When do we want it ?
Jaisal Noor : Welcome to The Real News .
I ’ m Jaisal Noor .
Incumbents are officially on notice .
If you are out of touch with working people and instead serving corporate power , progressives will vote you out .
That was the message delivered by voters in the August 4th primary that took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Missouri , where , in a stunning upset , Cori Bush , a protest leader , former nurse who was at one point homeless , unseated 10-term Congressman Lacy Clay , whose family has held the seat for half a century .
Bush tweeted , “ For the single parent living paycheck to paycheck , for those in the streets , standing up for Black lives , for the Black girl in Missouri who has never had a representative who looks like her in Congress , for those who don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I ’ ll always be your champion.
” Overall , progressives remain a small force in Congress , but does Bush ’ s victory signal that change is coming ?
Joining us to discuss this is Lester Spence , professor at Johns Hopkins University , author of Knocking The Hustle , Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics .
Thanks so much for joining us .
Lester Spence : Thanks for having me .
Jaisal Noor : So , Clay ’ s father co-founded the congressional Black caucus .
The only elected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was Bernie Sanders , which makes sense because Bush backed Sanders in the primary and was a surrogate .
How significant was this victory ?
Lester Spence : So .
It ’ s even deeper than that .
Lacy Clay ’ s grandfather , I think , was the first Black St. Louis city alderman .
So , there have basically been three generations of Clay ’ s who ’ ve been in politics , kind of working for Black people .
But in this case , the Clays , granddad and dad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if they ’ re not necessarily on the left , this long history of anti-racist action , and Lacy Clay just didn ’ t have that history .
I actually lived in St. Louis before I moved to Baltimore and Clay was on the wrong side of almost any issue we fought for .
So , this is a tremendous victory .
It ’ s important to note that this is the second time Bush has gone against Clay , I believe .
She just wasn ’ t able to come out on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ticket .
And , if we think about takeaways , I think it speaks to the power that social movements can play in Black politics .
Right ?
In fact , if you think about this , if you think about Jamal Bowman in New York , Rashida Tlaib … I always claim Rashida Tlaib , even though she represents my parents , she doesn ’ t represent me .
But Rashida Tlaib ’ s victory in Detroit over , or in that district over Brenda Jones , what they say … @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve got is an existing social movement , a progressive movement , and even if you have to do it more than once , we see those movements actually matter .
Jaisal Noor : So , Bush got tear gassed during recent protests .
She was an organizer , a protest leader in Ferguson , which was years ago .
You mentioned her 2018 run .
She was actually the first candidate that Justice Democrats recruited .
Obviously , they also recruited AOC who went on to win her primary in 2018 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ around ?
Last time we spoke , we were in the streets of Baltimore marching with thousands of other people in one of the biggest demonstrations the city has seen in years .
Lester Spence : Well , I mean , the thing is elected office , formal electoral politics , is its own animal .
So , to a certain extent , we can just say that it just took Cori , all Cori Bush had to do is just learn , right ?
So , all she had to do is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but one of the things you have to do is you actually have to figure out what do you need to do to run a formal political campaign ?
And then the thing is , Black people are like any other voting block , name recognition means something , right ?
So , the first time out in the Bush campaign , she ’ s a known entity in activist circles , but she ’ s not necessarily known and in broader St. Louis circles .
Whereas William Lacy Clay , he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years .
There ’ s a way that people are going to give him the benefit of the doubt that it might not necessarily give a benefit of the doubt for somebody who was doing it for the first time .
But once she actually learns , and then once it ’ s really clear that Lacy Clay ’ s politics aren ’ t appropriate for this moment , and she has a movement behind her that ’ s willing to go door to door , is willing to articulate a different vision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jaisal Noor : And so , we ’ re talking about movements and I think this Black Lives Matter rebellion , this movement is taking place during the pandemic , and these protests against racism and police brutality , and the devastating toll that the coronavirus has taken on this country , is really laid bare .
The flaws of our social system , the lack of a safety net … The bailout showed how much both parties were willing to prioritize the needs of corporations while working people got scrapped , essentially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in other wealthy countries .
Maybe 40 million renters will be out in the streets in the next coming months .
What role do you think that , specifically , has played sort of this , for those who who weren ’ t already aware of how frail our system is , how weak it is , that they ’ re now being confronted with this reality ?
Lester Spence : There are a couple of different roles , right ?
As a result of the pandemic , people like Clay and Engel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who ran against Rashida Tlaib in Detroit , they simply , they weren ’ t able to engage in the types of campaign activities that they would normally engage in .
They weren ’ t able to raise the money that they would normally , that they would normally be able to raise .
But in comparison , in Bowman ’ s case and Bush ’ s case and Tlaib ’ s case , they were consistently out in front of voters giving them an alternative narrative that wasn ’ t that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their own eyes .
Right ?
So , you take Bush , Clay was one of the people who was actually on the wrong side in almost every way in Ferguson .
What Bush was able to do in this election is connect him being on the wrong side several years ago to him consistently being on the wrong side now and him not standing and being out there struggling and fighting .
And again , people , at the same time Black voters are risk averse and kind of conservative , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think that what Bush was able to do , again , alongside Bowman in New York and Tlaib in Detroit , is articulate and present a convincing narrative about what ’ s happening with police brutality locally and nationally , what ’ s happening with the pandemic locally and nationally , what ’ s happening with the government response locally and nationally .
They ’ re able to articulate a compelling vision that says , “ This is why these things happen , and this is what needs to happen to solve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m willing to do.
” Jaisal Noor : And what impact , and it might be too early to really know at this point , but what impact could all of these candidates have on Democratic party as a whole ?
We know that , for example , in the platform , the majority of delegates voted against including something like Medicare for all .
Which , by many indications , a majority of Democratic voters support , but that ended up not being a platform .
That ’ s not something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ millions of people have lost their employer-based health insurance due to the pandemic .
Do you think that these , the Bowmans the Bushes , the Tlaibs , in this next election … Even the next coming months , because Biden ’ s going to need folks like this out getting votes for him , especially in swing states .
Do you think that that ’ s going to have an impact on Biden and the Democrats ?
Lester Spence : There are direct effects and indirect effects .
A lot of resources @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , right ?
Lacy Clay had 50 , was in office for 50 years .
He had … There only a few , I could probably count on one or two hands the number of congresspersons who had as much seniority as Clay did .
Engel , I ’ m not … Engel was the chair , I forgot what committee he was the chair of , but Engel was actually the chair of a pretty important committee in Congress and Bowman defeated him .
So , directly , by replacing those types @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deal of seniority , with younger energy , with folk who aren ’ t as liberal , but that are actually on the left , it actually kind of serves as a testimony that the landscape is changing .
Even though we ’ re only talking about two people in a house with 435 representatives , that tendency now has a great deal of symbolic power .
We can also think about the effect it has , I ’ ve talked about any direct stuff , we can also think about the effect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats , including a lot of Black Democrats , a lot of Black CBC members , who are looking at that race and saying , “ Okay , that could happen to me , and I can respond to that in one of two ways .
One way is I can double down on my politics , on my central politics , on my centrist politics , and then just fundraise , fundraise , fundraise to stave off competition .
Another thing I could do is actually start to move to their direction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wave to prevent myself from being primaried.
” It ’ s hard to talk about longterm politics in this moment , but I think that just if we think about replacing people with a lot of seniority and then the effect that that replacement has on other centrist representatives representing predominantly Black and Brown districts , it has to signal to the Democratic party , and to Biden , that they need to move a little bit further to the left than they have already moved .
Jaisal Noor : Yeah , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I ’ m sure he was Elliot Engel ’ s defeat because Engel was MIA in his own district .
During the pandemic , he was caught in open mic basically saying , I wouldn ’ t be at a rally if it wasn ’ t for his primary .
I think Engel was the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House .
He had a large amount of , one of the leading contributor of the military industrial complex and the Israel lobby , something that Jamal Bowman challenged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re expecting Biden to announce his VP pick the next couple of days .
What significance do you think that holds ?
During this primary Biden ’ s been sort of hiding out in his basement , but if there is going to be bold change transforming this country , if there ’ s going to be even undoing what Trump has brought on this country , it ’ s going to take all levels of administration being able to make an impact and get things done .
I know that some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kamala Harris , who is considered a leading pick , because of her history as a prosecutor and some of the actions she carried out in California .
What are your thoughts on that ?
Where do you see that falling down ?
Lester Spence : I think that the pick is really , really important , not just for , one , for the signal that sends to people on the left who ’ ve decided to kind of participate in traditional politics .
It sends a signal .
But I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t see him … Biden ’ s old .
I don ’ t see him running for two terms .
I see him , if he wins , I see him winning one term and then not doing it again .
So , the person he named as his successor is likely going to be the person who ends up running at the head of the ticket , if not in 2024 , but by 2028 .
So , that pick is pretty important .
A number of folk have taken his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman of color to heart , and I think that is important .
But more important is how supple is the person , and how willing is the person that he names to actually move to where the direction that the party actually needs to go .
And , and it ’ s funny , because I wouldn ’ t have … As a presidential candidate , the only candidate I disliked more than Harris was Biden , but I ’ ve seen signs that Harris is willing to move to the left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sanders a bill that would have paid every American citizen something like $ 2,000 a month during the epidemic .
And that actually signals… We have to remember that there are two ways that we could think about politics and political representation .
One way is you elect somebody , you elect somebody like an AOC or a Rashida Tlaib or a Cori Bush , and you know they ’ re down with you .
You know that once they get there , they ’ re going to roll like you want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think about political representation is to think about the effect of social movement power on people who actually may not have your same political attitudes , may be actually opposed to you in some ways , right ?
If you can ’ t get that person out , in some instances you ’ re able to use power to make that person move .
And I think that based on that , granted , only have like one thing , but based on her working with Sanders , that suggests that she ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what that also suggests is that , and we knew this already , that left social movements are going to have to consistently engage .
Now , we know that a lot of people don ’ t want to vote anyway , and we know that electoral politics is fraud .
But in order to actually move the state in our direction , we have to be consistently engaged .
Voting isn ’ t the only thing we have to do .
It may not even be the thing we have to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ putting pressure on the state , such that whoever Biden names … And it ’ s important not to say one thing .
Warren can ’ t be … It ’ s not just that Warren is white , but the reason that he wouldn ’ t appoint Warren as VP is not just because he promised to put in a person , a woman of color , it ’ s also because the governor of Massachusetts is a Republican .
So , if you name somebody like Warren to VP , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be Senator and the road to hoe is going to be even tougher .
I had to actually interject that .
But , yeah .
So , whoever he names , we have to be able to put kind of pressure on that person so that they end up making the right moves as VP , and then also when they step up to run the party .
Jaisal Noor : Lester Spence , thank you so much for joining us .
Professor at Johns Hopkins and author of Knocking The Hustle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Politics .
It ’ s always a pleasure .
Jaisal Noor : Thank you for joining us at The Real News Network .

Racial justice activist Cori Bush’s stunning upset against a Congressional Black Caucus-backed incumbent in Missouri underscores the power of the growing movement against racism and corporate greed.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Trump: This will be the most corrupt election in the history of our country.
Crowd: What do we want?
Justice?
When do we want it?
Now.
Jaisal Noor: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Jaisal Noor. Incumbents are officially on notice. If you are out of touch with working people and instead serving corporate power, progressives will vote you out. That was the message delivered by voters in the August 4th primary that took place in a number of States, including Missouri, where, in a stunning upset, Cori Bush, a protest leader, former nurse who was at one point homeless, unseated 10-term Congressman Lacy Clay, whose family has held the seat for half a century. Bush tweeted, “For the single parent living paycheck to paycheck, for those in the streets, standing up for Black lives, for the Black girl in Missouri who has never had a representative who looks like her in Congress, for those who don’t always get a seat at the table, I’ll always be your champion.”
Overall, progressives remain a small force in Congress, but does Bush’s victory signal that change is coming? Joining us to discuss this is Lester Spence, professor at Johns Hopkins University, author of Knocking The Hustle, Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Thanks so much for joining us.
Lester Spence: Thanks for having me.
Jaisal Noor: So, Clay’s father co-founded the congressional Black caucus. The only elected official in national office to back Bush was Bernie Sanders, which makes sense because Bush backed Sanders in the primary and was a surrogate. How significant was this victory?
Lester Spence: So. It’s even deeper than that. Lacy Clay’s grandfather, I think, was the first Black St. Louis city alderman. So, there have basically been three generations of Clay’s who’ve been in politics, kind of working for Black people. But in this case, the Clays, granddad and dad, have this long history, even if they’re not necessarily on the left, this long history of anti-racist action, and Lacy Clay just didn’t have that history. I actually lived in St. Louis before I moved to Baltimore and Clay was on the wrong side of almost any issue we fought for.
So, this is a tremendous victory. It’s important to note that this is the second time Bush has gone against Clay, I believe. She just wasn’t able to come out on top in 2018, but 2020 did the ticket. And, if we think about takeaways, I think it speaks to the power that social movements can play in Black politics. Right? In fact, if you think about this, if you think about Jamal Bowman in New York, Rashida Tlaib … I always claim Rashida Tlaib, even though she represents my parents, she doesn’t represent me. But Rashida Tlaib’s victory in Detroit over, or in that district over Brenda Jones, what they say … In each case, what you’ve got is an existing social movement, a progressive movement, and even if you have to do it more than once, we see those movements actually matter.
Jaisal Noor: So, Bush got tear gassed during recent protests. She was an organizer, a protest leader in Ferguson, which was years ago. You mentioned her 2018 run. She was actually the first candidate that Justice Democrats recruited. Obviously, they also recruited AOC who went on to win her primary in 2018. So, what has changed this time around? Last time we spoke, we were in the streets of Baltimore marching with thousands of other people in one of the biggest demonstrations the city has seen in years.
Lester Spence: Well, I mean, the thing is elected office, formal electoral politics, is its own animal. So, to a certain extent, we can just say that it just took Cori, all Cori Bush had to do is just learn, right? So, all she had to do is just kind of … Not all, but one of the things you have to do is you actually have to figure out what do you need to do to run a formal political campaign?
And then the thing is, Black people are like any other voting block, name recognition means something, right? So, the first time out in the Bush campaign, she’s a known entity in activist circles, but she’s not necessarily known and in broader St. Louis circles. Whereas William
Lacy Clay, he’d held that position literally for 50 years. There’s a way that people are going to give him the benefit of the doubt that it might not necessarily give a benefit of the doubt for somebody who was doing it for the first time.
But once she actually learns, and then once it’s really clear that Lacy Clay’s politics aren’t appropriate for this moment, and she has a movement behind her that’s willing to go door to door, is willing to articulate a different vision, it was a different outcome.
Jaisal Noor: And so, we’re talking about movements and I think this Black Lives Matter rebellion, this movement is taking place during the pandemic, and these protests against racism and police brutality, and the devastating toll that the coronavirus has taken on this country, is really laid bare. The flaws of our social system, the lack of a safety net … The bailout showed how much both parties were willing to prioritize the needs of corporations while working people got scrapped, essentially.
Especially compared to what they got in other wealthy countries. Maybe 40 million renters will be out in the streets in the next coming months. What role do you think that, specifically, has played sort of this, for those who who weren’t already aware of how frail our system is, how weak it is, that they’re now being confronted with this reality?
Lester Spence: There are a couple of different roles, right? As a result of the pandemic, people like Clay and Engel who Bowman defeated, and then Jones, who ran against Rashida Tlaib in Detroit, they simply, they weren’t able to engage in the types of campaign activities that they would normally engage in. They weren’t able to raise the money that they would normally, that they would normally be able to raise. But in comparison, in Bowman’s case and Bush’s case and Tlaib’s case, they were consistently out in front of voters giving them an alternative narrative that wasn’t that different from what they were seeing with their own eyes. Right?
So, you take Bush, Clay was one of the people who was actually on the wrong side in almost every way in Ferguson. What Bush was able to do in this election is connect him being on the wrong side several years ago to him consistently being on the wrong side now and him not standing and being out there struggling and fighting.
And again, people, at the same time Black voters are risk averse and kind of conservative, they respect authenticity and integrity. So, I think that what Bush was able to do, again, alongside Bowman in New York and Tlaib in Detroit, is articulate and present a convincing narrative about what’s happening with police brutality locally and nationally, what’s happening with the pandemic locally and nationally, what’s happening with the government response locally and nationally. They’re able to articulate a compelling vision that says, “This is why these things happen, and this is what needs to happen to solve it, and this is what I’m willing to do.”
Jaisal Noor: And what impact, and it might be too early to really know at this point, but what impact could all of these candidates have on Democratic party as a whole? We know that, for example, in the platform, the majority of delegates voted against including something like Medicare for all. Which, by many indications, a majority of Democratic voters support, but that ended up not being a platform. That’s not something that Joe Biden supports, even though millions of people have lost their employer-based health insurance due to the pandemic. Do you think that these, the Bowmans the Bushes, the Tlaibs, in this next election … Even the next coming months, because Biden’s going to need folks like this out getting votes for him, especially in swing states. Do you think that that’s going to have an impact on Biden and the Democrats?
Lester Spence: There are direct effects and indirect effects. A lot of resources in Congress are distributed based on seniority, right? Lacy Clay had 50, was in office for 50 years. He had … There only a few, I could probably count on one or two hands the number of congresspersons who had as much seniority as Clay did. Engel, I’m not … Engel was the chair, I forgot what committee he was the chair of, but Engel was actually the chair of a pretty important committee in Congress and Bowman defeated him. So, directly, by replacing those types of centrist Democrats, with a great deal of seniority, with younger energy, with folk who aren’t as liberal, but that are actually on the left, it actually kind of serves as a testimony that the landscape is changing. Even though we’re only talking about two people in a house with 435 representatives, that tendency now has a great deal of symbolic power.
We can also think about the effect it has, I’ve talked about any direct stuff, we can also think about the effect it has on other kind of centrist Democrats, including a lot of Black Democrats, a lot of Black CBC members, who are looking at that race and saying, “Okay, that could happen to me, and I can respond to that in one of two ways. One way is I can double down on my politics, on my central politics, on my centrist politics, and then just fundraise, fundraise, fundraise to stave off competition. Another thing I could do is actually start to move to their direction ideologically in order to basically catch the wave to prevent myself from being primaried.”
It’s hard to talk about longterm politics in this moment, but I think that just if we think about replacing people with a lot of seniority and then the effect that that replacement has on other centrist representatives representing predominantly Black and Brown districts, it has to signal to the Democratic party, and to Biden, that they need to move a little bit further to the left than they have already moved.
Jaisal Noor: Yeah, it’s interesting. Lacy clay probably, I’m sure he was Elliot Engel’s defeat because Engel was MIA in his own district. During the pandemic, he was caught in open mic basically saying, I wouldn’t be at a rally if it wasn’t for his primary. I think Engel was the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House. He had a large amount of, one of the leading contributor of the military industrial complex and the Israel lobby, something that Jamal Bowman challenged him on successfully.
Finally, we’re expecting Biden to announce his VP pick the next couple of days. What significance do you think that holds? During this primary Biden’s been sort of hiding out in his basement, but if there is going to be bold change transforming this country, if there’s going to be even undoing what Trump has brought on this country, it’s going to take all levels of administration being able to make an impact and get things done.
I know that some progressives have been lobbying against someone like Kamala Harris, who is considered a leading pick, because of her history as a prosecutor and some of the actions she carried out in California. What are your thoughts on that? Where do you see that falling down?
Lester Spence: I think that the pick is really, really important, not just for, one, for the signal that sends to people on the left who’ve decided to kind of participate in traditional politics. It sends a signal. But I think the most important thing is I don’t see him … Biden’s old. I don’t see him running for two terms. I see him, if he wins, I see him winning one term and then not doing it again. So, the person he named as his successor is likely going to be the person who ends up running at the head of the ticket, if not in 2024, but by 2028. So, that pick is pretty important.
A number of folk have taken his statement that he plans to appoint a woman of color to heart, and I think that is important. But more important is how supple is the person, and how willing is the person that he names to actually move to where the direction that the party actually needs to go. And, and it’s funny, because I wouldn’t have … As a presidential candidate, the only candidate I disliked more than Harris was Biden, but I’ve seen signs that Harris is willing to move to the left. I believe she actually co-sponsored with Sanders a bill that would have paid every American citizen something like $2,000 a month during the epidemic. And that actually signals…
We have to remember that there are two ways that we could think about politics and political representation. One way is you elect somebody, you elect somebody like an AOC or a Rashida Tlaib or a Cori Bush, and you know they’re down with you. You know that once they get there, they’re going to roll like you want to roll. But the other way to think about political representation is to think about the effect of social movement power on people who actually may not have your same political attitudes, may be actually opposed to you in some ways, right? If you can’t get that person out, in some instances you’re able to use power to make that person move. And I think that based on that, granted, only have like one thing, but based on her working with Sanders, that suggests that she’s willing to actually move.
But what that also suggests is that, and we knew this already, that left social movements are going to have to consistently engage. Now, we know that a lot of people don’t want to vote anyway, and we know that electoral politics is fraud. But in order to actually move the state in our direction, we have to be consistently engaged. Voting isn’t the only thing we have to do. It may not even be the thing we have to do, but we have to be consistently putting pressure on the state, such that whoever Biden names …
And it’s important not to say one thing. Warren can’t be … It’s not just that Warren is white, but the reason that he wouldn’t appoint Warren as VP is not just because he promised to put in a person, a woman of color, it’s also because the governor of Massachusetts is a Republican. So, if you name somebody like Warren to VP, that Republican is going to name a Republican to be Senator and the road to hoe is going to be even tougher. I had to actually interject that. But, yeah.
So, whoever he names, we have to be able to put kind of pressure on that person so that they end up making the right moves as VP, and then also when they step up to run the party.
Jaisal Noor: Lester Spence, thank you so much for joining us. Professor at Johns Hopkins and author of Knocking The Hustle, Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. It’s always a pleasure.
Lester Spence: You’re very welcome.
Jaisal Noor: Thank you for joining us at The Real News Network.
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-08-17--Antifa crackdown is the new red scare

Antifa crackdown is the new red scare

Close window X
We encourage republication of our original content. Please copy the HTML code in the textbox below, preserving the attribution and link to the article's original location, and only make minor cosmetic edits to the content on your site.


therealnews--2020-08-17--Lebanon’s future is uncertain after this month’s massive explosion

Host, The Marc Steiner Show
Marc Steiner is the host of "The Marc Steiner Show" on TRNN. He is a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has spent his life working on social justice issues. He walked his first picket line at age 13, and at age 16 became the youngest person in Maryland arrested at a civil rights protest during the Freedom Rides through Cambridge. As part of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, Marc helped organize poor white communities with the Young Patriots, the white Appalachian counterpart to the Black Panthers. Early in his career he counseled at-risk youth in therapeutic settings and founded a theater program in the Maryland State prison system. He also taught theater for 10 years at the Baltimore School for the Arts. From 1993-2018 Marc's signature “Marc Steiner Show” aired on Baltimore’s public radio airwaves, both WYPR—which Marc co-founded—and Morgan State University’s WEAA.
marc@therealnews.com
@marcsteiner


therealnews--2020-08-18--Can California’s Prison Firefighter Program Be Reformed?

California ’ s Conservation Camps put prisoners to work fighting climate change-fueled fires for pennies on the dollar .


therealnews--2020-08-18--Our electoral ‘choices’ aren’t enough, say activists

Davey D is a hip-hop historian, journalist, deejay and community activist. Active on the Hip Hop scene since 1977, as well as in community organizing, Davey D maintains a Web site, Davey D's Hip-Hop Corner (www.daveyd.com), and is one of the hosts of Hard Knock Radio, a "drive-time talk show for the hip-hop generation" on KPFA in San Francisco as well as other Pacifica stations.