Assata Shakur

“News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead.” Evelyn Waugh

This approximates the problem. It’s much worse. It fails to take into account the role that the media play in softening up our collective psyche. Our beloved republic is witnessing a disintegration of the Left. The necessary counterbalance. A viable vision of direction. We’re unable to appreciate neoliberalism and statist perversions camouflaging as platform. No clue as to class warfare. We’re prisoners of an autocratic oligarchy. But don’t hurt our feelings or abrade our think skin. The SJWs will find you and you’ll taste their wrath.

Devoid of message and vision. But plenty of feigned mirth and overreaction. Loaded with schmaltz and hype. Contrived merriment and infectious glee substituting for a determined plot and plan. The first woman, the progressive, her turn – whatever. But never a word about qualifications, record and platform. Though she does have “experience.” As Willie Sutton had banking experience, I suppose.

It’s mind boggling the treachery and perfidy that’s now become a bloodsport. Behold the uncut version of “Debbie Does DNC” – well, was supposed to. Thrown under the bus, tossed aside and sacrificed. Yanked from her platform but repackaged as an HRC higher-up. Blatant and hiding in plain sight. Simply amazing. Media apparatchiks double down on pro-HDR defense and excuses. Memes and tropes, images and flashbacks. Keep the folks confused. Prestidigitation and political sleight of hand. Watch the jiggling keys, crying baby. Just watch Queen Hillary.

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” Blood & Guts Hillary

Behold the dumpster fire that is the GOP. The Grand Guignol of American political theatre, as my great friend Webster Tarpley refers to it. The march of the incompetents. Herr Drumpf’s explication of ISIS and Turkey was breathtakingly incoherent. More so than ever. And that’s saying something. What is the coup about, you ask? Historicity counts.

“Assata taught me.” The cited and oft-referenced inspiration behind the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement – the individual cited as its guru, maharishi and founder and regularly quoted by its supporters – is a convicted cop killer who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list. Pay particular note, this is critical.

During the height of the Ferguson Rebellion in late summer 2014, youth organizer, Joshua Williams quickly rose to the call of duty. In the aftermath of Officer Darren Wilson’s brutal murder of unarmed Black teenager, Mike Brown, 19-year-old Josh Williams, stepped forward in the most dedicated and courageous way possible – on the front lines.

As negotiations continue between the governments of the United States and Cuba over the normalization of relations, the U.S. State Department has claimed Cuba is willing to discuss the extradition of political refugee Assata Shakur. While it may seem that Cuba would gladly make such a seemingly minor concession in return for the promise of normalized relations, this would greatly underestimate the Cuban government’s commitment to upholding its principles.

This month is “Women’s History Month”, but what exactly is the importance of shedding light on the oppression of women under US/Western imperialism? If we understand the oppression of women as a necessary precondition of patriarchy, racism, and class exploitation inherent in the “Western way of life”, than it is untenable to imagine a world free of sexism without a world free of racism and class exploitation as well.  In this period, the US corporate media has mass advertised a mainstream “feminism” that promotes collaboration with the US ruling order.