welcome to on contact day we discuss the protests that have erupted in over 140 american cities and the executive editor of black agenda report. and the blackness leadership plans actually seems to be more angry and bitter about this in some respects. like this leadership play. this sometimes. it's funny. after this is cleaned. up again due to describe. these funny gestures by cops and and. leaders to be. a just a room submissive to. the poor city to persian distraction designed something people's attitudes towards students to lose.

shouldn't sutra lindiwe. the ruling elites no longer have legitimacy they have destroyed our capitalist democracy and replaced it with a mafia state what the roman philosopher cicero called a commonwealth a raise public up public thing or the property of a people has been transformed into an instrument of naked pillage and repression on behalf of a global corporate oligarchy we are serfs ruled by obscene lee rich on the potent masters who loot the u.s. treasury pay little or no taxes and are perverted the judiciary the media and the legislative branches of government to strip us of civil liberties and give them the freedom to commit financial fraud and theft. the loss of control over our system of rulership the misuse of all democratic institutions the electoral process

and laws to funnel money upwards into a handful of oligarchy while stripping us of power ominously means that the ruling elites can no longer claim the right to have a monopoly on violence violence employed by police and security agencies such as the f.b.i. which have devolved into occupying forces to protect the exclusive interests of a tiny ruling criminal class exposes the fiction of the rule of law and the treason of the ruling elites the current waves of protests are correctly targeting the commodification of blackness by the state brittany friedman a rocker's university professor told black agenda report we do not need the car still state to save us she went on because the car still stayed is the one that is killing us but where do we go from here with more than 10000 arrests by militarized police of largely nonviolent protesters and the indiscriminate use of beatings

pepper spray rubber bullets and tear gas on peaceful crowds. in order for not violence to work your opponent must have a conscience stokely carmichael warned and if your opponent is bereft of a conscience then state violence isn't ever to be met with counter-violence tyranny takes the place of reform the danger of widespread sectarian violence in america is now very real joining me to discuss the protests that have erupted in over 140 american cities is glen ford executive editor of black agenda report so glenn i i would think that you would argue that this has been a long time coming. this isn't the 1st horrific murder of a black man by police. why how do you read the psych geist of this

moment well it's been a long time coming. but the actual explosion was caused by several factors coming together and not just the system getting more and more raw you know that's not really that we revolutionists happened and that there is some kind of smell coming from the system in terms of people that it's time to get rid of it but there were some very important and some of the unexpected factors that meet at this past 2 weeks historic occasion will it will be noted in history. number one of course was the coronavirus which was something that had never happened in modern american times followed. on the heels in the almost immediately by an economic shutdown that is created

conditions that are much like the great depression although that's coming on the recently we are. so have the bernie sanders phenomenon i think that there is something gave expectations among millions of young people that some kind of fundamental change was possible in this society and then of course you know crashed and burned when bernie sanders bowed down out so there were millions of young people who thought they could then that a new society or the beginnings of it was in their grasp the beginnings of something new if not socialism and that and then they had to recognize that voting does not get you there and so the shock of that realization and disappointment was very fresh and still is and then vitally and i think this

is is an important part of what combine to bring us to this place the regime has been diligent in my eyes in itself for the last 4 years i'm not talking about just the general rot in capitalism but this specific american regime. has been diligent i.z. itself with the ruling class split. since the advent of the trump regime and because of the split they have spread propaganda and that tends to diligent in the eyes and make very impermanent seeming the american system of government they're the ones who invented russia gate and called it a terrible pearl harbor attack on the united states and they said that the us

system was so weak that some russians in st petersburg spending $100000.00 on facebook could damn near bring this. system down so whether you believe russia gate or you disbelieve russia gate. the whole 4 years of this non stop soon scandal has served to undermine the legitimacy of the regime so we have these 4 factors here crude virus depression. the destiny of expectations with bernie sanders and the 4 years of diligent mizzy of the regime that has combined to bring us this glorious movement well they're also about powerful thoughtful pressures because many of these people are already outside the economy so they didn't qualify for unemployment checks the moratorium on a vixens is about to be lifted their drought in debt you know they may have gotten

a stimulus check but off it went to their landlord or or their credit cards or to pay their utility which candy shut off $40000000.00 unemployed you know to what extent do you think that that that the severity of the economic crisis has has pushed people over the edge as well or what people saw was instantaneous universal truth carroty in us society certainly no one knows including. titans of industry down to the an employed worker no one knows what's coming next and everyone knows that they can't rely on the government to save them. so this was a shock to the system. also undermining its legitimacy because if you can't defend your own population from. an epidemic

but disease and clearly the united states could not. and. everybody and everybody's business. to do to be put out of business and out of work in the night but what kind of regime is this well and at the same time we watch 4 trillion dollars 85 plus percent of it funneled up into the hands of the elite of the cruise industry and there was a recent article in the new york times that talked about how the wealthiest hospital are sitting on billions of dollars in cash and meanwhile are firing are laying off nurses and doctors there was also kind of naked pillage on the part of the ruling class and and the point is it was not the 1st time. and he down only 12 years ago and everyone knows that the only people who finally emerged

with their fortunes intact were the banks and here it comes again after 12 years the real son of the rescue of the benson the abandonment of the people was almost universally known and now there's going to be a repeat we i don't really see that script joe biden this is becomes the democratic nominee so many people are out protesting against militarized police against our. present population 25 percent of the world's prison population or about 4 percent of the world's population. doubling and tripling of sentences 3 strikes you're outlaws this all came provided that's correct and yet that is with the democrats insisted is all the have to offer i think there were this is the

other really we haven't mentioned and that is this time around in this crisis in this show. to the population sensibilities. there was a recent history of movement activity that is until 20142015 the united states had been without a mass grassroots black led movement for generations and then we got at least the beginnings of one in 20142015 with that spate of grassroots actions that we usually go black lives matter and in that interim black lives matter and that also really goes to cover the general conversation. about race and political economy in the united states black lives matter. it and put out a coherent set of demands that includes not just defunding

police but dismantling them and we've had time we've had some years where at least the politically active population the rather. deep conversation about where do we go from here and so that conversation was also existant when these other factors. appeared. and so the the hundreds of thousands of people who were put in motion these last 10 days or so were led by some people who had. and the benefit of a prolonged conversation about just this subject what do we do with these damned cops. great when we come back we'll continue our conversation with glen ford the executive editor of black agenda report

'd. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world the politics sports business i'm show business i'll see that.

welcome back to on contact we continue our conversation with glen ford the executive editor of black agenda report i want to just before we go on go back to biden. i mean this strikes me as phenomenally tone deaf even insulting. to. those who are struggling on the streets. how. how do you think it's going to play out politically are they just going to get away with biden simply because he's not well you know that's that is was the democratic strategy 2060 and that is has been the democratic

strategy in 2020 but it's not because they're so stupid that they can't think of anything else it's because capitalism at this late stage is in a bind that it cannot escape from the policy of the ruling class split as it might be is for neverending war and neverending austerity and biden is a dependable dependable standard bearer for that regime. bernie bernie sanders and of course he's bernie sanders is no socialist he's a new deal democrat but bernie sanders is an austerity busty new deal democrat and busting austerity and that is reversing the policy that makes workers more and more precarious so that they will be so desperate they'll take any kind of

lousy gig appointment with an employer and accept that that is a job that is absolutely necessary or the really class the citizens simply necessary for the maintenance of the system and so they're locked in to joe biden types presentations they're the ones who fear that any break in the austerity regime would be the slippery slope that would lead to all kinds of social supports that would make workers unwilling to take the gig jobs that that which are all that the rulers. really to offer i want to talk about the. jesters police taking a need of the mayor of washington painting the streets with black life better

reminds me of an abusive relationship where your folly walked out and then the abuser shows up at your door with flowers and chocolates but i want to talk a little bit about that and also and black agenda report is call these people out i i think you call them the black myth leadership class of i'm quoting you correctly but talk about what's happening and the blackness leadership plans actually seems to be more angry and bitter about this in some respects then like this leadership class this is sometimes. it's funny. activists and cleaned i turn comes i want a game to describe these these let me just use by cops and and other arab leaders to be in dealey just your room for submission to the demands but of course it's a diversion a distraction designed suffering people's attitudes towards.

to its rulers and shouldn't shouldn't fool anyone. now. the minneapolis city council 9 of them is veto proof majority says that they are going to move towards disbanding the police i don't think that is co-op again and i think that that is a significant and real political victory one that needs to be. sustained so that they don't change their minds but a real real breakthrough because disbanding the police is even more more serious to the ruling order then the other black lives matter demand which is to defund the police and direct the funds that are taken

from the cops assurance community support programs because that's kind of numbers game that can go on indefinitely and does not affect relationships of power but disbanding the cops which is a move towards abolition that's something else entirely was you know well the police along with math incarceration are the primary bulwarks of social control in poorer communities that have been stripped of industry stripped of jobs stripped of adequate services i mean and then of course everything privatized utilities and so this becomes an assault on one of the central pillars. of the ruling oligarchy it's you know really an oligarchy control yes disbanding the cops is disbanding the occupying army

that in force is the manse lacking concentration regime which was the regime's answer to the sixty's to. back to our protests. that day the imposition of a regime that brought the u.s. prison population from 200008 little bit less than 200000 in 1970 to 2.2.3000000 the disk ending the demand and the acquiescence. and minneapolis demand to disband the police is a kind of surrender. and of course we should be clear the. points on our book this whole state was largely put in place by democrats by bill clinton by joe biden who wanted to wrest back the quote unquote law and order issue from the republican party this was part of

a so-called liberal agenda oh yes it is as bipartisan as you get and when we say bipartisan in the united states we're talking about an agreement within all the different sectors of the ruling class but there was also mass weight popular approval of this mass black incarceration regime and it spread throughout the country almost instantaneously it was just amazing in in all parts of the country in states in which there were very few black people in states where blacks were were numerous north south east and west it was. it it became the law of the land very very quickly but now we're talking about dismantling this regime and you know the regime was put into place for a reason to to control

a population that that represented a danger to the ruling order. so when you talk about getting rid of the masks work in concert region regime interest ins and the police as we know them and then we're also talking about sitting free those forces that have been locked up for generations well as i don't surprise you i mean certainly the size of the protests has surprised me i mean in a good way but anything else about what's taken place on the streets that you found particularly interesting i mean one of the things those assault against these confederate monuments in the south were ripping down robert e. lee statue except. in your observations what's your take but no particular interest i was surprised and very much encouraged not just by the size of the crowds in total but how many white kids there were in those grounds but on

top of that they were carrying the very same signs as the black demonstrators that it was clearly visual proof that these large numbers of white people in many cases outnumbering the. non-blacks outnumbering blacks in these demonstrations and yet they were taking black political leadership as shown by the placards as shown by the slogans that will be shouted and this is what black folks and been demanding for a very long time that if there's going to be multi racial political actions in regard to these kinds of issues certainly then the white folks involved have to take black leadership clearly they were their work so it wasn't just that there

were these huge numbers but the political complection of those crowds would you describe this as a revolutionary moment a pre-revolutionary moment how would you characterize it in kind of a political lexicon you know i think i don't like the 3 revolutionary. frenzy simply because we've used it before. and been disappointed certainly what we've seen in the last 10 days or so is evidence of a broad consensus among enough people you know we don't need everybody in the streets to affect change the broad consensus among most of the active folks that capitalism. is at the root of these problems that the manifestations of

that racism in the united states works hand in hand with capitalism and that you can't separate the 2 and that the needed change in regime and i do think that most of these folks want a change in regime change in racine must be thorough in throughout the political economy. riess relations and relations of economic power how do you expect the ruling elites to respond. i mean they they i think they clearly sense the deep animists that is felt towards them. they. we as we saw with the cares act you know there is nothing to hold their hand in terms of. theft of resources and money to further enrich this i think billionaires have increased their wealth and scope at $19.00 by

$434000000000.00 bailout alone by over $30000000000.00. how do you think they're what do you see playing out what what i mean not just in terms of production but also in terms of what worries you well not going to give not the history regime they've included that they need for the regime in order to keep their own system stable. however they're also in a real bind in terms of tactically how do the deal with these kinds of numbers and the threat that people who come forward with these kinds of numbers again or even bigger numbers what can they do the democratic oriented. segments of the ruling class. as in the process this is undergoing. they have to put everything all of the contradictions on trump

in order to divert popular attention away from the contradictions that are in her and in the system and they have for the last 4 years been traditions in that they are the party and the forces. of ritual inclusion. it is a pretense and a diversion but it's it's the only script that they have well the demonstrators of the past 10 days and shown that they're not that you give just enough there and pretend that you are mr inclusion and diversity and satisfy the demands of these waves of people in motion you have to make substantial substantive changes in relationships of power but all you have the democrat or.

democrat. elements of the ruling class can offer is just more sweet talk about you know get along and that doesn't work in the states it's today's political realities so so they don't really have much in the kit and every time and if they. decide that the that some retention is in order well they've already said the next day and they impose it it's difficult for them to bring out the big stick. given how they didn't posturing in to z. as being racially so liberal these past 4 years great thanks. that was glen ford executive editor of black agenda report.

join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics business i'm show business i'll see you then. to give us your god look at just a nonconformist you don't feel horrible lately correct tell take your big nonetheless the experiment being played out in seattle is no laughing matter and the ideas of law and order and the legitimate use of force are its day

a piece of advice go visit jobs before chats. hello there i'm an election and you are watching in question broadcasting from our to america's national news headquarters in washington d.c. we want to welcome our viewers from the nation and all around the world here are tonight's top stories thousands of jobs wiped out so many americans are behind on mortgage payments and more stimulus money might be on the way can the u.s. government find real solutions during this pandemic we'll discuss the fate of this economy next with our panel guests and among the many job losses due to this endemic including thousands in the gas and oil sector can they weather the storm and what does the future look like for them we're going to discuss that with an expert.