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Did you know that the world's largest democracy India is holding its lo Saba or lower house elections right now? And I don't think we can talk about India without talking about nuclear weapons. India is a nuclear power. How does that play out on the world stage?

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. And I'm Wilmer Leon. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which these events take place. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode. The issues before us are what will the election results mean for India? What will the results mean for the global geopolitical landscape? And we'll throw in a few other things as well for insight into this. Let's turn to my guest. She's a professor in the Department of Political Studies and director of the Global Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg Canada. She's the author of numerous books. She's recently returned from a couple of trips to her home country of India. She is Dr. Rekha Desai. Dr. Desai, as always, welcome back to the show.

Great being with you again. Wilma

Narendra. Modi is a Indian politician. He has served as the 14th Prime Minister of India since May of 2014. He had a simple campaign slogan of Good Days are Coming. Those who support him seem to love him. His opponents argue he's done little to improve their quality of life and the quality of life across the country. What's going on with the current elections in India?

Well, this election has, it's actually, I should say that the election itself is not going on today. The election has been going on for the last seven odd weeks, 45 days. So it started more than 45 days ago and it ended, the last voting day was June the first. It was a seven phase election in which the Election Commission organized elections in different parts of the country over seven phases. The counting is what's going on today. It's not complete yet. So we basically have an idea mean roughly a little over half the votes have been counted, and we can say that pretty well. The trends seem to be set. Nothing has changed very much over the last two or three hours. And what we see here is that Mr. Modi has been humiliated. Let me explain why Mr. Modi went into this election campaign with the Hubristic slogan of this in Hindi, you say ispa.

(03:49)

(05:02)

What does this mean, if anything, in the context of governance? I understand in the parliamentary system that you can win and lose seats and that can be a humiliation as you've just indicated, but that doesn't necessarily translate into your ability to form coalitions, your ability to govern. And if you still have the ability to govern, how difficult does it become? So for example, we can look at Netanyahu in Israel and now you got Morich and others threatening to leave and that's going to break up his coalition. What does this mean for Prime Minister Modi in terms of governance?

Well, it means that he will have to concede a lot to his coalition partners if he needs them. But before we get there, let me just say two other things, which is that depending on how, what is the final result, two additional things may or one of two or two or more things may happen, which will put into question more these ability to form a government. The first thing is that if the BJP is truly humiliated as it seems to be, it is going to be, it is very possible that there will be big opposition within the party, within the BJP knives will come out for him because he has basically ruled again in this very hubristic fashion disdain pretty well, all the second level leadership of the party, disdain, all the other organizations with which his party is affiliated and so on. So we will have to wait and see what will happen. The second thing that could happen, I'm not sure that it will, but it could happen, is that his coalition partners who he now needs may abandon him particularly sensing that this Mr. Modi is going nowhere. Good.

So it's that dramatic.

It could be is what I'm saying. We are not sure at the moment I'm looking at it and it's still showing me BJP at two 40 leading in two 40 seats, 63 seats short of its previous tally. That's pretty bad when you are claiming, and you asked me another question, and I just want to throw this one thing in there, contrary to what has been reported in most of the mainstream media in the West and certainly in India, because in India, the Modi government has the mainstream media in its back pocket. So contrary to what these sources have reported, the Indian economy is doing exceedingly badly. It is not doing well. And if you ask me the most fundamental reason for the bad performance of the BJP and Mr. Modi is that imposing the kind of economic pain that he has imposed on the country for the last decade, I would say, and we can discuss what happened in 2019, why did he get reelected? But he has imposed nothing but economic pain on the ordinary Indian for the last decade. This cannot be electorally, costless. And this time around the cost has caught up with him.

So when you talk about economic pain, the word that comes to my mind, well, two words that come to my mind are neoconservative and austerity. Are those, because I also, if I looked at some of the data, I want to say that youth unemployment is incredibly, incredibly high in India. And when your youth unemployment is that high, boy, you're the economist, not me, but you're setting a groundwork for discontent going forward amongst your youth. Those youth grow into adults and they carry that mindset forward. Speak to that please.

Okay, so I would say that there are a number of points I want to make. Number one, India's growth figures are highly exaggerated. That's the first thing is that they have changed the way in which they compile growth statistics, which depending on which economist you are talking to is exaggerating. India's growth rate anywhere between two to 4%. And if you factor that in, then India's growth rate, which is often touted as being the fastest of any major developing country faster than China's, et cetera, does not have any of those qualifications. India should be growing much faster, has in the past grown much faster and Mr. Modi's performance is actually very poor. The second point I have to make is that even the growth we have has been powered by unsustainable stimuli and it has created exceedingly high levels of inequality. So that is a problem.

(11:02)

(12:10)

Well, wait a minute, what was the objective of doing that?

Well, he claimed that he was going to try to create a cashless economy and remove the black money from the economy, et cetera, but none of this was proved true. I believe that he was simply talking to certain, shall we say, big financial wizards who want to introduce cashless payment systems in India and want to benefit from the bonanza. And he basically doesn't talk to a lot of people. So one or two people who have his ear can actually get him to take these decisions. I mean the demonetization exercise. And a third thing was that he was trying very desperately to win an election in the giant state of UTA Prade elections were due. And he thought that somehow by doing this, he would prevent the opposition from essentially spending any money. So then he declared a covid lockdown at a time when there was no covid detectable in India.

(14:26)

So please forgive my ignorance of Indian culture, but I understand that there's a cultural strata within India. So you add the economic strata to the cultural strata, and then I would think you have a big mess on your hands.

Well, it exacerbates the inequality. What you're referring to is the caste system, which is quite widely misunderstood. But let me just, I mean the caste system people think is a kind of a layered, like a many tiered wedding cake with a small number of, so-called twice born cast at the top and then everybody else. But in reality, caste works in the sense of having, there are various caste groups and each caste group is either higher or lower in the hierarchy and that, so a small number of caste groups are in the, so-called twice born casts that are essentially the high castes, and then there is a big fat middle of the middle casts. And then there are the, so-called untouchable cast, and then there is a group of tribals who are outside the caste structure. So the thing, I don't want to give a long disposition on that, but the thing to know about the class structure in India is that the upper cast are also generally the upper classes, the well to do. So, the cultural or social privilege and economic privilege largely coincide, not completely, but largely. So this creates an additional layer of resentment and so on. So that's the situation.

I want to get back to my austerity question because I know that Modi is very, very close to Joe Biden, and that's why when you mentioned early on about the economic issues, Neo Khan and austerity were the two words that came to my mind. So are there similarities between the objectives of Modi's economics and the economics of the West?

Yes. Essentially the Modi government, like the previous BJP government engages in a certain politics of neoliberalism or economic policy of neoliberalism where you privatize as much as you can, you reduce social expenditure, you reduce state capacity, you contract out, that sort of thing. And that has really penetrated very deep. Now the Indian economy, so for example, he has recently privatized Air India sold it off essentially, and many other state assets have been privatized. A lot of the way I look at it, I think that this would go for President Biden as well as Narin Modi, essentially they have a one point economic policy. The one point economic policy is to do what benefits the really big corporations. And India has a lot of big corporations, so that that's the economic policy Bohi has pursued. So essentially there is a handful of big titans who destroyed the Indian economy.

(18:54)

As I have read, particularly in Western media, it's been portrayed over years that it was expected that India would rival China. That modi's objectives were to the one China policy, I'm sorry, the Belt and Road initiative and that China China's economy, one of the leading growth economies in the world, and that Modi was trying to rival China and in the West it was being portrayed as though he was actually successful in doing so. Speak to that, please.

Yeah, I mean the West would dearly love India to emerge as an economic giant and

Competitor to China.

Exactly, and a counterweights to China. And so India would be sort of in the Western camp and help count to China. Unfortunately, the West has had to swallow considerable amount of disillusionment because I noticed that even in some of the more mainstream western media, which would, as I say, which have been praising India until recently, there has been a certain amount of stepping back, realizing that Modi has been not as economically successful, and also realizing that Modi has been very authoritarian so that India's democracy is often has been rated by under, Modi has been rated by some international agencies as an electoral autocracy, the press freedom in India, India has been criticized on those grounds. And I think that if anything, the west has been forced to come to these conclusions and it has reluctantly come to these conclusions. And if anything, criticism of Modi is still much milder than it should be, but it is there because the facts are too difficult to look away from.

(21:53)

India shares, I want to say about a 2200 mile border with China. India is part of bricks, the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and now a number of other countries have joined that economic block. So it seems as though Modi is trying to walk a very fine line in terms of being a member of Brix, which means good relationships with China working, I'll say working, working relationships with China, working relationships with Russia, while at the same time trying to be the friend of the United States. Is that a fair assessment of his effort? And that I would think that's a very, very difficult and fine line to walk.

I think it is. And at the same time, Mr. Modi has not had much choice because for several reasons. Number one, Modi would really love to distance himself distance India from Russia, which of course has had longstanding economic ties as well as defense cooperation ties.

But wait a minute, let me jump in. And just to that point, didn't India just sign a huge oil and gas deal with Russia and they are buying Russian gas in rubles?

Yes. So let me exactly. I was about to come to that.

I'm channeling my inner, not

Really like that. But what has happened in the interim, of course, is that with the Ukraine crisis, India and the rise in the price of oil, and remember India imports a lot of oil and the rise in prices of oil in India has ripple effects throughout the economy because the cost of everything goes up because transport is a central part of the cost of anything. So inflation is already bad enough in India. If India did not have this oil deal with the Russians, then it would be even worse and it would tell on Modi even greater way. Secondly, some of his best paths like Mr. Adani and Mr. Banani and so on are actually engaged in the lucrative and shady practice of buying Russian oil at a discounted price and then processing it to power, not for that matter, and then selling it forward to essentially Europeans who can say, well, we are not buying Russian oil, but we are buying these oil or oil products from the Indians.

(25:18)

Here comes a very basic simplistic question. India, I believe is the largest population in the most populous country in the world. That says to me that there's a very large accessible labor force. The United States is moving or trying to move off of Chinese labor and fine labor elsewhere. Allah, Haiti, why isn't Modi, or why isn't the US trying to tap into that unemployed labor force, expand production in the country? Because when we think of India, a lot of people in West think of, for example, call centers. They think about engineers, but not necessarily with IIT, for example, the Indian Institute of Technology, which is supposed to arrival. MIT, supposed to be one of the best engineering school in the world, but people don't necessarily think of engineering coming out of India. So why isn't the world or why isn't the west tapping into this labor force? Is that a sensible question to ask?

No, it's a good question to ask. So let me take another step back. You are right. India is the most populous country. India has a very large young population, and people often have been talking about the demographic dividend that India has the opportunity to employ these people and to grow much at a very fast rate and benefit from this. However, in order to harness or in order to benefit from India's demographic dividend, you have to invest in your young people. You have to educate them, you have to give them the skills

You need like China has done,

And then you have to create the larger kind of ecology, which will stimulate growth. None of these things are being done in India. Primary education is basically, I mean, as opposed to China, where the state puts in a lot of effort into primary education in public schools, what you have is essentially a proliferation of private schools, which if your parents can afford it, you're lucky, and otherwise you go to a sadly and badly run state school, which often does not even have a sufficient number of teachers or teachers who show up, et cetera, et cetera. So there is this problem. Then on top of that, increasingly what used to be a rather good university system has also been allowed to essentially be privatized the proliferation of private universities and colleges which charge enormous fees for questionable forms of education, which is also why you see an enormous flood of Indians, Indian young people leaving the country to obtain education abroad.

(29:44)

(30:37)

I'm going to go back to the same question because as I was listening to you, this thought just popped in my head. When I look at again, the Belt and Road initiative from China, when I look at China meeting with African countries, India has, again, it's the largest most populous country in the world. That means markets, people are there to sell to and a labor force. So I'm wondering why, and I remember, I think when Modi came in in 2014, he met with President Xi. There was a, I think 20 billion of investment deals signed. I'm thinking about Russia wanting to come in. So there's an incredible growth opportunity there in terms of markets. So China can come in and build railroads. China can come in and build bridges, build electric infrastructure, build water infrastructure. Is that not happening? And if not, why not?

Well, because, well, okay, let me take

Again, is that a sensible question to ask?

Yeah, yeah. No, no, it is. So first of all, let me say that the Indian market, you talked about the Indian market markets are not just composed of people of people. Markets are composed of people who have money. And if you are running down your economy in the way that I've just described, ordinary people in India do not have the kind of money that makes India an attractive market. The market in India, as far as foreign capital is concerned, is basically a small sliver of the upper 10% or so of the Indian population. And that is not a very big market. I mean, India may have 1.4 billion people, but if only 140 million of them are capable of consuming at anything like the level of the rest of the world, and it's not, it may have a small one or two or 3% who are,

I should have used the word potential. Yes, I should have used the word potential. And what comes to my mind, and if I'm historically inaccurate, please correct me. Many economists and others will say, and this is maybe a stretch of an example, but one of the things that brought about the end of slavery or enslavement in the United States was an understanding we've got this newly formerly enslaved population. We need these people to be consumers, not a drag on the economy. So we're going to create an economic system that allows the manufacturing access to this labor force. So that's what was driving my question.

Well, exactly. And the thing is that unless you have adequate levels of employment, and not only adequate levels of employment, but adequately well compensated employment, that is to say with high wages, you're not going to create a market. You've got to create a sufficiently, you've got to create good jobs, essentially. And that is not something the government has done that, in fact, it has done everything to retard that process because as I said earlier, the government's policy is to favor a small number of big corporations. Now, the vast majority of the Indian economy is accounted for by what we call SMEs or small and medium enterprises. These are the guys who actually create the jobs. They may not be very high paying, but at the very least, they're paying jobs. And even that with the imposition of GST, for example, with demonetization, all for that matter, with covid policies in every possible way, the SME sector has been set back and it is not creating, it's not allowed to create the kind of employment that you do. And if you give a contract to Mr. Adani to build a port, that's not going to create a of employment because what Mr. Adani does is he has all the freedom in the world to import all the things that he needs. So he imports high technology products from the west and so on, and he creates a state-of-the-art port, but that is not going to create a lot of jobs for Indians.

Does he import labor as well, or does he access Indian labor, or does he import labor as well?

No, no. He accesses Indian labor, but it's a very small amount. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what Indians to actually absorb and to realize this demographic dividend, you need to create a lot more jobs, and they're not going to be created by Mr. Adani and his friends. And in fact, in the absence of such a strategy to really create a larger market, to create more employment, to create more opportunity in India, in the absence of a strategy to do those things, India is not going to enjoy a demographic dividend. India is at the moment sitting on a demographic time bomb because, and we have seen some of the results of that. Let me also give you an example. Not only does the government not create employment, it does the reverse. It creates, it removes good jobs and replaces them with bad jobs.

(36:54)

But

That's

What you need career soldiers.

Exactly.

Exactly. And you don't form careers on four year contracts.

And in this election, I have noticed that in all the areas which have, traditionally in every country, there are some parts of the country that are recruitment from which the army recruits disproportionately, and there are such parts of India as well. And in all those parts of India, the BJP vote has gone down because people are so sore about this scheme. In fact, the other thing, because in India what happens is that when the counting takes place, they count the postal ballots first. And very often the postal ballots have a disproportionate number of army veterans or army people in them, because army people tend to get posted around and they use the postal ballot to vote in their place of registration. And so these postal ballots also showed a significant decline in the vote of the BJP. So that was quite interesting as well. So you see, Mr.

(39:03)

(40:00)

(41:04)

And I don't think we can talk about India without talking about nuclear weapons. India is a nuclear power. How does that play out on the world stage, in spite of all the things that you've just articulated and very clearly, thank you very much. That's always in the background. India is a nuclear power. How does that play on the world stage as related? Go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, in India, so the India's nuclear weapons are really not very substantial or not very many. I think it matters most in the confrontation between India and Pakistan. Pakistan, but also to some extent this border of dispute that India has with China, which we can discuss. But historically, if you think about it, India went in for a nuclear weapons development program in the sixties after being defeated in the 1962 war with China, in which China did not take any territory. China inflicted defeat on India and then withdrew to the original position just to say, look, we don't wish to solve this problem militarily. We wish to solve it through negotiation. And the Chinese have more or less stuck to that. But China has always been a very big factor in India's nuclear program. And so as you know, in 1972, India had conducted its first nuclear test.

(44:19)

And quickly you've made reference to the India China relationship. Elaborate on that before we get into the discussion about American domestic politics.

Well, very briefly, I would say that India is increasingly outclassed by China. China is economic dynamism, puts India to shame. I would say that the previous government, the UPA government that ruled India from 2004 to 2014 began to embark on a strategy of creating greater employment and putting more money into the pockets of ordinary Indians and taking care of basic needs and so on, which if continued, would have put India on a much better track. Certainly not as good as China, but certainly on a much better track. But of course, Mr. Modi interrupted that, and we've had 10 years of exceedingly harmful economic policies under Mr. Modi. So economically, India is outclassed by China, and I would say that India, whereas up until now 2014, when Mr. Modi was elected, India was making small progress in resolving some of the border disputes with China, which can easily be resolved.

(46:46)

In your explaining India's inability to resolve those conflicts is part of that, because in the minds of many leaders, conflict brings about coalition that Israel is an example of that. One of the tenets of Zionism is, and Netanyahu says this all the time, you all need me to protect you because the wolves are at the door, and if I'm not here, they'll devour us all. Joe Biden, many believe right now is in deep trouble and is trying to create himself to be a wartime president. Is that in any of the thinking or logic of why these border disputes are not being resolved?

Well, okay. So first of all, let me just say that I think conflict brings consolidation, consolidation of your social base, not necessarily coalition, because you have to remember one very important respect in which the Israeli electoral system is completely different from the Indian election.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I was speaking on a very broad level.

Well, because Israel has an exceedingly permissive form of proportional representation, so that parties with even a tiny number of votes can have representation in parliament. And this allows the more extreme parties, extreme right parties to also get representation in the Israeli parliament. India does not have a PR system at all. It has a first pass the post electoral system. And that of course, can translate a small, for example, in this election, a relatively small change in the percentage of the vote can translate into a very big change in the number of seats won by a given party. So India has this first pass, the post electoral system, and that has been very important in giving Mr. Modi his majorities. And yes, rattling the Sabre and raising the issues of defense and terrorism can certainly help. Mr. Modi has helped Mr. Modi in the past, in 2019 in particular, to essentially win a majority, again, even a slightly increased majority. So that certainly helps. And historically, yes, defense issues have been to consolidate a social base, but on the whole, I would say that the Congress has been much less willing to sort of weaponize defense issues. And the BJP has been much more willing to do. So

Switching to, well, is there anything else you want to be sure that we cover on this election issue before we move on?

No, I think it's good. Okay.

Okay. Alright. Well then with that, quickly, your thoughts on the current state of the Biden administration. His numbers are horrible. According to real clear politics, he has a 55.8, or we could say 56% disapproval rating. He has a 65.8 or 66% of those believe the country's on the wrong track. In the wake of Trump's guilty verdict in the New York Business Documents trial, Trump is still up by nine percentage points. And also when you look at the Battleground states eight, by many calculations, Joe Biden isn't winning one of them. It's becoming harder and harder to see how Joe Biden gets to the 270 electoral votes that he needs. Your thoughts?

Well, I think that what you're looking at in the United States is really the sort of cumulative result of following neoliberal policies basically, so that essentially neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden are anything other than neoliberal. Mr. Biden will pepper his neoliberalism with a certain amount of socially progressive politics, but that's the only difference between them. And so what you are seeing is on the one hand, a very large protest vote against these sorts of policies going to Mr. Trump because Mr. Trump is essentially saying to people, I know you guys are suffering and I know how to solve your problems. You're suffering because of China. So instead of saying that you're suffering because of neoliberalism, which he's not going to give up on, he's offering a false solution to the problems of the people. But nevertheless, this seems to work better than what Mr. Biden is saying, which is offering more of the same.

(53:02)

(54:15)

Interesting. You mentioned that the suicide rate of farmers is up in India because the suicide rate is up dramatically, particularly among white males in the United States. You mentioned the omics, Joe Biden doesn't mention omics that much on the campaign trail, and we hear the American economy is doing so well. But to your point about Joe Biden as looking out for the elite, that's the financialized side of the American economy that is doing well. The banks are doing well, corporations are doing well, but the regular part of this economy, debt is up dramatically. Prices are up, inflation is up, and unemployment, if you really look at the numbers in terms of the number of people working compared to people here have a, I think, try to make a false equivalency that every job means one person working. What we're dealing with here is one person working multiple low wage jobs just to remain poor. Hence we see the unhoused, the rate of the unhoused in the United States is up. So when you look at the real numbers and speak to this, please, as an economist, when you look at the real numbers, things aren't going nearly as well as Joe Biden and the Biden administration would want people to believe.

Absolutely. I mean, the whole employment issue has long been a boondoggle in the United States. The United States loves to advertise itself as this job generating machine of an economy, but what is the quality of the jobs generated by them? If you have to have two or more jobs in order to keep body and soul together in order to feed your children, then what kind of a job is that?

And many of those jobs don't come with health benefits don't come with vacation. They're low wage. In

Fact, I don't know if you remember, but this is not a new problem. This goes back to the election of George Bush Jr. When he was running for reelection. Apparently some poor lady said to him that, oh, she was working three jobs and so on. And she said, look, she's such a great hero. She's working three jobs, completely missing the point that why should anyone have to juggle three jobs in order to make a living? And that too, as you rightly say, not really a living in order just to be poor. And this is the situation. And by the way, in India, as I say, a lot of people are also claiming that they are going to look at so many, there's so much entrepreneurship in India. There's so much self-employment, a lot of what is called self-employment in India isn't self-employment. It's desperation. If you have no job, of course you will do anything. You'll buy bottle brushes and go sell them on or buy peanuts and go sell them on the train for the few rupees you will make. And the difference between your buying costs and your selling costs. And that may still not give you anything more than a meal or maybe half a meal or two square meals a day if that. But what about clothing? What about food? What about what? I mean housing, what about education? All these things are not there for people.

It's the difference between living and existing.

Exactly. Exactly. So this is the situation in India, and I think that these election results are showing that. And as I say, I think by the way, there was another parallel between the American situation and the Indian situation. A lot of people felt essentially unenthused by this election. So they may not have those people who Modi was trying to enthus to support him, may have simply sat at home and said, we are not going out. And as you know, the election campaign was very long drawn out because it would give Mr. Moy a chance to campaign in each phase. You see, because he regards himself as the only board deliverer of his party, which means there is no second level leadership in the party, which

Is in fact, isn't he on record as saying, I don't have a successor. The people are my successor. Isn't he on record as saying something ridiculous like that? He's

Been saying some pretty peculiar things recently. In fact, one of the most outlandish things he said recently, he said some, he gave a spate of interviews just before the election, and in fact during the election, and the purpose of this was that some phoning media person who is not a tall critical, who throws them all sorts of soft balls in order to make him look good. So one particularly phoning interviewer asked him, Mr. Modi, where do you get your amazing energy from? You've been campaigning, blah, blah, et cetera. So he said, he says, well, as long as my mother was alive, I didn't quite credit this, but I have always felt that I'm not biological, essentially, that I have not been born of my mother, that the Almighty has created me and sent me here to fulfill a certain purpose. Now, I mean, just imagine the guys, I mean, it's, it's madness. If you told me this and you were a politician, I would say Wilma. Okay, it's all right. You told me this. But don't tell anyone else. Just keep quiet about it, even if you think so.

In fact, you'd say, I have a friend I'd like for you to talk to who is trained to talk to people like you.

So anyway, so he's been saying some completely nonsensical things recently because as I say, he has been in a panic mode and he'll say anything basically and trying to, so anyway, he's been trying to garner votes. And the other really interesting thing is that you will remember that in January, the Mr. Modi elaborately conducted this elaborately stage managed consecration of the temple to Lord Ram, which is being built on this moss that was destroyed back in 1992. It's a big vo. We can't discuss all of this. But let me just say that this consecration exercise, which was, as I say, carefully choreographed to highlight Mr. Modi and his role, and he was, in fact, it was not the priests who were consecrating it as though it was he who was consecrating it. And it was a practically fascistic exercise I'll have. And he thought that this was going to be his baah court, that in the now 2019, there were those strikes and that this would deliver him the votes. There was next to zero temple effect in the electorate. You asked people, most of them didn't bring it up. They said, where are the jobs? Look at the inflation. How are we supposed to eat well enough? Et cetera, et cetera. So this did not work.

And as we get out, you mentioned anticipated low voter turnout in India. I have been saying for a very long time that a huge problem that is on the horizon for President Biden is not going to be people changing parties, is going to be and voting for Donald Trump or voting for Joe Stein or Dr. West. It's going to be people staying home raking leaves. That's going to be his huge problem. Your

Thoughts. I think that certainly this year in India, the voter turnout is only marginally lower than the previous time. But given that it is in roughly two thirds of the people have voted in the last election and this one. But I suspect that it's a question of who votes, right? So maybe his supporters stay at home and the supporters of the India block, which is the Congress led coalition, came out and voted. It's very possible that that's kind of what's happening.

Well, let me say as always to you, Dr. Ika Desai, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me today.

It's always a great pleasure, Wilma.

Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. And by the way, if there are issues, if there are topics that you need me to connect the dots on for you, then please provide your suggestions in the comments below. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, go to the Patreon account and please make a contribution. This is where analysis, culture, politics, and history converge. Talk without analysis is just chatter. And as you can see with brilliant guests like Dr. Desai, we do not chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. We're out

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

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Our guest this week, Craig "Pasta" Jardula has a substack newsletter here (you should subscribe!) and find him on Instagram and X/Twitter @YoPasta

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Wilmer Leon (00:00:00):

Here's a question for you. Riddle me this as we sit here today on the 29th of May. According to real clear Politics, president Biden's approval rating right now sits at 40.2%. He's got a 56.4% disapproval rating. Folks we're only six months away from the November election. The Libertarian party recently concluded its National Convention in Washington dc. It was tense at times, but when they came out of their convention, the party announced that its delegates selected Chase Oliver to lead them in the 2024 presidential election. While former President Trump claimed that he would've absolutely won the nomination if he had wanted it. What impact will this have?

Announcer (00:01:01):

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Wilmer Leon (00:01:10):

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which most events take place. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they take place. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. So for insight into the Libertarian Party convention and the broader impact that it might have on the November outcome, let's turn to my guest. He's the co-host of the Convo couch and am wake up on Rock Fin. He's also the host of Pasta to Go, Craig Pasta Jardula. Craig, welcome to Connecting the Dots.

Pasta Jardula (00:02:10):

Thanks for having me on. Dr. Wiler.

Wilmer Leon (00:02:12):

So you just came back from the Libertarian party convention. A lot of folks weren't even aware that the convention was taking place in Washington dc So what were some of your major takeaways, and who is Chase Oliver?

Pasta Jardula (00:02:30):

Those are some great questions. I mean, my first takeaway is really to tell you the truth. Dr. Wiler is, wow. As a person who's gone to many Democratic conventions, the nomination process is already pretty much known. Who's going to be picked, who's going to come out victorious? You already know who's in the lead when it comes to whatever position there very few times is there a race that's up for grabs? This thing, when it came to the presidential nomination, it was up for grabs until the very end. But

(00:03:05):

Several days before that process, there was so many conversations going on and I walked around that convention asking the libertarian members, is there a place for me? Is there a place for a leftist libertarian in your party? Is there a place for a person who believes in central planning or believes that Medicare is a human right? Is there a home for me? And the answer was yes, that this particular party has had a grassroots movement within it. The ME'S caucus has taken most of the power and they have opened up their tent and they want libertarian minded people, and they pretty much are coalescing around three issues. Freedom of speech. We heard a lot about censorship and big tech and what they're doing to suppress people's voices. We heard about freedom of Oppress. They have what's called the big three. You got that sign right behind me.

(00:04:02):

It says, free Ross. No, that's not free. Ross Barot, that's free. Ross Ulbrich, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. And then the last message was an anti-war message in which they were very, very stern. They had shown that the Mees caucus embodies the party of Ron Paul, a non-interventionist, peace-loving party. And we had a lot of conversations about that. Yeah, it's a libertarian convention, so you'll hear words like property rights and the free market. It will come into play, but not as much as I thought. It was kind of a clear understanding that I wouldn't be agreeing with them on their economic views. But everything else, those other issues we strongly agree on. So it was just an amazing convention. The process in which they select their president and their vice president is awesome. It's a true democracy. It took some time, but it is a true democracy. So I just came out with my head up high and just the big thumbs up for the Libertarian party and for Angela McCardle, who happens to be the chair and the Mees Caucus. The interesting thing is though the Mees caucus didn't get a president on their ticket. So they have some work to do, still repairing relationships with other caucuses and other factions of the Libertarian Party. But overall, I thought it was one of the best conventions. I've been to a lot of great conversations and a lot of nuance, Dr. Wilmer.

Wilmer Leon (00:05:37):

It sounds a lot like the conventions of old, I remember I'm showing my age now, but I remember, I want to say the 64 convention. I might've been five years old at the time or the 68 convention when there was suspense when they would go to the floor in the great state of Arkansas, how do you vote? And the great state of Arkansas votes, blah, blah. And in many instances, you had to wait for the polling from the floor and the tally of the delegates in order to determine who the nominee was going to be. So it sounds a lot like the conventions of old.

Pasta Jardula (00:06:19):

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't even born until 1973, but I did go back and watch a lot of the 1968 conventions, and I think we're going to see a lot of that moving forward. And that's the difference between these conventions, obviously the non,

Wilmer Leon (00:06:34):

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Because to that point, I believe we're going to see a lot of that in August at the Democrats Convention, because I have been saying for the last, at least year and a half, I don't believe Joe Biden is going to come out of that convention as the Democrat's nominee. I believe based on the numbers that I gave at the top that they know, and we're seeing a number of articles, we've been seeing articles to this point since September and very prominent Democrats have been writing, Joe, no, this is not going to work. So I believe that they're going to go into the convention talking Joe Biden, but something is going to happen. Don't know what that is, but Joe's going to whisper in his ear. Joe, do not waddle out there. I don't walk towards the light, Joe, it's not for you.

Pasta Jardula (00:07:34):

I'll do you one better. Dr. Wilma. I think he already knows. I think his goal is just make it to the convention Joe, get to the convention grandpa, and then we'll switch out. And I think we should probably start taking some serious bets on who that is. I still think it's going

Wilmer Leon (00:07:48):

To be Gavin Newsom. It's going to be Gavin Newsom and his, well, the ticket is going to be, I believe Gavin Newsom and Christian Whitmer from Michigan,

Pasta Jardula (00:08:03):

I think. Pete Buttigieg.

Wilmer Leon (00:08:05):

No,

Pasta Jardula (00:08:06):

I think it's going to be, they have to now because the libertarian candidate is a gay candidate. So now they're going to have to counteract the Libertarian party to get some of those votes. You got to get a gay guy on the ticket. They might do that.

Wilmer Leon (00:08:19):

I would say to you that Whitmer will offset the anger and the ire of women because they're going to have to jettison Kamala Harris. And in order to quell some of that dissent and that unrest, they're going to have to have a woman. She Whitmer might. Now, how about this? Whitmer might be at the top of the ticket. Buttigieg could be her vp.

Pasta Jardula (00:08:46):

Nah, I'm not buying.

Wilmer Leon (00:08:48):

Oh, and there's another reason, and there's another reason

Pasta Jardula (00:08:51):

I think Pete Buttigieg would kind of soothe that part of the party that might want a woman, they'll settle with a gay guy. I think

Wilmer Leon (00:09:00):

He was such a horrible candidate the last run, and he's been a horrible secretary of transportation,

Pasta Jardula (00:09:08):

But Democrats don't care about that. Their party hacks anyways, they're going to go for the blue no matter who

Wilmer Leon (00:09:15):

Most

Pasta Jardula (00:09:15):

Of the social issues. And that's all they do.

Wilmer Leon (00:09:18):

Would that then they'd stick with Biden?

Pasta Jardula (00:09:20):

Well, I don't think Biden even can. Okay. I don't know if he's going to even make it to that convention, Dr. Wilmore.

Wilmer Leon (00:09:28):

No, I'm with you. I'm with you on that. And another thing, why I think Whitmer is important is because they can't win without Michigan. And right now, based upon the damage that Biden has done in Michigan relative to the Gaza issue, I think they have to have her in the mix in order to put Michigan back in play.

Pasta Jardula (00:09:55):

Well, maybe,

Wilmer Leon (00:09:58):

Maybe

Pasta Jardula (00:10:00):

Dr. Wilma, I didn't wake up to talk about these Democrats. They're driving me nuts.

Wilmer Leon (00:10:03):

No, I didn't either talk about

Pasta Jardula (00:10:05):

Libertarians

Wilmer Leon (00:10:05):

That just popped in my head. Okay, so excuse

Pasta Jardula (00:10:11):

Chase.

Wilmer Leon (00:10:12):

Go ahead. Who is Chase

Pasta Jardula (00:10:13):

Oliver? Let's get back to who Chase is because I think it is important right now because I did kind of question a lot of people. I questioned Angela, the chair at a press conference if they thought this was going to be a lost opportunity because they have established themselves as a third party. So many people are concerned about censorship, they're concerned about Julian Assange and their freedom of speech. I mean, heck, even Trumpers, if you ask them their biggest criticism of Donald Trump, a lot of them will say, Julian Assange, Dr. Wiler. So they're concerned about that. They're concerned about Israel Palestine, they're concerned about Ukraine, Russia, certainly from a financial point of view, that they're sick and tired of so much of our tax dollars going over there. So I asked Angela McCardle if she was concerned that they're going to come out of this convention, the Libertarian party, without a strong candidate, at least without a well-known candidate, if that was a missed opportunity. And she really said, well, listen, we're going to set them up with that opportunity to go out there and make a pitch to the people. And Chase Oliver over the weekend going into it. I didn't know who he was. I've been researching him since the convention ran

Wilmer Leon (00:11:23):

For Congress from Georgia, didn't he?

Pasta Jardula (00:11:25):

Senate, he ran for Senate. That's the reason why they forced a runoff with Senator Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. Got it. I went back and watched his debate the other day. I think there was a seven or eight candidate debate. I can't remember exactly how many, but I watched a majority of at the Libertarian party, I was in and out of it, and he won that debate. And this guy is also campaigned in 50 states. So it tells you a lot. The Mees Caucus, where they dropped the ball is they had David Smith. He was going to be the chosen one comedian David Smith, very popular, well-known guy going to get the young vote, going to get the freedom vote, but he decided not to run. He dragged his feet a little bit, and it really kind of paralyzed me, says caucus, where they couldn't get a reputable candidate.

(00:12:13):

And a lot of people questioned the guy they were putting forth. His name was Mike Reinwald. He had a little bit of a Joe Biden moment on Saturday night where he kind of got lost on stage. He admitted that he had eaten an edible Dr. Wilmer. And it was kind of one of those moments where it was like, oh no. All right. And unfortunately for him, even though he was in the lead for most of the rounds of voting, he got sniped at the very end. And it just shows you campaigning. This guy, he went to 50 states and that old saying, you got to go out there and knock on doors. Well, you put the work in, you do the work and then you'll reap the benefits and Chase Oliver, whether you like him or you love him, you don't even know who he is.

(00:12:55):

He did the work to get on that stage and to get that nomination. And the more I look into him, even though I don't agree with him in a lot of views, and he has those pure libertarian views, I was one of the first to interview him when he won the nomination. But the more you look at him, the more you like him. And he is the first openly gay LGBT candidate. I don't think he goes around from what I've seen, I haven't seen a lot of video of him going around and pushing his sexuality. But he does mention it, and I think he's mentioning it as a way of campaigning. You know what I'm saying? I really think he's doing that because he understands that there's a vote out there. He can coalesce and get in there. The more I look at him, the more you like him, I think you're going to see this guy have a strong chance and make some noise.

(00:13:44):

I think he's going to surprise a lot of people. But right now the party is split and they're going to have to get behind stage or back doors or in the rooms, Dr. Wilma, they're going to have to find a way to come together. But they had a spirited convention. The Mees caucus was taken on the other caucuses and the other groups. So they're going to have to find a way. But there's a lot of good things to like about Chase. He's sharp, he's smart, he's energetic, he's willing to do the work. He speaks well. He has a strong message. And if he can fine tune that message and he can talk the leftist like myself in you, he can find a way to kind of create and coalesce that the group of the libertarians to come forth and get out there and hit the ground running.

(00:14:29):

He's not a known candidate, you know what I'm saying? But let's see what he can do. I would say he's an old school, typical libertarian. He will talk about the free market. I asked him about gain of function. I kind of threw the trick question out there for, Hey, would you ban gain of function on day one? Explain gain of function. For those that don't know well, gain of function was the testing they did with the coronavirus and other viruses where essentially, and once again, not a scientist, Dr. Wilma, but if you to create the cure, you got to create the virus and the disease itself. Well, that's really, really bad. And I don't think we need any more global pandemics. And this is the part where it's hard for libertarians what I'm saying. They don't want the government banning anything. And Chase is one of those guys and he says, I'd rather kick it to the free market so we can hold them more accountable.

(00:15:15):

Now, I'm going to tell you, I disagree with you 1000%, right? No, you ban it. You do not allow gain of function to be no testing for gain of function. No free market. You get rid of it. But once again, he's those old school libertarians where they just kick it. The government can't do anything. They don't want the government banning anything. They don't want the government dictating anything. Chase has that challenge talking to the populist to come out there and find the message that works. I asked him about Medicare for All, and he answered the question, and he's got to fine tune it a little bit more. He started off with saying, listen, I understand we don't want to have a system that leaves people behind, that makes people go debt on their medical bills. But once again, the government, you know what I'm saying?

(00:16:01):

We don't want government controlled healthcare program. They're just going to screw it up more. So he does have to find a way, and I think the Libertarian party has had years to do this, to understand that they have to take their message and kind of shape it in a way that leftists or conservatives can digest that message and understand it. Because I think there is a misconception that Libertarians just want the free market to be the free market to enrich themselves. No, they want to go into the free market. They don't want government, the tyrannical government telling them what to do. It's actually more of a compassion. They're removing the mechanism which keeps the little man down. Those regulations, they believe is about forming monopolies and keeping the little guy down. So he's got to fine tune that message and then stay on message, and we're going to see what he can do moving forward.

Wilmer Leon (00:16:55):

Well, I don't want to get into a libertarian debate, but there is a place for government in the process. But it starts with we the and your question about Medicare for All, for example, that is a perfect place for government to intervene to ensure that everybody has healthcare. But what you have to do is take the private sector interest out of it. We, the people have to control the government. But again, I don't want to get into a libertarian conversation. You mentioned Chase is gay. So talk about the demographics here because we know that, I don't know what the numbers are in terms of the number of gay people in the country, but there's a growing political population of gay people in the country, L-G-B-T-Q, people in the country, and there is money in that demographic. So talk about what was the demographic that you saw at the convention?

Pasta Jardula (00:18:08):

Well, I did see a small LGBT community, a trans community, a person identifying as a woman. It wasn't like a Democratic convention. It's completely different where people will probably wear pins at a rainbow pins and they'll let you know that they're gay. You didn't see that at the Libertarian party. And once again, as I went back and I watched a lot of speeches, there were times where Chase, he led with the fact that he was gay, but he didn't overplay that card. So I don't think that he will kind of push that message. But I think once again, he understands. It's a political tactical move to say that because he understands that there is a large gay demographic in the United States that will vote for him just because he is gay. And there's also a lot of women out there who are very compassionate towards gay people, and they will also vote for him because he is gay.

(00:19:04):

So I think he understands and sees that demographic. He's not going to lead with that. He's going to lead with more of his libertarian values and talk about the issues. And he does that well too. You know what I'm saying? He doesn't make it a point to tell you that he's gay. In fact, I didn't know he was gay. And so I went back and researched and I saw some tweets and all that. But that's the thing that they're attacking him on right now. His fellow libertarians have a problem with the fact that he said that the government shouldn't ban puberty blockers or transitioning medications. And there are libertarians out there where it's a little nuance right now that even though they believe the free market exists, but they also believe that their ultimate sovereignty rests within their own personal sovereignty, if that makes any sense.

(00:19:50):

That what they put in their body is more about their liberty than it is what they're allowed to do or not allowed to do within their workplace or what the employer's allowed to do. I mean, that message is out there. It's a little confusing. There's a little back and forth with some of those guys. There's a lot of libertarians that don't like that side of it. But once again, his belief it, it's not about his position on gay people, which makes him have that position. It's about his position on what government can and cannot do. It's traditional old school libertarian values. And I think he has to find a way to get that message forward.

Wilmer Leon (00:20:30):

So that takes me to the governing question, which is because when I hear libertarians, I hear a lot of theoretical. I hear a lot of ideological, but then I get to, okay, where's the rubber meet the road with this free market direction that they want to go? Okay, give me the practical applications of this. How do you govern? So with that, when you walked away from the convention, what were your thoughts on how are you going to govern if you win? Yeah,

Pasta Jardula (00:21:14):

Yeah. Well, you know how the feeling I got Dr. Wilma was that they're willing a lot of them to compromise. I did find libertarians that say, no, you don't have a home here. Pasta, you have socialist views. You're not allowed to come in our party, get out of our party. But the majority of the people you talk to, people like Angela McArdle, talk to people like MJ to Ray. You talk to people like Dave Smith, they're opening up that tent and saying, all right, we agree on a set of core values, so we won't agree on these values, but yeah, there's a home for you here to come here. So that kind of transitions into how they think they will govern, right? In other words, they're not going to get everything they want. The biggest cheer of the weekend was, and the Fed. And the Fed now more libertarians, they get into office.

(00:21:58):

That doesn't mean they're going to go complete Libertarian values all the way. They're going to shrink the government down to nothing. But I think they'll take a little, if you're like an ice sculptor, right? Little hacks of the ice here and there. And I think that message that they're sending out there is like, okay, we're not going to be able to eliminate government. We understand that, but we want to hack a lot of it off of that ice sculpture so that therefore somebody understands our message and they'll push for less government intervention. The people will understand that, and it will be part of their core ideology when they're choosing their politicians or they're choosing their government. They'll understand that they don't need too much government. And I got to agree with 'em. Dr. Wilma, I'm with you. I believe there's a role a government should play when you talk about our healthcare.

(00:22:48):

We got a sick care system, so I don't want the government overreaching too much. And when people say, well, pasta, what's your vision of Medicare for all? When you say that Medicare or healthcare is a human, right, what do you mean? Well, I'd like to see a compromise like a libertarian system where the poorest of the poor, so they don't get swept under the rug, get some sort of stipend, some sort of money where they can go tax write off maybe, and they can go choose the healthcare that they want, that they seek. Right now, you buy into the healthcare system, you got to take the healthcare that they say you have to have and you have to take. And that's what we learned during Covid. So I think that their overall ideology will somehow blend into the juice bowl, you know what I'm saying? And then become this different type of flavor, and they're not going to get everything they want. But this is a party, I think, with the leadership that they're willing to compromise somewhat as long as their core values are heard and understood.

Wilmer Leon (00:23:46):

Good. I'm going to say something very simplistic for the sake of making the point. When I listen to the libertarian message, I say, that's great for white folks. They can walk around all day and talk about liberty and freedom, and we don't need a government. But when you start talking to African-Americans, when you start talking to people of color who have been subjected to Jim Crow, who have been subjected and continue to be subjected to extra judicial action by police, when you have a citizenry that has to turn to the government for protection against racism and white supremacy in the United States, that libertarian message of as little government as possible, that starts, I believe, to cause problems as, for example, we're still fighting for voter protection. We're still fighting against gerrymandering. We're still so, or a woman's right to choose, for example. So again, that's very simplistic, but I think there is some validity to that point, your thoughts.

Pasta Jardula (00:25:10):

Well, I'm going to hook you up with a guy by the name of MJ Toray, and you should have a conversation with him and really talk to women, because I understand what you're talking about, about, I think you also understand too that the Democratic Party, right? They're the ones who exploit those things that you, oh,

Wilmer Leon (00:25:27):

There's no question about that. That's

Pasta Jardula (00:25:28):

Why you have Trump. That's why you have more black people voting for Trump more than ever before. And the liberty minded people within that party understand that. And they come to you and like, well, listen, you got it all wrong. We're not pushing back against the government. We don't want to see you do well as a black man, Dr. Wilmer is that we want to look at you as an individual with a mind and a brain and his own thoughts, and we want to protect that.

Wilmer Leon (00:25:53):

We want to, yeah. And tell that to the cop that's pulling my son over because he's 22 years old driving my Jaguar, and they don't think a black kid should be in a car like that. And now he's standing on the side of the road in fear of his life. Fair enough. See me as an, yeah, that all sounds great. That sounds like my girl by the Temptations. That all sounds, I love that song. But so anyway, okay. I just wanted to

Pasta Jardula (00:26:24):

Make, lemme just make a comment about that because that's important, right? Because fair enough for me it's very important. Yeah, but and when you make, but that's a

Wilmer Leon (00:26:32):

Reality. Yeah.

Pasta Jardula (00:26:33):

Yeah. But the Libertarians, they want to take away all forms of powers that oppress people in the market and in the criminal justice system. I mean, I've never met a group

Wilmer Leon (00:26:44):

Of people, people and see, that's a pipe dream. Yeah. That's like the dude walking on the stage and having had the edible. They're high.

Pasta Jardula (00:26:50):

No, they're not. They're

Wilmer Leon (00:26:52):

No wait minute. No, because it's not the law as it relates to oppression. It's the people that use the law. So you need the Supreme Court to say, you can't do that. You need the federal judiciary to say, no, you can't do that. So that's why I say there are instances where you need the government to protect the people, and that's a big issue I have with the Libertarians.

Pasta Jardula (00:27:30):

Well, I don't know where Dr. Wilmore where you're at right now, but the government is not protecting any of the people. I'm

Wilmer Leon (00:27:36):

Not saying that it's going

Pasta Jardula (00:27:38):

The opposite way.

Wilmer Leon (00:27:40):

But see, I'm not saying that it is. I agree with you that it's not, but that doesn't mean in my mind, that doesn't mean you get rid of the government. That means you force the government to do what the founding documents of the country said the government was supposed to do protect. They want free speech. Well, that's the first amendment, force the government to uphold those civil rights and civil liberties as opposed to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Pasta Jardula (00:28:19):

Well, I think that they don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think they're all about protecting those freedoms, especially when you talk about their civil liberties. But let's talk, for instance, about the case of Breonna Taylor, right? Yes. Okay. The libertarians who did the most work on the Senate floor, it was Rand Paul libertarian roots who said her name. Remember that? Say her name, say her name, and it was screaming out in the streets. Say her name. He's like, dude, I said her name where it meant most on the floor of the Senate. What are you doing over here? And this is the misconception. And I think that whole, that situation that Rand Paul got when he came out of that Republican convention and the BLM protestors and the Democratic protesters were around him and screaming at him, well, who pushed for no-knock warrants? At the end of the day, it was Rand Paul. It's the Libertarians who if you get rid of no-knock warrants, who's that going to protect? Most knock

Wilmer Leon (00:29:13):

Women who pushed against no-knock

Pasta Jardula (00:29:15):

Warrants? Yes. Against to push to, yeah,

Wilmer Leon (00:29:18):

That's not what

Pasta Jardula (00:29:18):

I meant to say. Who pushed to get rid

Wilmer Leon (00:29:20):

Of

Pasta Jardula (00:29:21):

The morning? My coffee hasn't kicked in yet, ladies and book, but who pushed to get rid of the no-knock warrants? It was Rand Paul. I have a guy, Josiah, who's a libertarian in Tennessee who's pushing for those same type of reforms. Now, at the end of the day, you're saying, we're getting rid of no-knock warrants for everybody, but who does affect most the black community people?

Wilmer Leon (00:29:44):

Because

Pasta Jardula (00:29:44):

That's who they use it against most, right? They start kicking down doors. So there's a way of, I think the libertarian mentality, there's a way of taking out the fangs and the teeth of the government and that allowing to exploit things and move things, even though you look at it as a civil liberties kind of change, it really does affect and help the black community more

Wilmer Leon (00:30:10):

Hire you. They need to hire you. And I mean this very, because when you just said take out the fangs of the government, that's a different message than eliminating the government. But again, I don't want to spend the whole time talking about the, well,

Pasta Jardula (00:30:31):

Dr. Wilma, last thing, when you shoot for the stars, you end up on the moon, right? You get something, you get some

Wilmer Leon (00:30:38):

Progress. Well, my dad always said, boy, when I tell you to shoot for, no, the adage is Shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you'll land amongst the stars. My father would always say, son, if you shoot for the moon, land on the goddamn moon. But anyway, anyway, that's what my dad would tell me. I love your

Pasta Jardula (00:31:01):

Dad.

Wilmer Leon (00:31:03):

I love a guy. Quickly, you mentioned Julian Assange, and I never want that name to be just, and I'm not attributing this to you, but I never want his name to be mentioned without the explanation of who he is and what he is suffering at the hands of this oppressive government and why we need to a couple minutes quickly. Julian Assange.

Pasta Jardula (00:31:30):

Well, I mean Julian Assange, there's a lot of talk. Gabriel shipped him. Julian's brother was at the Libertarian convention, and I think that Julian Assange, and that's the thing, I mentioned the name ea. I mentioned Leonard Peltier because they had their big three. They had Julian Assange, they had Edward Snowden, they had Ross Ulbrich right behind us over there. And they even got Donald Trump to mention that he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbrich. And I think that was amazing to do. So I think he's been jailed unjustly. But Julian Asan minute

Wilmer Leon (00:32:03):

Really quickly. So Trump's speech was live. He didn't send in a tape. He wasn't at the convention, but he

Pasta Jardula (00:32:13):

Did. He was at the convention? No, he

Wilmer Leon (00:32:15):

Came to the, okay, my mistake,

Pasta Jardula (00:32:17):

My

Wilmer Leon (00:32:18):

Mistake, my mistake. Okay, go ahead. My mistake. No, he

Pasta Jardula (00:32:20):

Was at the convention. He came to the convention. In fact, he wasn't seeking the nominee because he can't because he's already on the Republican tickets. So he couldn't do that. But he was seeking the votes, and he understood that they were going to come out of that convention with somebody who wasn't that popular. And let me tell you something, that I really gave it up to Donald Trump, because that was not going to be a friendly room. He got booed by a lot of libertarians, but the Libertarians at least sat there. They listened to him. They cheered a little bit when he said something he liked and they booed him when he said something, he didn't. But at the end of his speech, he mentioned Ross. Now, I think a lot of people who went in there Trumpers, Dr. Wilmer, because you had your libertarians that were there, but you had a bunch of Trumpers that showed up too to see him. When those Trumpers went in there, they saw free Ross. They were like, is Ross Perot in jail or something? Didn't even know who Ross Ulbrich was. So it's the truth though, doctor, it's the truth.

(00:33:10):

They learned something about who Ross Ulbrich is, and at the end of the speech, he said he would commute his sentence. The Libertarian Party was able to get those concessions. And that's the amazing thing of what's going on in that party right now, because they are the third party and people are sick and tired of this government and what they're doing. So they're looking to this Liberty party, and that's what I mean about the shooting for the Stars ending up in the moon, whatever the case may be, is that they understand right now that their message of liberty, their message of personal sovereignty is ringing true more than ever. So they came into there, they learned who Ross Ulrich was, and more than anything, it was amazing that they got Donald Trump to say, okay, you know what? I'll make a statement. I'll commute Ross Ulrich's sentence, and he's serving, I think he's sentenced to three life sentence. He's already served 11 years, the kid. So I mean, I think it's really powerful and it can show you what a third party can do if they wield their power properly. And that's what that came out of that convention.

Wilmer Leon (00:34:06):

Back to Julian Assange.

Pasta Jardula (00:34:08):

Yes. Oh, I'm so sorry. My bad.

Wilmer Leon (00:34:11):

Go

Pasta Jardula (00:34:11):

Ahead. Well, Assange talked about Assange is one of the guys. They understand that's why they had Gabriel ship in there. They understand what's going on with Julian Assange. And there were some people I think that either well

Wilmer Leon (00:34:23):

Explain to my audience outside of the Libertarian convention, explain to the audience why Julian Assange's name and why Julian Assange is so significant and why he is being tortured by the United States government through Britain.

Pasta Jardula (00:34:44):

Well, I mean, not to go back to the convention, but I think that's why Donald Trump couldn't pardon Julian Assange because of what Assange has done. It's not that Julian Assange as a person is a whistleblower who exposed the government and the military for their war crimes. It's the mechanism in which he created WikiLeaks itself in which whistleblowers can get that information out there. And at times, a lot of times, the whistleblower doesn't even have to know who they're blowing the information to and understand that it will get out there, which will protect both parties, but that mechanism itself in which it shines a light on what the government and the military is doing. And more than anything, Dr. Wilmer, the government doesn't want you to know you, the people, what they are doing. They want to operate in back doors. That's why they are jailing this guy and keeping him quiet. But it's not just about jailing him and torturing him to, it's about sending a message to everyone out there. I said this before, I'll say it again. They're not coming for Julian Assange. They're coming. They're

Wilmer Leon (00:35:45):

Coming.

Pasta Jardula (00:35:46):

All of us. They're using Julian Assange to get to us because if they can charge somebody under the espionage act for journalism, then they can silence anybody and everybody at all times. You can be some lonely dude at home sending a tweet out that's powerful, and there can be a knock on your door and they can come arrest you for opening your mouth and exposing the government. That's how significant Julian Assange is, and that's why he needs to be freed. It's not just about freeing one man. It's about freeing a society and saying a society has a right to hold their government accountable. That's what Julian Assange means to me.

Wilmer Leon (00:36:23):

So he's languishing right now in Belmar Prison in isolation. He's been in isolation for like seven years, and the United States has been asking Britain to extradite him. He's an Australian citizen, not an American citizen, but the United States wants to charge him in violating the Espionage Act because he's a journalist through WikiLeaks. He has published a lot of incredibly embarrassing and war crime information about acts committed by members of the United States government and the United States is using him as the example, not only to the New York Times and the Washington Post and the LA Times, but to programs like Pasta to Go and connecting the dots. Those of us who are using alternative methods of media to speak the truth to the world, and they want to be sure that the government wants to be sure that they can control the narrative. They call it former President Obama called it the New York Times conundrum.

(00:37:28):

He did not want to persecute Assange because he knew that major American newspapers had used information from Assange, had published information from Assange. So if you attack him, you got to attack them. And so he was going to let Julian Assange go about his day. Donald Trump decided he would try to extradite Julian Assange, and now Joe Biden is doubling down on the Trump administration decision to extradite Assange. So I found a point on that. Honestly, they don't want Assange to set foot on American soil, right? Because if he comes here, all bets are off. So again, I never want to mention have his name mentioned and not explain to those who don't know why the name of Julian Assange is so significant.

Pasta Jardula (00:38:27):

And Dr. Wilmer, they said he won his appeal, but what did he win more time in Belmont Prison, right? He won

Wilmer Leon (00:38:33):

The right to appeal with his appeal. He won the right, and what they want to do is they want to drag this process out for as long as they can, hoping that he dies or goes utterly insane in Belmar, in solitary confinement. They don't want him here as much as they are trying to play the cards as though they do want him here. No, they want him to die there. Okay, so with that, oh, so switching gears now, let's play word association. I'm going to throw out a name and you tell me what comes to mind. Nikki Haley,

Pasta Jardula (00:39:15):

War,

Wilmer Leon (00:39:18):

War and more war.

(00:39:22):

She just visited Israel and she signed her name on artillery shells staying saying, finish them. Finish them. We love Israel. Love Nikki Haley. Now, Donald Trump has come out and said, it was like around the 11th or 12th of May, somebody from his campaign came out and said that she was on the short list of potential VP nominees. Then Donald Trump came out on his whatever account he has, truth social account, and said, no, that ain't going to happen. So what is she doing? Is she still vying for the vp? Is she vying for 2028? Is she vying for the role of Secretary of Defense? What is she doing?

Pasta Jardula (00:40:20):

She's earning a paycheck and she's doing what she's supposed to be doing for the Hudson Think Tank. A lot of people don't understand who the Hudson think Tank is. It's a NGO think tank that is promoting war all over the place, as can be, and all they do is promote war, war, war. Well, she's now on their board. She's now a representative of them, and that's what she's doing. She's appeasing the people who are aligning her pockets. Let's not forget that at one point when she left office, she was almost broke, but then all of a sudden she changed her red rhetoric. She upped it up the war mechanism. She turned the dial up to nine, and now all of a sudden she's got the pockets filled. She's been made straight or square or whatever the term is and stuff. She's getting paid to spew the rhetoric that she's spewing, and that's what she's doing. She's now part of that Steve Bannon Hudson Think Tank Institute where they're just paid to be neocons war mongers, and that's what she's doing. She's doing it for the love of money.

Wilmer Leon (00:41:28):

When we look at Rafa, so when I say Rafa, what does pasta say?

Pasta Jardula (00:41:38):

Dr. Wiler, I was going to ask if you can give me one of those therapy sessions. I don't know what kind of doctor you are because I'm not stunned. I'm not shocked, but I'm almost numb at this point, right? They just won't stop. There is no such thing as a red line. They started their bombing campaign, the IDF did in the north. They moved everybody down to the south. They told people to continuously move. Now they got 'em in an area where they can't go anywhere. It's tent city and they're bombing, and it just, I'm numb to what's going on. Every time I hear this stuff or I see an image on Instagram or X or TikTok, it doesn't surprise me anymore, and I'm scared about that. I really am. It makes me think that where are we in this society? I understand that we are unplugged for what's going on outside our borders, but you can't avoid this.

(00:42:35):

You can't ignore this, and I don't know what to do. Well, what we can do to shake people to the core and make them wake up and understand what's going on, and we need to somehow stop this. I was a little disappointed that there were protests for Israel and Gaza, right? Palestinian pro-Palestinian protests, but there were no protests for the Ukrainians and what's going on, the people of the Donbass in Russia, Ukraine. I mean, I understand that a lot of people aren't aware of what's really going on and how this started, but all in all, I mean, I'm shocked that nobody's waking up and screaming about this. They're bombing tents, refugee camps, sending people on fire. You're seeing fathers and mothers pulling their children out of wreckage and rubble. I mean, what's going to happen here? I think we talked about this before the show.

(00:43:33):

It's like there's no red line for these people, even though they act as if there is one. And the thing about it is, is that when it comes to Donald Trump or it comes to Joe Biden, it doesn't make a difference who gets in office. The song is still going to remain the same. They're going to let Israel do what they want. And as a matter of fact, they're not just going to let Israel do what they want. Ladies and gentlemen, they're going to use your tax dollars to fund their bombing campaign. So I'm just at a loss. I don't know what to do, what to say, how to wake people up. But you know what? As long as people can go on with their lives and they're here in America and they don't have to worry about bombs being dropped on them, I think they'll largely ignore what's happening on the other side of the globe. And it is just, the only word I can use is sad.

Wilmer Leon (00:44:21):

Today on the 29th of May on the Washington Post, there's a piece says, the Biden administration says that Israel's bombing of Rafa did not cross Biden's red line. And the reason is because Biden's red line is based upon a ground assault, not an heir assault.

(00:44:55):

Joe Biden, and this isn't partisan, this is humanitarian. We're not talking parties, we're talking people. We're talking humans. We're talking women and children. And Joe Biden told Netanyahu last week, if you go into Rafa, that's a red line. We will not allow that red line to be crossed. So the IDF bombs, to your point, a refugee camp, in fact, it was called a safe zone. These people were told, go here to avoid annihilation. Go here and you will be safe. They went where they were told to go, and they're being exterminated, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the spokespeople for the State Department say, no, that does not cross our red line. Because we said to Israel, no ground assault.

Pasta Jardula (00:46:24):

You're just as lost for words as I

Wilmer Leon (00:46:26):

Am. When you look, I got a lot of books. I got a lot of books in here. Yes, I got a lot of books in my house, and I've read a good number of the books that are here. I don't have the language. I don't have, can't find in any of the, I would call it barbarism, but I don't want to insult barbarians. I mean,

Pasta Jardula (00:46:55):

Yeah,

Wilmer Leon (00:46:56):

Go ahead. Go

Pasta Jardula (00:46:57):

With the kangaroo courts that they have for Julian Assange, but we don't want to insult kangaroos. Once again, this government, I mean, I think the number one message that we have to understand so we can try to find a solution to this problem is, number one, we understand that there never will be a red line for the United States when it comes to Israel. They're going to allow them to do what they want to do. A lot of our congressional members, I'm going to say most, but a lot of them have dual citizenship with Israel.

Wilmer Leon (00:47:28):

They're, they're trying to bring Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress.

Pasta Jardula (00:47:35):

Well, they're paid off by apec. They're paid off by those lobbyists. I mean, I don't know what we can do at this point and understand. I mean, and to hear to me, I just listened to the rhetoric that comes out of this whole situation.

Wilmer Leon (00:47:52):

Wait minute, wait minute, a minute. I got to make one more point. Please, please. Because when I say the speaker of the house, whatever his name is, Mike Johnson.

Pasta Jardula (00:48:05):

Yes.

Wilmer Leon (00:48:06):

Mike Johnson is offering for the fourth time to bring Netanyahu before a joint session of Congress, the leader of the Senate.

Pasta Jardula (00:48:24):

Mitch McConnell?

Wilmer Leon (00:48:25):

No, no, no, no, no. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer's in on the game. Folks need to understand a state visit as with Ruto from Kenya that took place last week to be able to speak before a joint session of Congress for a foreign leader, that is the ultimate reward. They all, just about every world leader would love either a state visit or to speak before joint says. So for Joe Biden to say, I've got a red line for Joe Biden to say, we're not going to send these artillery shells, and then to turn around and send 2000 pound bombs or whatever it is, it's bs. It means the word means zero. And when your language means nothing, pasta what you got.

Pasta Jardula (00:49:28):

Well, I don't know what you got. You got a whole bunch of, I don't want to use the word, it's too early in the morning, and I don't think it's a PG 13 word. Let's just put it that way because that's the only way to describe it. But I think people

Wilmer Leon (00:49:42):

Excellent is how about that?

Pasta Jardula (00:49:45):

Let's go with that so we can go on the air with it and we won't get trouble by the FCC. Listen, it kind of reminds me, do you remember when Zelinsky was going to Congress for the first time and Nancy Pelosi was walking across the floor all giddy with a flag? I mean, to me, it made me sick because I understood what was going on. It's never about race. It's never about religion. They might throw those excuses out there, just like right now.

Wilmer Leon (00:50:12):

It's never about democracy.

Pasta Jardula (00:50:13):

Yeah, it's about money. It's about geopolitics. It's about leadership. It's about control, understanding that people have to use the plebs. They don't care about you, and they're going to, no matter what they do, they're going to do what they want to do. I mean, the majority of people in the United States are overwhelmingly against this war in Russia, Ukraine, and what are they doing? Dr. Wilmer? They're trying to send more weapons in money. They don't care when it comes to Rafa. I heard some clown on the radio the other day saying, well, the IDF dropped all these leaflets out there warning people. They were going, wait a second. Where are they going to go? Maybe they can go by the beach. Maybe they can go by the beach. There's nowhere left for them to go at this point

Wilmer Leon (00:51:00):

Into the Sinai Desert. Yes, that's their, if Egypt allows them in only into the desert,

Pasta Jardula (00:51:11):

That's it. That's it. Or they can get on that pier and pretty soon and then ship them on out of there. I think that might be the last thing that we see. I think that's what that a lot of that pier was all about. It was about, and that's what this war was always about. In my mind. It wasn't about Hamas. It wasn't about fighting terrorism. It was about gentrification and ethnic cleansing because they want that land.

Wilmer Leon (00:51:37):

What did Jared Kushner say? What did Jared

Pasta Jardula (00:51:41):

Property once they get it all cleaned up, right?

Wilmer Leon (00:51:43):

Property, what is Donald Trump? How did Donald Trump make his money? Real estate, this is a real estate deal that the administration, it doesn't matter which one, because they've all been involved in the same game. This is just an escalation of the same game. It's a real estate deal.

Pasta Jardula (00:52:14):

Yeah, but Dr. Wilmer, I mean, you got to admire the ruling classes, tactics and whatnot. I mean, education wise, how much do we learn about the Holocaust, about the most oppressed people in the world, and now they are a protected class Jewish people, and that's not being antisemitic. It's just so many years of understanding and learning and being taught about World War II and the Holocaust.

Wilmer Leon (00:52:42):

God's chosen people,

Pasta Jardula (00:52:43):

FISM is allowed, is conditioned to people. It's programmed and conditioned to people to accept an actual genocide and ethnic cleansing going on right now. So I mean, you got to admire the tactics in which they use. They've set the table for this. They brought the steak down, but they already had the salt and pepper there with the steaks off the knives and the forks, and now they're just sitting down and eating.

Wilmer Leon (00:53:07):

In fact, folks should go back and look up. There was a piece about a week or maybe 10 days ago, again, in the Washington Post, and I hate to keep quoting the post, but sometimes they do get the story right, where they exposed New York, mayor Eric Adams, they got access to a WhatsApp stream of communication where a number of billionaires, the former CEO of Starbucks, Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell computers, they were through WhatsApp communicating with Eric Adams about going into Columbia, doing away with those protesters because they're afraid of losing control of the narrative. And this comes to mind, based upon what you just said about what we've been indoctrinated with, what we have been taught. They're afraid that those protests are going to result in losing control of the narrative. I believe they've already lost control of such and that they're gasping. It's the last kicks of a dying mule, which are the most dangerous. And I think that's what we're seeing play itself out. Your thoughts, Craig Pasta, our doula,

Pasta Jardula (00:54:32):

The last kicks of a dying mule are the most dangerous. Wow. You're so right about that. I love that. Do you mind if I borrow that and use that? That's a great one.

Wilmer Leon (00:54:40):

You are more than welcome. It isn't mine.

Pasta Jardula (00:54:43):

That's the thing. You know what they say? Dr. Wilman thieves steal, but geniuses like yourself, they borrow. I'm going to borrow that from you. And I've been saying this somewhat similar. Similar, it's that when people are put in desperate measures, they make desperate moves and desperate decisions, and these are going to be the most desperate of decisions. But there's a book out there that I peaked at years, many years ago, and it made me realize, and I bet the book, because a friend of mine told me, because I was told around the dinner table that, oh, when it came to slavery that, oh, it was the tribe leaders in Africa that sold out their own people. And there was a book called Lives. My father told me, I think it was called, I can't remember. That's

Wilmer Leon (00:55:26):

It.

Pasta Jardula (00:55:26):

Yeah, that's it. But this information is deep down embedded in us, right? And it's going to take a long time to get everybody programmed. And the problem is now, today is where we are at and what we're doing right now, right? We're doing these conversations as independent media on the outer limits because the narrative is always controlled by the government and the mainstream media. They work hand in hand. So no matter what for us to get our information out there, and this is what we need, we need more people. It takes a village, right? We need more people out there singing and screaming our message, getting people to understand, we got to deprogramming, deprogram the programming that's already in place, and that's just going to take some time, and we just got to keep at it no matter what. I think we're the last line of defense. The NIDA jenko and all the other type of mechanisms, the silence people for the disinformation, they are the disinformation themselves, and we just have to come with facts and figures and let people know the truth and try as hard as we can to do so.

Wilmer Leon (00:56:34):

I'm glad that you said that because as we get out, as we wrap this up, folks that listen to my SiriusXM show, for example, I have people on like Miko, ped and lathe, oo, from Lebanon and all kinds of folks, and in fact, I got to get you on inside the issues. So I'll get calls from Zionists and I'll get calls from NeoCon saying, the show IST Balanced Wilmer, you had Miko pellet on. Or I'll have a rabbi on to talk about the Torah and why, according to rabbinical law, the state of Israel isn't supposed to exist, so on and so forth. And I'll tell him, well, no, I'm the counterbalance.

(00:57:23):

You will not find balance in this discussion. I am the counterbalance. If you want that narrative, read the New York Times. Read the Washington Post. Turn on Rachel Maddow. Listen to Joy Reed. You'll get all of that chatter on the mainstream. You want to get a balance to that. Then turn on pasta to go turn on connecting the dots. This is where there's a reason you don't hear Dr. Gerald Horn or see Dr. Gerald Horn on M-S-N-B-C. There's a reason you don't see Dr. Richard Wolf on M-S-N-B-C or Dr. Linwood Tahi, because they don't want you to have that information. Take me out, Craig Jara. First of all, where do people go to experience the brilliance we know as pasta?

Pasta Jardula (00:58:25):

I mean, please, I'm turning red here, and thank you so much for Dr. Wiler for having me on. I do love listening to you on all your shows, and I'm truly honored to come on with you. I really do mean that, but I will leave everybody with this because that's something we hear all the time. A lot of people said the same thing when we did these independent media shows. Oh, you're only telling one side of the story. It's kind of funny how I don't hear you saying the same thing. Same towards the mainstream media, which the government and the mainstream media, they control the message. They control the narrative

Wilmer Leon (00:59:01):

And the messengers.

Pasta Jardula (00:59:02):

They control everything. The messenger. So I mean, it's kind of crazy, and it is hypocritical when they say these things. We are the counter narrative to what has been going on because at the end of the day, the government, the mainstream media, all they are is the propaganda out there, the ruling class, and they're going to say whatever they want to say to keep their narrative intact, and their people are just lucky out there that it's not just us. This is a movement. Like I said, it takes a village that there's more of us coming out of this whole situation. We're going to have more of our voices out there. We're going to have more of the truth, more of a pushback. And at the end of the day, I think what we've created here, even though we're operating in small spaces, our message is going to continue to grow. So I'm not going to stop and I'm going to keep pushing, and I'm going to keep getting the message out there. And thank you so much, Dr. Wilmer for having me on. I've had an amazing time.

Wilmer Leon (01:00:01):

Craig Pasta Jar, doula, where do people go for am Wake Up. I know that's on Rock. Fin Pasta to Go, where do they go?

Pasta Jardula (01:00:11):

Well, I only dip into am, wake Up every once in a while now, so I'm not doing that show full time. But Pasta to Go, I have on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I do it on Rumble, I do it on YouTube. We have a Twitter. I always tell people to go to my personal Twitter because it's easy to remember at yo pasta. Yo pasta. Just go over to at Yo pasta. You can find all the links to all the fun stuff we do. We like to get the boots on the ground. I got a small team, but I got an effective team, and we're going to Mexico. Dr. Wilmer, they got an election going on that they do. And as you know, the security state and the government is trying to find a way to go into Mexico without their permission to go after what they say is the cartels.

Wilmer Leon (01:00:53):

Lindsey Graham wants to bomb Mexico.

Pasta Jardula (01:00:55):

Yes, he does. He does. And I patch McCain, right? That dude, Crenshaw. He wants to go into Mexico, a sovereign nation whenever they wants. And the Green Berets. So we're going to go out there and we're going to talk about their election and we're going to provide some transparency to show they actually have a government of and by the people and we have no right to go in there.

Wilmer Leon (01:01:19):

Craig Pasta jar doula, my man. Thank you so much for joining me today. Greatly, greatly appreciated.

Pasta Jardula (01:01:26):

Thank you so much, Dr. Willer.

Wilmer Leon (01:01:28):

Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wiler Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow. Please subscribe, leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below. Go to the Patreon account and make a contribution. These things aren't cheap, and again, you can find all the links below in the show description. Folks, remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. As I tell you all the time, talk without analysis is just chatter and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out

Announcer (01:02:25):

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Wilmer Leon (00:00:00):

As I'm sure most of you know by now, according to Iran State Media, Iran's President Ibrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdulah, have died in a helicopter crash. There are a number of questions that this unfortunate turn of events presents. Was this simply an unfortunate accident as their helicopter traveled in dense fog along Iran's border with Azerbaijan, was the helicopter taken down? What's next for Iran? What's next for the region?

Announcer (00:00:43):

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Wilmer Leon (00:00:51):

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode of this program, my guests and I have probing, provocative and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between the events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze these events that impact the global village in which we live. For insight into these issues, let's go to Beirut Lebanon. Let my guest, he's an award-winning broadcaster and independent journalist based in Beirut Lebanon. He's a policy consultant with the Community Media Advocacy Center, and you can find him and his work at Free Palestine dot video. He's Laith Marouf Laith. As always, welcome back.

Laith Marouf (00:01:53):

Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be with you.

Wilmer Leon (00:01:56):

So let me start with who was former president Ibrahim Raisi. The western media describes him in less than glowing terms as a religious hardliner. He's seen as a potential successor to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Hamani. He was a former judge and allegedly a member of what the West calls the death commission, which forcibly disappeared and traditionally executed in secret thousands of political dissidents. Those are the allegations who was former President Ibrahim Raisi.

Laith Marouf (00:02:41):

Well, definitely he was part of the first generation that lived the Islamic Revolution and were on the front lines during the massacres that Iraq and the West commissioned in Iran, the use of chemical weapons against Iranians paid for by the Germans and the us. So he has that credential of living that revolution, and he was a judge and the accusations that are keep on being repeated there of thousands of prisoners being executed, we're talking about the terrorists that are part of the Mujah, the MEK terrorist organization that was housed in Iraq and funded by the West and is now housed in Albania that was responsible for the killing of almost 70,000 people in Iran through their terror campaign. That includes the killing of ministers and the government officials at the time. So the accusation against him is that he crushed the vessels, the terrorists that work for the CIA, that's his accusation against him and otherwise he was a judge and very respected within the country because of this background. Actually, whatever accusation that the west has against him as a discrediting thing, in reality, it is a positive thing for his reputation in Iran because of how he defended Iran against the terrorist.

(00:04:31):

The hype that we saw over the last month or so in the media about Rasi being going to be the next ayatollah after Hamina steps down, that there is no truth to that in terms of any speaking of that in Iranian society or Iranian media. In fact, we should take it as an indicator of that he was going to be assassinated. There's something that say it has the Sid Hasan Astra, the Secretary General of Hezbollah after the assassination of General Soleimani in 2020 by Trump. So Sid Hasan Asra a speech. He spoke about how when the media in the West suddenly gives attention to a leader in the region out of the blue and start giving them very high stature, that is maybe true, but it's not. That's an indicator of an assassination coming and that he spoke to General Soleimani the day before he was assassinated while he was in Beirut about that and warned him as he was flying to Baghdad on a domestic flight that this is actually even more worrisome that he was on a domestic flight given all this attention. So now we see kind of the same thing happening here, all this hype being pumped about Raisi in the month before the assassination, specifically since the retaliation of Iran against the assassination of its diplomats in the Damascus. So I see it as actually an indicator that he was going to be assassinated and now that's what actually happened.

Wilmer Leon (00:06:26):

To your point that this was an assassination, there are a couple of things that as soon as I heard that the helicopter went down that came to mind. One was, was it taken down? Apparently there were three helicopters flying in formation and his helicopter was one of the three, and it seems as though it just dropped out of the sky. They keep talking about the terrain, they keep talking about the fog. I know some US military trained helicopter pilot certified helicopter pilots. The first thing I did was call them and ask them when you heard fog, when you heard terrain, when you heard the helicopter went down. I said, what's the first thing that came to your mind? They all said, oh, they took that thing out the sky and they said, first of all, they all said to me as certified pilots, we would never have crashed our helicopter. That just was not going to happen short of some catastrophic mechanical failure. They said, which by the way, we are trained to deal with. They told me the quality of pilots that they have in Iran that those pilots, they say this goes all the way back to when Iran was an ally of the United States during the Shaw's time and that the protocols that were in place then are many of the same protocols that they follow today.

(00:08:03):

So there was a lot of information opinion that they gave to me, which said, and then they even mentioned, you got to understand the MEK along that region, that Azerbaijan is an ally of Israel or that there are elements within Azerbaijan that are so connect some of those dots for me please. Are these just the opinions of Ill-informed individuals or they said for the fact that the thing dropped out the sky without it, even a mayday call indicates that something was wrong here?

Laith Marouf (00:08:43):

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned a lot of important things. So first off, obviously there was no made call as you said. So we don't have any information about some problem happening on the helicopter. The other is that there was two other helicopters with it and they continued to reach their target and destination and they reached it. That's the question also, why didn't they stop and fly back and look for the other helicopter? That's a big indicator that there's something wrong that happened there that is not just a regular crash. The other thing is that the Iranian government took a very long time to really show us what happened and tell us that Rasi and his companions were dead. In fact, the hours after the crash, the Minister of Internal Security told the whole world that they received two calls from survivors on the plane, on the helicopter, and later on all the way around 2:00 AM PA on time, again, the minister of internal claim that they received a call from one of the crew members on the helicopter all the way that late saying that they were hearing the ambulances or the sirens in the area.

(00:10:13):

So while all of this was happening, the minute the helicopter crash was announced and called a soft landing, and then it took so long, I mean, this is Iran that has satellites. This is Iran that has drones that can fly and reach Israel and hit their targets thousands of kilometers away. I thought in my mind that either from the first minute that Raisi and his team were assassinated and they're dead, and the Iranians were delaying the announcements so they can tidy up their house and prepare for the transition and think about what they want to do if there's an actual assassination or that the Iranians were hiding the fact that he was alive and they were just milking it for support. This is what I thought during the whole night as they were doing this search, and obviously for them to finally tell us they're dead, that's in me confirmed that there was an assassination.

(00:11:21):

None of the stories that came from the Iranian government to the media during the quote search made any sense. And so now we know they're killed. I believe the Iranian government knows that they were killed and how they were killed, and I think given the fact that the Israelis have a tendency of assassinating political leaders as retaliation for their failures on the battlefield, this is historic. Look at how even recently, look at how they assassinated Hamas leadership in Beirut because they were failing on the ground in Gaza and they failed in the battle with Iran after they targeted the embassy in Damascus and Iran landed a huge blow on them and they were not able to retaliate. So their only usual behavior is to assassinate political leaders, and that's what we saw. The question is because Netanyahu attempted last month when attacking the embassy to drag the United States into a war because he sees Israel losing the battle on the ground.

(00:12:47):

He sees that Israel cannot even fight Hezbollah if a bigger war starts with Lebanon. He needs the United States to be around on the battlefield with him. He wanted to drag Iran into that war with the attack on the embassy, and they didn't retaliate in a way that created a war. And now he did this to try to drag again Iran into this war. But this is not what Iran wants. Iran has a clear plan with the access of resistance that we're seeing unfold over the last seven months, which is to chisel away at Israel slowly and cook it like a frog, a live frog boiling where it collapses internally, where all this support from the world collapses externally, and there's no need for a war for this Zionist colony to collapse, but Netanyahu wants a war. So I think the Iranians are not going to admit that this is an assassination because if they admit this an assassination, they have no choice but to carpet bomb the hell out of the Zionist colony, and that would derail the plan and will take it to the stage that Netanyahu wants it. So I think they're going to just bite the bullet and continue on their set plan and will not be dragged into, it's very sad. I mean, it's very sad that this is going to be what's going to happen, but that's the only thing path forward I see. Otherwise, if Iran decides to retaliate, we're going to be in World War three immediately.

Wilmer Leon (00:14:24):

And I think it's important for people to understand that there's a much longer term vision here, that the axis of resistance, they have a different worldview. We know that if the situation were reversed and either if somebody had shot an Netanyahu's playing out the sky or if this had happened to Tony Blinken while he was traveling in the region, that the bombs would be exploding by now. But I think there are economic concerns here that those in the region are taking into account war. As I said to Godfather, war is messy business war is very expensive. And with their economies under sanctioned, with their now finding ways to move and operate without the sanctions to go into a war right now, whether it's the Russian economy, whether it's the Chinese economy, whether it's the Iranian economy, they don't want that economic stress on their economies. They also know that I think going into a World War which, or at least a regional conflict, would shut off oil transport through both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, which would then collapse the world economy. They don't want do that. I don't think I'm conflating their concern for world welfare. I think they're looking much, much longer. Am I connecting some dots here?

Laith Marouf (00:16:04):

Yes, yes, you definitely are. And although most of the access of resistance and China, Russia, and most of Africa and Latin America want to see an end to American imperialism, no one wants the whole world to burn in the process. Okay? It's no one's interest to have a World War. People want to clip the wings of the United States, bring it back to its natural size, and the same thing for Europe and balance humanity. There's no interest in these countries to see the United States burn and Europe become a wasteland. And so there's the difference. The difference is people in the south and the East just want the foot of America off their neck. They don't want to put their own foot on America's neck. And so we will see, as we are seeing right now, both in the battlefield in Ukraine, or what's happening around Taiwan or what's happening here right now in the Western Asia battlefield is the constant attempt by the access of resistance and others around the world to take things slow, to allow time to be the biggest weapon.

Wilmer Leon (00:17:33):

Hence the adage. You have the watches, we have the time. So with all of this, what's next for Iran?

Laith Marouf (00:17:43):

Yeah, I mean, we already know that they have to have an election within 50 days. That was announced yesterday, and the current vice president was appointed as temporary president until elections happen. Iran as a constitutional democracy will fill these positions as fast as possible, even though these individuals leave a huge gap behind them because of their knowledge and portfolios. abd Ian being the youngest foreign affairs minister of Iran's history, and because of his relations in Africa and Latin America and Rasi with the relationships that he built. So where should expect that this is going to happen this election. But look at one thing, the Israelis, at least what they got from this is at least now a distraction for the next three, five days in Iran and World News while they intensify the massacres in Gaza and in the West Bank last night, for instance, eight people were killed in Janine, so Palestinians.

(00:19:06):

So there's a lot that we can't really predict what's going to happen. The other thing is that it's very possible that Iran, although they don't announce that this was an assassination and that they don't put the finger on Israel, that they actually conduct clandestine actions that are in kind and something nasty happens to some Israeli official, and nobody can say who it is. So those are possibilities. But I think the most probable thing is that Iran will try to stay the course that the support fronts in Lebanon and Yemen will intensify rapidly to a different level.

Wilmer Leon (00:19:49):

That's my next question. What happens in the region?

Laith Marouf (00:19:53):

Yes. Yes. So we're already seeing an intensification even before this assassination. We had a change in the tactics on the Lebanese front with Hezbollah conducting multilayered complex operations that include drones, guided missiles, and achieving huge hits. Much of the air defenses that Israel has downing two huge surveillance balloons. One of them is the biggest in the world, this Zeppelin balloon, there's only two of them in the Zionist colony, one around the Una reactor, one in the north. And the Israelis had put this one in the north because of the destruction of all of their surveillance equipment on the border with Lebanon. So to see Hezbollah not only down these drones, but also film the after from, sorry, not only down these balloons, but also film with surveillance, drones after effect of the destruction and coming back with their images, 100% high HD 4K images of the, so we're already passed into a new stage now in Lebanon, and I expect it to only intensify. And similarly with Yemen, I think that in the next 24 hours, we will see Yemen starting to attack shipping in the Mediterranean, and that will add another sea under Yemeni sovereignty. It's not only going to be the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean, you'll have also the Mediterranean, and that will be the smartest thing that Iran can do with the access of resistance is to intensify the battle on these fronts without addressing the issue of the assassination of Raisi.

Wilmer Leon (00:21:55):

When we look at the recent dynamics, and what I mean by that is if we go back to October 7th, in fact not even that, I'm sorry. What I mean is China gets involved with the Saudis, the Saudis wind up talking to Iran. There's reproach mom between Iran and the Saudis haven't heard much from the Crown Prince Ben Salman. In all of these most recent developments, are there things coming out of Saudi Arabia that are not being reported in the West, particularly now as it relates to the death of former President Raisi? And is Bin Salman concerned about his longevity?

Laith Marouf (00:22:54):

I think everybody is right now worried about their longevity. We've seen the assassination attempt on the Czech president, so we saw the attempted coup, all of this within 24 hours in Congo. Again, American Israeli mercenaries trying to overthrow the president of La Congo. So we're right now entering a new stage in the global battle, not only in Western Asia, we're seeing the West do the maximum they can with the hybrid war. So it's not only a media war, it's not only a sanctions war, it's not only direct confrontations or military confrontations. We're seeing these assassinations and cos and so on, intensified by the United States and its vessel states. So the Saudis issued an official statement condolences to Iran on the assassination. In fact, all of the Gulf countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Emirate, Oman, Saudi, all of them send their condolences. There is three days of mourning in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in India, and in Tajikistan and in Turkey. And this is things that are unheard of. Maybe it was expected as Syria or Iraq, but Lebanon and Pakistan and Turkey, this is so we can see that the whole region is worried about the results of this assassination. What does it also mean to, what are the rules of the game now? What is allowed to be done? Because if you are allowed to assassinate presidents now, this means there's no rules.

Wilmer Leon (00:25:05):

Lemme just quickly say to that point, that reminds me of a comment that President Putin made maybe a year ago as people were talking about, oh, is Russia going to assassinate the president of Ukraine? And Putin said, no. He said, no, no, no, we don't do that. So people need to understand that there's a, I hate to use it. There's a decorum, there's a protocol. There are certain things you're not supposed to do even in the rules of war, even in warfare, you don't assassinate the leader of your opposing country. So you are making that comment just made me think about the point that

Laith Marouf (00:25:57):

By the way, president Putin is on the way right now on the flight to the Harran, and he's flying with escorts of Soho 35 to the Harran, and he will be there tomorrow during the funeral procession led by the Illah.

Wilmer Leon (00:26:19):

What is that signal? In my mind that's huge because that's huge on a couple of fronts. One, his country is in the midst of a conflict with NATO slash the United States slash the West. So he must feel incredibly comfortable to leave as he did when he went to China in the midst of this conflict. I can leave my country. I'm not concerned about a being assassinated. I'm not concerned about something happening domestically. B, he's flying into a war zone. He's flying into a country whose president was just killed, many believe assassinated. So on a number of fronts, that to me speaks volumes.

Laith Marouf (00:27:07):

Yes. And there's the ICC arrest warrant

Wilmer Leon (00:27:10):

Against that too.

Laith Marouf (00:27:11):

It's the National Criminal Court. So we know that yesterday, the minute the announcement was made that the crash happened, the President Putin called in the ambassador of Iran to Moscow into almost a six hour meeting with all the heads, the intelligence military in foreign affairs of Russia. It was like a special kind of war council almost. And we don't know what happened in this meeting. So what information did Russia share with Iran? What are their points that were made in that meeting? And immediately we see this visit by President Putin being confirmed, and he's flying over the Caspian Sea directly into Iran from Russian territory to Iranian territory with the military escorts. We will clearly that this indicates a lot of things. And he's flying with him the top cater of the Russian military intelligence and foreign affairs to Iran. So there's something that's going to happen there.

(00:28:34):

We don't know what's the exchange that's going to happen in these meetings. And to go back to the issue of assassinations, the access of resistance members have never assassinated any Israeli leadership. Not because they can't. In fact, the only time that there was any assassination of an Israeli official is the Minister of settlements during the second in the Father in 2002 was conducted by the popular front for the liberation of Palestine in retaliation for the assassination of the leader of the PLFP AB mufa when the Israelis fired missile from a helicopter into his official office. So historically, the axis of resistance does not do assassinations like this. Why? Because number one, and this is true for Russia, by the way, number one, our enemies don't have any heroes. They only got lunatics, stupid leaders. And if you kill them,

Wilmer Leon (00:29:42):

You martyr them.

Laith Marouf (00:29:43):

You create the martyrs, right? The Israelis,

Wilmer Leon (00:29:48):

You inflate them to an artificial sense of value in power.

Laith Marouf (00:29:56):

Exactly. So there's no need to create martyrs for the Ukrainians or the Israelis. These are all goals. They should never be allowed to reach that status of martyrdom. The second issue, and this is true again for Ukraine, is because we're gifted as an axis of resistance. And Russia is gifted with the stupidest kind of enemy. Why would you want to kill Zelinsky if he's so dumb? Or Netanyahu is making so many stupid mistakes. If you kill them, maybe somebody smarter will come, you'll be even cursed. And in fact, if you look at the Israelis assassinating over and over, leaderships in the axis of resistance, every time they assassinated somebody, somebody even more cunning and more ready to fight them, gets into the position. Look at Hezbollah. Say Hasan came into his position as Secretary General after the assassination by Israel of Del Mu, the former First Secretary General of Hezbollah who was very moderate, soft spoken. And then you get sala and look at what so assassinations don't work on those two grounds. So it's a stupid thing that the Israelis did, this assassination of sei, and it's just going to bring somebody more in power. And now Iran has a president as a martyr on the path of liberation of Palestine. What glory does Iran have? No other nation lost a president in defense of Palestine, not even the Palestinian authority. You see,

Wilmer Leon (00:31:49):

You're laying out. That logic also goes back to some fundamental organizational constructs, as in organizations that are personality led versus organizations that are structurally led. So what I understand you to be saying is that this resistance is not based upon the personality in charge, that there is a structure here. There is an ideology here that, as we've said a number of times on a number of shows, you can't kill an ideology with a military. You can only defeat an ideology with a better ideology. And so you can assassinate all the leaders you want to, but there are people right behind them that are waiting to take charge.

Laith Marouf (00:32:48):

Yes, it is institutionalized. Obviously, we don't want to undermine the human factor, like a human factor is very important in all of these things. And people's personalities and connections make a difference. And so yes, these losses are always big, but because of this institutionalization, hopefully the, and because of the actual human factor, this new person that will fill, will bring new openings, new connections with them. Yes, the human factor is very important and institutionalization is as important.

Wilmer Leon (00:33:28):

Switching gears a bit, the ICC, the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for the leader of Hamas, Yaya Sanir, as well as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity. And it seems to be centered around the October 7th retaliation by Hamas on Israel. President Biden has denounced as outrageous the request for these warrants. Biden has said, let me be clear. Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no evidence none between Israel and Hamas. Biden said that this is a false equivocation. A couple of things. One, people need to understand that the ICC, the prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants. No warrants have been issued yet. I also find it interesting that they are tying all of this back to the October 7th response by the resistance as though October 7th is actually the beginning of something as opposed to the continuation of something. And then I'd like to get your take on, as I understand international law, the actions taken by Hamas on October 7th do not violate international law because Hamas is, Hamas represents the occupied, Israel is the occupier. And in international law, the occupied can do anything in its power to resist occupation. There is no right to defend oneself when you are the occupier. Laith. Maro your thoughts on that analysis?

Laith Marouf (00:35:35):

Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything that you said, and I would add to it, can you imagine if during the Vietnam War, Vietnam was, and the Vietnamese resistance were taken to the international criminal court and their leadership were declared terrorists for defending themself against French and American occupation, or the Algerian resistance being called terrorists at the ICC for defending themself against the massacres of the French or the French resistance against the Nazis

Wilmer Leon (00:36:13):

Or the A NC in South Africa

Laith Marouf (00:36:15):

Or the A NC? So I personally think the collaboration is Palestinian Authority on purpose launched this case at the ICC because they wanted the leadership of the resistance in Hamas to be charged with war crimes. Okay,

Wilmer Leon (00:36:43):

Wait a minute. Start that again because man, I never saw that one coming. Start that one again, please.

Laith Marouf (00:36:52):

Yes, yes. I know it's sometimes hard for people to make these connections, but you see there's never been, that's why

Wilmer Leon (00:36:58):

You're wrong. Connecting the dots.

Laith Marouf (00:37:00):

Yes. There's never been in history international criminal court case of the occupied taking their occupier into court and the occupied being charged with crimes against their occupier. And it was the Palestinian authority that pursued this case. Okay? And I think it was done on purpose by Abbas

Wilmer Leon (00:37:29):

Mah. Abba did this

Laith Marouf (00:37:31):

Mahmud, Abba and his collaborationist goons to dirty the reputation of the resistance to make their resistance equal to the crimes of the occupier. Okay? And I add to it even more the these arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Ganz, who's going to actually enforce them? No Western country will stop Netanyahu from flying over its airspace or landing on its territory, that's for sure, 100%. But you know who's going to be a target? It's a smile Nia, who's sitting in Qatar, right? SSIR and Aldi are in Gaza. The Israelis can't even kill them or assassinate them. They can't reach them, let alone try to arrest them for ICC charges. But smile, Nia, the head of Hamas in foreign political borough is now the number one target. He's probably right now running to find a place that he can hide than Qatar, because Qatar is a vessel state, and they will hand them over to the Americans at any moment. Okay? So in reality, this is one of the worst things that ever happened to the Palestinians. This ICC case, there's nothing to celebrate about it. And if you notice the limitations of this case that it only, as you said, starts October 7th,

Wilmer Leon (00:39:03):

They don't mention genocide,

Laith Marouf (00:39:05):

Okay? And not only that, the case is only for crimes inside Ga Gaza, none of the historical Palestine, west Bank, east Jerusalem, any of that will be included in this. And this is not only to protect Israel from accusations of apartheid and the settlement building that is one of the biggest war crimes possible, but also to hide the fact that all these internment camps that have been built since October 7th, were thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were abducted and sent into these Guantanamo and being tortured, raped, and killed on mass, disappeared completely, because nobody even knows that they're in this. And the fact that VE turned all the Israeli prisons into that same model, 12,000 Palestinian prisoners since October 7th, have been living in these internment camps, tortured, raped, and killed with hundreds, hundreds of testimonies of rape and torture by men, women, and children coming out of these dungeons. And if you notice the docket of these requests for arrest warrants, this house, slave Han, who is a puppet of the United States and Israel, who came as a replacement to the ICC chief prosecutor before him, who got humiliated and death threats and banned from entering the United States and so on, because she even dare thought about charges

Wilmer Leon (00:40:56):

Even his family was under. Yes,

Laith Marouf (00:40:58):

Yes. So now, what does this guy do? If you look at the charges when he's talking about Hamas crimes, he speaks of them as if they're facts that rapes happen. We have no,

Wilmer Leon (00:41:17):

No evidence

Laith Marouf (00:41:18):

Any rape that babies were killed. No evidence, no evidence killed. But when he talks about the crimes of the Zionist,

Wilmer Leon (00:41:27):

He uses a minute, just to that point, going back to President Putin, I remember him saying, if you have evidence of these crimes, please show the world. He was very emphatic on that point. You have made these allegations. If you have evidence, please show the world. And no matter how many times Joe Biden, no matter how many times Tony Blinken wants to talk about these atrocities, they've never even pierce Morgan. I know you saw the interview with Dr. Morandi and Pi Morgan, where Morandi just cut him a new one. He said, Pierce, where's the evidence? And Pi Morgan just kept chatting, just kept chirping. Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Laith Marouf (00:42:30):

Yes, yes. I mean, the evidence is like you have to take the word of the chosen people for fact. What are you antisemitic, Wilmer. You don't believe every word that comes out of a chosen person mouth. I mean, that's it. That's all evidence you need. So

Wilmer Leon (00:42:48):

If I was antisemitic, I wouldn't be talking to you.

Laith Marouf (00:42:50):

Exactly. Exactly. But we're joking about it. But truly, this guy, this sock puppet had, he went down to Israel after October 7th and sat down with the families and unquote survivors, and visited the colonies that were attacked, but refused to enter Gaza Amass, opened the door for him, invited him to come and see Joe evidence, the war crimes. He refused to go to Gaza, okay? And then now he's coming and he's writing in his docket that these crimes happened by Hamas. But when he's talking about the crimes accusations against Israel, he says reasonable grounds before every accusation he is already, you could see how tainted this case is and what is its ultimate goal. I mean, yesterday, the spokesperson for the American government, I can't remember his name, the thin white guy. He was being interviewed, sorry, asked in the question period about this issue, and the guy claimed that the Palestinians have no right to go to the ICC and that their only courts that have jurisdiction are Israeli or American courts. He wants the Palestinians to come and beg at American courts, which even shows you how Israel is a colony, a vessel of the United States. But yes, this is where

Wilmer Leon (00:44:32):

Matthew Miller,

Laith Marouf (00:44:35):

Yes, Matthew Pillar, and people call him Matthew Killer. Yes,

Wilmer Leon (00:44:38):

Right. Matthew Miller.

Laith Marouf (00:44:39):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wilmer Leon (00:44:42):

So I'm sorry, I interrupted you. You're saying he was saying that they need to come to American courts?

Laith Marouf (00:44:47):

Yes. That they have no right to go to the ICC, and the only place that has jurisdiction is the US or Israel over crimes in Gaza,

Wilmer Leon (00:45:00):

Which is also very telling in that the United States is not as signatory to the ICC, but seems to want to either use it when it's convenient or condemn it when it's convenient. But in fact, excuse me, there's a standing American law, and people can look this up, that if an American is brought before the Hague, the United States reserves the right to invade it. I might even be called the Hague Invasion Act. I'm drawing a blank on the name, but people, folks, you need to look this up. The United States has a standing American law saying, we will invade the Hague if an American is arrested and held accountable for crime.

Laith Marouf (00:45:59):

Yes, it's ally known as the Hague Invasion Act. And in fact, if you look at the ICC record, 42 out of the 42 people that were convicted of crimes at the ICC were African African leaders, and then add to it that the charges against President Putin. So this ICC is the most captured, un affiliated organism captured by the West, along with the International Atomic Energy Organization and the Chemical and Weapons Organization. These are the least trusted three organs of the un. And we're seeing, I believe these indictments, or if there is an arrest warrant issued, I mean, I don't see anything good coming to the Palestinians from this.

Wilmer Leon (00:47:08):

Wow. That's a perspective and a level of analysis that I did not see coming. But what you're saying makes sense. Bring us up to date, please on what's happening in Rafa. According to the new Arab, there are by 1.4 million Palestinians there. And that around the 7th of May, they were told that they had to leave. And the number I see is about 80,000 people have fled, but there's, I guess a slow boiling Israeli incursion into the area. What's going on in Rafa now?

Laith Marouf (00:48:02):

Yeah, I mean, the Israelis are doing what they call belts, fire belts. It's like bombardment from the land, from the sea, from the air on straight lines, and then going next straight line and so on. This is what they've been doing since last week. They haven't yet attempted invading Rafa. They have been stuck in Jabal since last week in the longest and fiercest battle on the ground of Gaza since the beginning of the war. The Israelis lost, according to their own media, at least 10 officers there. That includes a field general, the highest ranking military officer on the field of any army, and along with all his commanders. So we've seen the videos come out from this Jabali battle every day, two or three videos coming out from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others that showed us tens of Israeli tanks destroyed APCs and bulldozers. So they're receiving a beating, a whipping in the battlefield of Jabal.

(00:49:21):

So I don't think they're going to invade RA anytime soon. They'll continue bombing from the air. But this has also happened at the same time as yesterday or the day before the Americans finished building the pier, right? Right. And we already now have images of this spear with American air defenses, radars and tanks and ABCs waiting in the landing ships. So clearly the sphere is not about delivering any aid, and it's definitely not about the mass expulsion of Palestinians. This is an invasion, beachfront landing zone in the case of total collapse of the Israeli military on the battlefield. And that's what we are seeing right now happening.

Wilmer Leon (00:50:11):

And is it a coincidence or should we connect dots that the pier was completed right around the same time that it was announced that, what was it, 1.2 billion more of weaponry has been approved. And so is that a coincidence or am I wrong to connect these dots?

Laith Marouf (00:50:34):

No, it's not a coincidence. It's also not a coincidence that it was finished the day they assassinated rasi. You see, all of these are time things. It's same thing. It's not a coincidence that the sock puppet Han announced the ICC arrest warrants at the same day of the assassination. So all of this is clearly timed together, and we now saw in the last 48 hours, the cards of the West put on the table, have opened. Now their hand, they just opened their hand with these three moves. The

Wilmer Leon (00:51:15):

But wait a minute, president Biden is calling for a ceasefire. How can this be true? Laith Maro, when President Biden, when he was at Morehouse giving his commencement address, he's calling for a cease fire. Help me understand this, because obviously you didn't hear him. And so now that you understand, Joe Biden wants to cease fire, how can everything that you've just said be true?

Laith Marouf (00:51:44):

Isn't it one of the most disgusting things that Biden could do is to lie to the black students and the administration of the university say that he will not use their black faces in his promotional materials for his election? That was one of the conditions to allow him to speak to the students who were going to demonstrate. But because their administration found a middle ground and told them, okay, you can demonstrate without,

Wilmer Leon (00:52:15):

Don't make any noise, shut

Laith Marouf (00:52:16):

Down, don't make any noise, and so on. And this guy is not going to use your faces for his election. And now he goes around and immediately, immediately releases a promotional video of using these students to try to get sympathy from the black communities in America. This is, and obviously anybody that believes American leaders should go and ask the indigenous people about all the treaties and their promises. I mean, there's 400 years of record of broken promises and broken treaties. There's not one treaty I think the United States ever abided by with anyone. Have

Wilmer Leon (00:53:04):

You seen this Washington Post article from last week? The Washington Post reported about a WhatsApp chat stream where New York mayor Eric Adams was chatting with a number of American multimillion and billionaires, such as the former founder of Starbucks and the CEO of Dell and a number of other financiers where they were demanding that Eric Adams send the NYPD into Columbia University. They offered campaign contributions, they offered to fund private investigators to look into the students. And he is now, of course, denying that this took place. But the Washington Post has the transcript of the WhatsApp communications, and they named these individuals by name. And it seems as though their whole concern or motivation behind this is they're losing control of the narrative. Your thoughts, lath maus.

Laith Marouf (00:54:21):

Yeah. I mean, it's 100% a fact that this happened. No matter what the mayor says, who was another sock puppet? And if me and you have enough money, we can buy American politicians if we want to. They're very cheap. They'll sell you their mamas if you have enough money. Okay? So it's not a surprise. It's actually great that it got leaked, and I'm sure the Washington Post only published it because it was going to be all around the internet anyways, and they needed to have a scoop to stay on top of the story. But this is the truth. The political class and the economic elite are abusing the police in the United States, abusing the power they have over the police, forcing the police to become political police, to suppress the students and the communities that are demonstrating for the liberation of Palestine. I mean, I watched these images over the weekend. The beatings that the NYPD was giving to these youth was, I mean, very similar to who

Wilmer Leon (00:55:36):

Were peacefully protesting,

Laith Marouf (00:55:37):

Peacefully protesting, being jumped and taken to the ground and punching women in the face while having your legs on their necks. I mean, it is very similar to how they treat on a daily basis, the black community, specifically black men. But now we're seeing it on a daily scale of people not being accused of any crime or just speaking out or demonstrating. And that's what was happening to the black community in the sixties and the seventies and or the Black Lives Matter movement during the Obama years. Now we are gearing up to this summer of discontent all across the west as these youth finished their exams in the universities and pour into the streets. And we should expect maximum suppression from the political class, and they will be abusing the police to do so because they can't use the courts. Look, in Canada, there's been now two court cases where Zionist students went to court to try to force the police to remove a student encampment from McGill University in Montreal.

(00:57:01):

McGill University is the Ivy League University in Canada, and they lost. The judge said, no, the students have a right. And then the university administration itself appealed and went to the court to also asked the court to tell the police to remove the students. And again, the court said no. And therefore, this is what's happening. The Zionists in Canada were stupid enough to think that they can win this in court. They thought like, oh, we have all the media, we have all the politicians. We can rip apart the Bill of Rights in Canada. But the Zionists in the United States are a little bit smarter. They know that if they go to court First Amendment, they cannot remove these students. Therefore, they skipped all the legal process and went immediately into abusing their access to power by moving the police, setting them like dogs on the students.

Wilmer Leon (00:58:03):

Laith Maro, my brother. As always, I got to thank you for joining me today. And let me reiterate to folks that they need to go to Free Palestine video. Go to Free Palestine video. You can see if you could quickly just explain to the audience what you're doing there on the ground, real time in Beirut with free Palestine video.

Laith Marouf (00:58:33):

So yeah, as a volunteer community television, we're teaching youth and students to produce content in English. We're also doing everyday almost reporting from the south of Lebanon, from the Warfront exclusive coverage of what's happening there, interviews of people on the ground. And we're doing weekly episode of a special show called Wartime Cafe with the biggest intellectual and political leaders in Lebanon in English. Last time, the last episode of wartime Cafe was with Ibrahim Al Mu, who is a member of Parliament, but also the former spokesperson for Hezbollah. He hasn't spoken in English media for a long time. So this is the kind of content that you will get. Please support us donations. We need membership. If there's possible, so people subscribe for monthly donation, that will be amazing. And you can add on our website, free pass. Send the video. You have the links to all our socials, so Twitter, telegram, Instagram, YouTube, brumble. Please watch the content and help us through donations.

Wilmer Leon (00:59:49):

My brother, my dear brother, lathe Maru, thank you so much for joining me today.

Laith Marouf (00:59:54):

Thank you for having me.

Wilmer Leon (00:59:56):

Look forward to having you back. Folks. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Please leave a review, share the show, and you can follow us on social media. You'll find all the links below to the show description, contribute to this effort if you can. Nothing is too small and we know nothing is too large. We greatly, greatly appreciate the contributions that are helping to keep this program on the air. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out

Announcer (01:00:59):

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Our guest Ajamu Baraka is on X/Twitter @ajamubaraka

Our Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which events take place. During each episode of the podcast, my guest and I have probing, provocative, and discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze these events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue before us is the mask is off the hideous connections between Zionism, colonialism, capitalism, and genocide. This is the title of an article in Black Agenda Report, and it's written by the Black Alliance for Peace. It was originally published in or at the Black Alliance for Peace website, which is Black alliance for peace.com. My guest is the chair of the Coordinated Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and Editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and the Green Party candidate for Vice President of the United States in 2016. Ajamu Baraka Ajamu, my brother. As always, welcome back.

Thank you so much. It's good to be with you once again.

So Ajamu, the piece opens as follows. In April, students across the US Empire rose up with campus-based encampments designed to bring attention to the genocide against Palestine and demand that their universities divest from economies engaged in active genocidal campaigns. It came as a little surprise to anyone who has ever read a history book that US universities chose to stand by the Zionist genocide machine and instead attack their own students. Ajamu. There were and are a number of forces applying pressure to the leadership of these institutions to punish these students. Your thoughts on the intersection of genocide of Zionism, capitalism and colonialism and how it's now impacting the higher education of kids across this country?

Well, the way we approached it, Dr. Leon, was to in fact, make those connections reflected in that piece. We have always taken the position that colonialism is in fact fascism, that the intervention, the invading of the Americas in 1492 by the Europeans was the beginning of the process in which two things happened. The enrichment of Europe as a consequence of the conquering of the peoples, the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the theft of their lands and the importation of black people to provide free labor. This was a material basis for the rise of capitalism and the European, so-called civilization. This is and was a colonial relationship. The peoples of these various territories that became Jamaica and Haiti and Colombia and Mexico had their wealth stolen from them and transported back to Europe. While the people themselves lacked any kind of human rights. Colonialism is based on a fascistic relationship in which people are terrorized into accepting oppression.

It is the ultimate expression of fascistic policy. So we made the connection there. We said that also there are the connections of the other elements that characterize the rise of Europe and the domination of Europe over the last 500 years. This strange conception of patriarchy, which is something that was alien to most parts of the global south. This came on the heels of the imposition of Christian religions and some of the strange ideals regarding the role of men. And so-called women. So this is also part of the process of European domination. And of course all of this is within the context of imperialism and the rise in development of capitalism. So all of these elements have to be understood to be interconnected, and that if we're going to address the issues that are emerging in Palestine, for example, with the European settler colonial project are called Israel, then we have to make sure we understand these historical processes, these connections, these dots that have to be connected. So that's reflected in our piece. So basically all of the talk about civilizational assistance and humanitarian interventions of the responsibility to protect the Europeans divides over the course of decades. What has happened with Gaza is that they have now been exposed. This system has been exposed to what it is, a brutal, hideous system that degrades and dehumanizes human beings. So that was a thrust, the essence of that piece,

An incredibly powerful piece at that. And fact in the piece, peace it's written that black Alliance for Peace has consistently asserted that as people rise up against the deepening crisis of capitalism, the veneer of western civilization and enlightenment will fall revealing the naked aggression and violence inherent in capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy and patriarchy. The horror of the colonial Zionist campaign of genocide is that reveal, this reveal of colonial violence is forcing people to rethink the propaganda they have internalized. But the revelation of facts is not the same as drawing correct conclusions. What got me in that paragraph in the first sentence of the second is this whole idea of rethinking the propaganda because one of the things that I've been saying for a very long time is the Zionist narrative. They're losing the argument. They now realize that the covers have been pulled off, they've been exposed, and they are now going to extra judicial and incredibly extreme measures to try to justify, resurrect, defend that narrative. And I think it's important for people to understand in this conversation that this is not an anti-Semitic conversation. This is an anti Zionist conversation and part of their narrative is conflating the two. And the final point is that not all Jews or Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews, as in Joe Biden saying very clearly, very publicly, I am a Zionist, and Joe Biden isn't Jewish. Joe Biden is Irish Catholic, a Jammu Baraka,

You're absolutely right. Zionism is a political philosophy, but a political doctrine, if you will. It is a doctrine that provided the foundation for a political project, which was a project by advanced by Europeans who define themselves as Jewish, but secular Jews who wanted to capitalize on the rise of and consolidation of nationalism in the latter part of the 19th century to in fact create a national state for Jewish people. And so the ideal that of Jewish nationalism was being consolidated, and they decided that they would attempt to build this national home on the land that was under occupation and controlled by European powers that used to be referred to as Palestine. And that process began there. So this was a political project that then culminated and the creation of the Jewish state or Israel in 1948 with the full support of the colonial powers at that time, and even the victorious powers that came out of the Second World War.

But that creation of the European of the Zionist state, 1948, came at the expense as always in the colonial projects of the indigenous people. So you have what the Palestinians referred to as a nack bar where several hundred and 50,000 Palestinians were uprooted and basically displaced. Dozens and dozens of Arab villages across the territory of Palestine were conquered by the Israelis and controlled, and that became the contiguous land basis for the birth of Israel. So this process of colonial imposition is something now that's 75 years old. It didn't begin on October the seventh. It began even before 1948. So yes, this is a process and part of the ability of the Zionist to be able to be successful is the connection of this project with European colonialism, with the subtle appeal to European superiority, the notion that they were bringing something new to the So-called Middle East, creating a paradise out of the desert.

These are all very important cultural reference points that provided support for the Southern Columbia project, very similar to what we had in the US territory that became the United States America notions of manifest destiny, being connected to the program of God, the white man's burden both in the US and throughout the world to bring civilization. All of these were themes that helped to provide the support for what we see unfolding today, but today is even more naked, Dr. Leon, because what that statement talked about is the fact that all of this was dressed up in these sort of civilizational discussions, that discussions and language coming out of the European Enlightenment notions of human rights and democracy and civilizational advancement. And so the interventions were always framed. Interventions by Europeans were always framed as something that will be helpful to the natives because of course, the people who were being imposed on, they needed to have that imposition because they needed to be able to develop as human societies.

And of course they couldn't do that without the Europeans. So this became the justification for this project. And the violence that was at the center of this was also justified too, because it was those bad natives who didn't understand that they were being saved, that resisted colonialism, that needed to be suppressed, that needed to be eliminated. And so at the court center of the Colonial Project has always been violence. In particular the settler colonial projects. When you have settlers who come to a land and their main objective is to control the land, then the people themselves become an impediment. They're not needed. And so they are clear. That's what happened with the march across the US from the east coast to the west where they shot, murdered and raped and plundered from the east coast to the west, establishing what became the United States of America. We see a similar process unfolding with the settler colonialists in Palestine. They took most of the land about 77% of the land in 1948. And now with this invasion of Gaza and the escalation of violence on the West Bank, they are now prepared to finish the project from the river to the sea. They've always been quite clear about that, that they want that land to be exclusively under the control of the European Jewish ethanol state.

And to that point, I'm glad you brought up from the river to the sea because that language, that phraseology was originally Zionist phraseology. And I'm bringing that up because this goes back to the whole conversation about the narrative. Now, if I go on a college campus and I say, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free. Oh, I'm antisemitic. Oh, I'm using language that is disturbing to the sensibilities of the good Jewish students. That's not their language. The Zionist settler colonialists first used that phraseology. And along the lines of propaganda, I just want to point out a couple of things. One is the New York Times a few months ago had an editorial meeting where they decided they were no longer going to use the term occupied territories, for example. Now that's phraseology that came out of the United Nations, and that has been the internationally accepted reference of that space.

They are the occupied territories. But now the New York Times has decided or told their writers, they shouldn't really use that. They should stay as far away from using that language as much as possible. One of the reasons being that when you refer to occupied territory, that means you have an occupier and it means you have the occupied. And international law says that the occupied can use any means at their disposal to resist the occupier. It also means that this whole, one of the things that a lot of people love to start these conversations with is Israel has a right to exist. But if you understand that Israel is the occupier, then that position then becomes in question. So that's just this whole idea of all of these Jewish students at Columbia that were under threat and being challenged. I never saw any evidence to support that story. In fact, when you look at the students that are involved in the protests, what you find is there are a lot of American Jewish students that are working with and supporting the Palestinians. For example, she's not a student, but her last name is Klein. I just draw a blank on her first name.

I'm sorry. Naomi. Naomi Klein. Naomi Klein is Jewish, and Naomi Klein was one of the featured speakers at the Columbia protest. So they're going back to the narrative. What I think they are finding is they are losing control of the narrative.

And you're right, that narrative is very, very important. The use of language is important and the ruling elements understand

The ability to define is the ability to control.

Exactly. Exactly. And that's why they were very careful, meaning the ruling elements and even framing what was happening on these college campuses as so-called pro-Palestinian efforts. Well, they weren't really pro-Palestinian efforts. They were anti genocide, anti

Genocide

Efforts. But the idea was to try to implant in the minds of the average reader that these people took not only a political position, but a position that was in alignment with that of Hama. And so this was the basis of the demonization of these students that didn't allow for violence to be directed at them. People has to have to be reminded. There was no violence in any of these encampments. These were peaceful protests, something that theoretically you're supposed to have a right to in fact do, even if those protests can be somewhat disruptive. But how disruptive was it and is it to have some tense put up on open spaces on a college campus? But as you said earlier, as you intro this conversation, there appeared to be decision made at the highest levels that they were not going to tolerate any real opposition on these campuses, and that what they were going to in fact do was to violently suppress those efforts. The encampments of the protests and the violence was imposed on the students by who the representatives of the states, and these were the elite campuses controlled by political elements firmly in alignment with what party, the Democrat party. So this was something that was a partisan effort, not only in terms of support of Israel, but in terms of support for the Biden policy of support for genocide. Well,

Wait a minute. When you put this in a partisan context, then how with that understanding, do you explain Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the house, going to Columbia and standing there and challenging the students and spewing a lot of lies? Again, he was right there in front and center talking about, oh, the students have been threatened and all and no such evidence. And folks, I got to keep going back to this because this is so important. No such evidence has been presented. So Mike Johnson, Republican House speaker, he shows up. A whole lot of Republicans have it. So how do you put that in the partisan context?

The majority of the ups have taken place on those campuses that are in alignment with the Democrats. So that's a partisan effort in that sense. But the point you're making, and I think is a very important one, is to remind people that the positions of the US state on Israel is in fact a bipartisan position that the Republicans are, even the non Trumpian Republicans are just as adamant in their support for Israel as the Democrats. So this is the nature of this, what I refer to as the growing consolidation of fascism. The popular perception or the popular position is that the main threat of fascist development in the US is coming from the Trumpian, right? As you know, I've been making the counter argument that the driving force of a particular form of US fascism reflecting the new historical conditions, the conditions of today is emanating from the neoliberal, right?

That is fascist. But what we see now in the last couple of months in a very dangerous development, and I'm glad you mentioned Mike Johnson, it's what I consider to be now the real consolidation that's happening in the open, if you can see it. Why do you think Mike Johnson's playing this kind of role? We all know that Mike Johnson wouldn't even be the speaker today without the deal that was cut with Democrats to allow him to be able to avoid being displaced by his own caucus. Why was it that the Trumpian forces have been adamant in their opposition to further money, further us public money being sent to Ukraine in support of the Ukrainian proxy war, but then all of a sudden that criticism is muted and Mike Johnson was clearly in alignment with Donald Trump cuts a deal with the Democrats to allow 61 billion to go to Ukraine.

I make the argument that not only is this a reflection, not only is this a reflection of the fact that the very powerful elements in the ruling class have decided that there's going to be a second Trump, but it is a reflection of growing open embracement, if you will, between the Trumpian forces and the neoliberal forces, the consolidation of fascism. So this is a very dangerous, I think, dangerous development here in this country. And right now, the most effective opposition to it are the students across the country. And that's very important, very important that people understand that because what the students are involved in, even if they don't define it as such, is really our anti-fascist opposition.

I want to just point out a couple of other points that as we've been talking about this narrative, there is this narrative that the United States is involved in backing the Zionist regime in Israel because it's defending democracy. There's nothing democratic about the Zionist state, the settler colonial state of Israel. Palestinians, indigenous Palestinians do not have the same rights as Jews in Israel. There is nothing democratic about Israel. The United States says it's in Ukraine in order to protect democracy. If that's true, then why did the United States go into Ukraine in 2014 and overthrow the democratically elected Lucas Shanko government in the Maan coup in 2014? Folks, look it up. We're not making it up. This is not conspiracy theory. Why did the and put in place right sector Nazis, real Nazis in Ukraine. The United States says it must go into Haiti. Why? To quell unrest and protect democracy. The United States is the one fomenting the unrest. And the United States, the DEA has been proven with Colombian mercenaries, and assassins are the ones that went in and assassinated the Haitian president, Jovi o Moise. I could go on and on and on Jammu. But again, it's the narrative.

Exactly, exactly. And that narrative is important because that determines the politics and this collaboration we see of developing this cross party, this bipartisan collaboration is a very, very dangerous development. And the fact that Ukraine is defined as a democracy is dangerous. The fact that the US continues to define itself as a democracy and a champion of human rights while systematically and simultaneously supporting a genocide in Gaza is dangerous. But you know what? Dr. Leon, the obfuscation of us policies by the control of the narrative is now being diminished. That this is what we talk about in terms of the dots being connected and the veneer of civilization and high principles are now being stripped away. We see the naked reality of what this western project has always been, this western colonial capitalist project has always been what we are seeing in Gaza is the most brutal expression of it ever allowed to be exposed to the US population.

And what I mean by that, we have to understand that as brutal as we have seen the situation in Gaza, it's not even the most brutal that has developed over the last few years. People have to remember that NATO under the first black president went in and completely destroyed the most prosperous state on the African continent Libya in the process of bombing campaign that took, that occurred over months, and the arming and equipping and support of a bunch of bandits on the ground is estimated between 30 and 50,000 people lost. Their lives were murdered. The difference was that we didn't see that we had to be relying on reports primarily filtered through the western press. So this is an example that is Gaza is an example, a brutal example of what happens, how the colonial project has unfolded, and now people are beginning to rethink everything.

This is what we talk about in terms of questioning the propaganda the one is exposed to as part of a so-called educational process. Everything that you have been exposed to in this country is a lie. You have been exposed to a colonial education that was geared to provide support to a interest of a ruling class that doesn't give a damn about ordinary people, really doesn't give a damn about people in the US at all, and certainly does not see a non-European people as worthy of dignity and human rights. That's why you can have a situation like Gaza where they are starving people to death, bombing and killing children and women primarily

In hospital

And getting away with it in hospital and getting away with it. Yes. You remember when it first started, Dr. Leon, when Al Shifter was first hit with a bomb and it was like global news, and even the Israelis tried to explain it away because in all of these conflicts, the hospitals that have always been allowed to be an oasis, if you will, within the middle of these conflicts, it will seem to be the most egregious war, criminal war crime when you attack a military, attacked a hospital. Okay? People don't seem to understand Dr. Leon, what the Israeli fascists are during today is really kind of unprecedented. They've been allowed to basically attack and dismantle and destroy something like 36 hospitals.

There's not a hospital left.

When our shifted was first attacked, there's an outcry, but then it died down. What that said to the fascists, Israeli fascists was, we can get away with this. And that's exactly what they did. So this kind of brutality that we are seeing in Gaza is a reflection of the kind of brutality that made the west what it is today.

They tried to rationalize the attacking ealing of hospitals by saying Hamas was using the hospitals as terrorist centers. There were tunnels under the hospitals all proven to be false. Again, the narrative, it was a lie. IDF forces would even dress as doctors and male soldiers would disguise themselves as women go into the hospital, kill 15, 20, 30 people then say, oh, they were all Hamas sympathizers. You mentioned the educational process. Going back to what's happening on the college campuses across the country, you mentioned the educational process. Are there elements within the country that are using this campus unrest as the basis for them to undermine education in the United States? Because we know that that higher education in the United States has been under attack by conservative forces for a number of years. Do you see in some of this, the attacks on the presidents of many of these institutions as being an attack on academia?

I do, and I see this as the beginning of a more systematic attack. We've already seen cases where administrations are attempting to put in place rules that would in effect make it illegal, or subject students and faculty members to being suspended, expelled, lose their jobs,

Lose their funding, lose their government funding,

Lose their government funding, just raising certain kinds of questions as it relates primarily to Israel, but also is born in just Israel is really a US foreign policy. So this is again, for me another example of the consolidating fascism here in this country. Now we are really going to see where we are once the students come back in the fall because for our intents and purposes, we're going to see a bit of a petering out of this. And of course the press is going to jump on this as though this is kind of some kind of reflection of the flightiness of students. Well, no, the organizing will be taking place this summer. The real battle is going to unfold probably in the fall. So it remains to be seen what kind of impact this will have. But all of this is reflective of the complete jettison of liberal values at these liberal institutions and liberal philosophy being, again, primarily driven by neoliberals with their liberal allies, that basically, in order for the US empire to maintain its global hegemony, it has to jettison any constraints.

And so any concerns about human rights or human dignity on the part of any of their victims or potential victims that has to be ignored now is about the brutal imposition of power in order to maintain hegemony. That's why they have more than 40 nations under economic sanctions. That's why they have strengthened their military command apparatus around the world, including on the African continent. That's why they using their superior military force and political power to intervene once again into Haiti. So this is a dangerous moment and people have to understand how dangerous this moment really is.

I want to move on from this because there are a number of things that we also need to cover, but as we start to wrap up this portion of the conversation, and just as another example of how insidious so much of this is, there's a law professor at Bolt Hall, which is the law school at University of California Berkeley. His name is Steven David Dolf Solomon, and he published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, October 15th, 2023. And the piece is entitled, and I just lost my, here we go. Here we go. The piece is entitled, don't Hire My anti-Semitic Law Students. Would your clients want an attorney who condones hatred and monstrous crimes? And this is a little bit about what he wrote. I teach corporate law at the University of California Berkeley, and I'm an advisor to the Jewish Law Students Association. My students are largely engaged and well prepared, and I regularly recommend them to legal employers.

But if you don't want to hire people who advocate, hate and practice discrimination, don't hire some of my students. anti-Semitic conduct is nothing new on university campuses, including here at Berkeley. And what he's doing here is a number of things. One, again, he's conflating opposition to genocide with antisemitism. He is conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. And when law professors at prestigious institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley Bolt Hall start to write to the law firms that they have influence at, in and or over, don't hire my students because their anti-Semitic conduct is nothing new on university campuses, including here at Berkeley. That's dangerous. Ajamu Baraka.

Well, it really is, and it is reflective of a tendency that's unfolding across the country, unfortunately. But you know what? Dr. Leon is really encouraging that so many young people, so many students are prepared to make the sacrifice. They have understood that their positions could have a major impact on their careers. If you'll, we have a few students in the Black Alliance of Peace who have been thrown out of school, people who have just done their dissertation defense, and now that's up in the air because they were suspended and banned from the campus. And they knew this was a possibility when they decided to not only join but also lead some of the protests. And that is encouraging because what is happening is that there is a new kind of sensitivity, new kind of awareness that's being developed primarily with the Generation Z regarding violence and war. And if you think about it, it's understandable that this will be the generation that will finally be sick of conflicts because these are folks, Dr. Lehigh, that have never known anything but war.

My son is 22 years old, just graduated from Hampton University this past Sunday. Way to go boy, congratulations and has never known peace in his lifetime.

He exactly the 21st century has been a century of conflict, a century of war. And this was basically predicted by the project for a new American century that he was committed to using the US' superior military strength to impose the US on the rest of the planet to make sure that the US was the hegemonic power on the planet with no competitors. And that's exactly what they have been doing, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan and up to today. And so this generation who for the first time doesn't have any illusions about the so-called American Dream that has seen the normalization of mass shootings, that has seen nothing but war and conflict their entire life, now they're being exposed to the horrors of a livestream. Genocide. And they have finally said, enough is enough. And so that is encouraging, and it's the base of the kind of alternative political organizing that many of us are involved in because unless we are able to build a movement powerful enough to put a break on these maniacs who are making policies today, we are on a fast track to human extension, extension. I mean, you look at what's happening in Ukraine and you connect that to Israel. This is a moment that these young people are beginning to understand is a moment in which if they don't make the pivot from just being concerned with genocide and Gaza, as important as that is to this being a generalized movement against war and for peace and for social transformation, then I think they recognize we all are facing an existential threat.

The Black Alliance for Peace closes its peace with, as the masses of African people examine with new eyes the relationship between Zionists and Palestine, what will we conclude? Will we fall for the ploy to scapegoat Benjamin Netanyahu for all of Israel's crimes and then fall back to complacency after he is removed from office? Or will we make the connection between Israel and colonialism? Colonialism and capitalism and capitalism and genocide? I'm glad you mentioned in your piece Benjamin Netanyahu, and will we fall for the ploy to scapegoat him? Because what a lot of people don't really appreciate, as you listen to Joe Biden talk about Benjamin Netanyahu needs to go, and Tony Blinken made reference to that. Folks who really don't understand the dynamics and the intricacies of Israeli politics have to understand if you get rid of Netanyahu, who or what does he get replaced with or by? Because most folks don't understand the compromises that Netanyahu had to make in order to remain in power. And he had to compromise if this is even fathomable, he had to compromise with even more hawkish, more racist, more white supremacist elements within that Zionist society than even Netanyahu is. And he's about as racist as one could think they could get. But when you start talking about Morich and you start talking about Ben, I mean these folks are evil personified.

They're fascist. And what is interesting about that analysis you just laid out too, is the fact that it is a ploy. And we've been sort of raising this question or trying to help people to this because what they're trying to do is divert attention away from the settler colonial project itself. Its nature and the policies of Benjamin Nhu. But the Nhu policies are reflection of the Israeli society. Over 80% of Israeli society supported the incursion, the invasion of Gaza. There are people who are criticizing the government for not being tough enough. Okay? So it is the project itself. We all have seen those of us who follow this, the images of the Israelis marching with signs kill all the Arabs, death to Arabs, that society has gone actually mad. They really,

And many of them, particularly in the West Bank, are carrying weapons supplied by the United States. And these are rogue bans of settlers that are indiscriminately a attacking indigenous Palestinians and murdering them where they stand.

I went to the West Bank in 2014 and I saw with my own eyes those kinds of elements, those kinds of racist elements holding guns, one of the most vicious and dangerous places I've ever seen in my life.

Lemme add, many of these people weren't born there. These people are from Brooklyn. These folks are from Brooklyn. Exactly.

Americans there you could be a Jewish bus rider, a driver one day, and next week you could be a colonialist carrying an M 16 and able to shoot and kill a Palestinian with impunity.

But it's a democracy. No, it can't be. It's a democracy. A jama.

Yeah. So this is what is being exposed, and this is why we have the uprising and what they don't seem to understand, Dr. Leon, that is the ruling element. There's no reversal. You see these articles where Democrats would say that in essence, this will blow over and people will recognize that the real threat is Donald Trump, and then you'll come back into the fold and vote for Joe. That ain't happening this time, especially even after all of this where you see that Trump is leading across the country, the turnout for Democrats are not going to be anywhere where it needs to be in order to stem this Trump tie. They have really screwed up on this one, the

Democrats. I'm glad you raised that point, because there are a lot of people that don't. What those who make those statements do is they try to personalize the atrocities and they try to personalize the policy instead of understanding its American foreign policy. And so when you look at the policies of Joe Biden and you look at a lot of the policies of Donald Trump, Biden has in many regards, been more Trumpian than Trump. Look at, for example,

Exactly like you said, it's the same policy. See the cultural war and all that. These are all the only elements that really differentiate these two parties. Underneath that there is unanimity among the ruling elements. Now, there's real conflicts of interest though, because what Trump represents are those class forces that are national. They are the ones that want a bigger piece of the pie within the us, and they feel oppressed by the globalists, by international capital of finance capital. That really is the hegemonic capitalist sector. And so they're the ones that want expanded opportunities. They're the ones that feel threatened by all of this importation coming into the country from places like China understanding that. And they understand this. It ain't just the Chinese government that's importing consumer goods. It's US corporations who use China as a platform to bring stuff into the us. And so they're saying, you all are killing us.

The iPhone killing the iPhone is the perfect example.

And so that is part of the tension there. And those are the forces that the Trumpian people face represent. But ideologically, they all are connected to. They all support the continuation of the capitalist system. So there's no contradictions there. It is an intro bourgeois struggle, and people make the mistake of allowing themselves to be pulled into that struggle. We've got to define our objective interests and organize around those interests. And when you do that, basically you recognize that it's the duopoly that has to be smashed, that you don't fall prey to all of these games, people being played, the Biden administration, pretending like they're really taking a position against the net, Yahoo and all this kind of crap. I mean, this is about advancing the interests of the most powerful sectors of capital in this country.

Final point on this, final point on this, because we could stay on this for a month. Again, just another element of the hypocrisy. So last week, Joe Biden says, I'm taking a stand. I've drawn a line in the sand, and we're not going to send these. We're going to have a pause on these weapons to Israel. Well, today they announced what a $1 billion weapons package on its way to where? On its way to Israel. This is a money laundering scheme. Folks, your tax dollars are being used to buy and send weapons of genocide to the settler colonial state.

And remember, it's not like the money's being sent to Israel. This is a lateral transfer, Martin, from of the US state to the pockets of the military industrial complex for the weapons that then get sent to Israel.

Say that again, please.

This is a lateral transfer from breach. It

Closed in the back pew, Reverend Reverend

From the conference, from your money's being stolen, taken from you, sent to the military industrial complex, the defense contractors for weapons that are then sent to Israel to commit crimes in your name.

Amen. And another example, the US planned to outsource its imperialism in Haiti to Kenya. This is from MSN. The US has long outsourced meddling in Haiti to global south countries. Recently, Kenya has agreed to take over leading a US backed multinational police intervention there justifying its own stabilization mission with Pan-Africanist rhetoric. And William Ruto, the president of Kenya, is scheduled to meet with Joe Biden in the White House on the 23rd of this month as the first, I think it's 200. So-called police. But these are incredibly, incredibly brutal. These aren't New York. This ain't NYPD. This is not LAPD. No. These are US trained brutal hit squads that they're sending in to Haiti via Kenya at the behest of the United States.

It's Kenya military. Kenya Military is a misnomer to refer to these forces just as police. That gives us sort of a milder sort of image. If you'll

Innocuous,

Innocuous. This is a, they're

Going to establish law and order.

This is a military invasion that is going to result in hundreds of deaths of Haitians because there will be resistance. They've already said there's going to be resistance. And so to save Haiti, supposedly they have imposed this military invasion. Dr. Leon, as you know, one of the things that really has made Western colonialism so effective has always been its ability to divide people, to have people who are people working with them who actually should be against 'em. So here we have one of the most egregious examples of that in this period, with the Kenyas being recruited to front for us white power. In that article or one of the other articles they talked about, they imply that this was, it didn't have a race component to it, that because these are black intervention of troops coming from Kenya and Jamaica and Grenada, that this is just solidarity. This is Pan-African solidarity, and they're using that term stabilization. This is, but this is the white mans bird. This is white saviorism in blackface. The

Power behind this, I call it minstrel diplomacy. It's a black face on white imperialism.

Exactly.

It's menstrual diplomacy. They might as well just start singing mammy,

Who's paying for this? The us? How did you move troops from Kenya all the way over to hay Kenya? Just don't have that capacity. Who

Feeds them? Who supports them? Who provides the logistics for them?

And anybody who believes that a government and a society that can justify genocide, supporting genocide in Gaza, they then turn around and are supposed to be concerned about black life in Haiti. You got to be a fool. I got a bridge for you to sell. I mean, you've got to ask the right questions, folks. Why is the US involved in this? When has the US been on the right side of history in any question? When has the US really been committed to any kind of humanitarian, anything? So this is another move by the US to strengthen itself in the Caribbean and in our region. When we say our region, we say that we are part of the broader Americas. America isn't just the United States of America. America are all of the nations in the Caribbean and in Central and South America. And we have a campaign, the Black Alliance of Peace, where we say that we support the idea of making this region a zone of peace. And we say the only way we can make this a result of peace, we have to eject the US from this region.

One of the things that they love to talk about as it relates to Haiti and the violence in Haiti, all these armed gangs that are roaming the roaming the countryside like feral cats or wolves or whatever. And I haven't heard anybody talk about the weapons that these individuals are carrying. Where do the weapons come from and who pays for the weapons? And here's some very simple data. The average Haitian makes $1,694 in a year, $1,694 in a year. That's $4 and 64 cents a day. A sniper rifle costs about $1,800. Where does a Haitian, who makes $4 and 64 cents a day if he or she's lucky amass the money to buy an $1,800 sniper rifle, a 40 caliber Beretta pistol cost close to a thousand dollars, you make $4 and 64 cents a day. Where are you getting these weapons? How are they getting into the country? We don't hear. It goes back to the adage, don't start nothing. It won't be nothing. If the United States were not behind fanning the flames of this unrest, there wouldn't be any unrest. Ajamu Baraka,

You're absolutely right. I mean, this is the importation of these weapons. It's all part of a process. You have different sectors of the Haitian ruling class have basically their own paramilitaries

And they control the ports,

But they're called gangs here at the us. Right? And the other thing that we have to make sure that we are very clear on all of this activity, the vast majority of this, so-called gang activity is centralized in port nce the capital, you go outside Port Prince, it's relatively normal. They're not roaming the countryside basically. It's a porter prince kind of thing. It's a power kind of thing. Okay? And so you're right. This is the military aspect of the conflict, the struggles among sectors of the ruling class in Haiti, the what we call copy doors who are in a cahoots with the powerful economic sectors outside of Haiti, primarily the us but also the Canadians, and even France. So this is another economic struggle being translated into a armed struggle in Haiti.

And quickly talk about, because a lot of people listening to this would ask the question, well, what's behind all of this? Why Haiti? And we know the historic aspects of this in terms of the first successful slave uprising throwing France out of Haiti in the 18 hundreds. We know that story, but connecting the dots in the current context, this is I believe a huge, one of the elements is a preemptive move against China. As the United States continues to try to bait China into a war over Taiwan, the United States realizes that they're going to lose access to their cheaper Chinese labor sources. And there is a lot of labor in Haiti. A lot of, again, folks make $4 and 64 cents a day in Haiti. If you look at where Haiti is located, the United States wants to build a naval base in Haiti as another stopgap measure to protect the Pacific. We know that there's oil, some geologists have estimated there's more oil off the coast of Haiti than there is off the coast of Venezuela. We know about the relationship between Nicaragua and China. China wants to build a Suez type canal through Nicaragua. The United States doesn't want that to happen. So a lot of this has, I believe, to do with preemptive measures that the United States is taking in anticipation of what's happening in other places. Your thoughts, sir?

I think you're right. I mean, the geopolitics are quite clear that Haiti is one of the largest countries in the Caribbean, if not the largest. And as you said, it is a haven for cheap labor. There's significant foreign investment taking advantage of that cheap labor right now. It has those potential deposits of oil off the coast and politically is key. We remember the connection that was made between Haiti and Venezuela for a few years. And so making sure that Haiti does not move to

The petro project,

Petro,

Where Venezuela was providing Haiti oil below market rates, so way

Below

So Haiti could then sell the oil generate revenue for itself.

And that was seen as a threat to US imperialism. And so those kind of political connections, they understand what many people and many of your listers may not know. Also, they are very strong currents of progressivism or leftism, if you will, in Haing. And the biggest fear that US has is those forces actually able to take power in Haiti that would transform geopolitics in this region. And so yeah, that's why they are intervening. That's why they have encouraged other countries in the Caribbean to be a part of this, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Grenada, to be part of this, what I call neoliberal Pan-Africanism, because they want to keep Haiti in their pocket. Look, the so-called governing council, they just put in place in order to serve on that governing council, you had to commit of this transitional council. You had to commit to the US intervention. You had to be in alignment with it. If not, you are not going to be allowed to serve on that transitional ruling council. And they talk about elections in Haiti, but they talk about the possibility of elections in 2026. So this is not a democratic intervention. This is not on behalf of the interest of Haiti. This is about the interest of US imperialism.

Final question. Talk about this in a broader context of a number of African countries demanding now that the United States militarily leave their countries. Niger has done this. I think Chad is demanding that the United States take its troops out. I think Mali is making a similar request. And reen Jean Pierre, by the way, a Haitian American press secretary for the administration says that Ruto coming from Kenya to the United States, that the United States is going to need African leadership in order to promote the United States interest. I'm paraphrasing, but that's their basic point. So once again, menstrual diplomacy of black face on the racist administrative message. But talk about that quickly, please. In the broader context of African countries demanding that the United States leave their soil militarily

First, if the US was really interested in African leadership, it would've listened to African leadership that were trying to bring about a peaceful resolution of the situation in Libya before NATO went in and destroyed that state. So we know that's all BS across the African continent. Yes, particularly in the Sahel region, you have these progressive militaries that have taken power because the civilian institutions have been so weak, and one of the first moves they've been making is to try to authentic sovereignty. What they discovered was you cannot be sovereign if you have foreign military troops in your country and that these troops act like and behave as though it's their country.

And you can't be sovereign if you don't control your economy and the resources under your soil.

Exactly. And so they've been invited to in fact leave, and they are leaving. The US is still dragging its feet in leisure, but this is catching on. And now with we're have time to talk about what's happening with Senegal, but you have another progressive change where the French are going to probably end up being pushed even out of Senegal. So you have a massive transformation taking place on the African continent in this section of Africa for now. But the model is a model that is now threatening to many of the other Conor leaders on the African continent that real change may be in the works. We may have in fact an authentic Pan-African movement. Finally, once again,

Folks, I have to thank my guest brother Ajamu Baraka for joining me today. Brother Baraka, thank you so much. Greatly, greatly appreciate it.

My pleasure. My pleasure.

Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wier Leon. Stay tuned. New episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Do us a huge, huge, huge favor. Go to Patreon, please, and contribute. This is not an inexpensive venture to engage in, and your support is greatly, greatly appreciated. And as you all can see every week, you're getting a hell of a lot for your money. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a good one. We're out. Peace.

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which they occur. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and their broader historic contexts. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that are impacting the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is the broader impact of the student protests in support of Palestine are having not only on their respective universities, but now across the country and across the globe. And for this to discuss this, my guest is a dear family friend, a student of political history. He as such, he's played a role in shaping history as we know it, and he worked with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton and others associated with the formation of the Black Panther Party for self-defense at College Merit College in Oakland, California. Later, he's worked as a political advisor and activist. He worked with a wide variety of black leaders in the Democratic Party throughout the state of California, as well as in Washington dc. He's the author of In Pursuit of America's Promise, memoirs of a Black Panther. He is Virtual Toussaint Murrell. Virtual, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Leon. I'm happy to be here. Happy to be invited by you, my dear friend.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for joining us. What brings us really to this discussion, student protestors at Columbia University, they took over a building near the campus South Lawn, raising the prospect of further turmoil at the Ivy League institution. The university started suspending students who refuse to leave their pro-Palestinian encampment that is on campus grounds. This, while police recently clashed with students at the University of Texas at Austin and arrested dozens of students as they dismantled their encampment to protest Israel's war on Gaza, and these protests at Austin came as Columbia also began suspending students. These are just a few examples of the protests that are taking place at colleges and universities. The country, a top official from Morehouse College, said recently that the school is standing by its decision to have President Joe Biden serve as the 2024 commencement speaker. Despite backlash from students and faculty over biden's support for this war, virtual your thoughts, you and your understanding of student protests. You go back a few years, talk about some of the similarities and differences that you see playing themselves out on our TV and telephone screens today.

Upon reflection, Wilmer, I can say to you that student protest is important. Students are a valuable commodity. They speak with honesty, with a strong sense of morality, and they're bright and they are our future. We look at the students and say, why? Look what they're doing. They're preventing students from going to class. They are projecting antisemitism. I don't see that. I see students less confusing to the American people and the world than the politicians. The politicians, the elected leadership that we have here, they are the ones that seem confused. Little consistency on our policies of foreign policy in the Middle East has given rise to the students to make their moral claim. The similarity between the students today and the student activists and those who protested the war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia are similar in that regard.

(05:04)

Do you see, particularly as it's played itself out at Columbia University, do you see the government's response, and I'll use that term very broadly as an attack on academia, because we're seeing this play itself out on a number of campuses. Teachers, many faculty are siding with students. Those faculty members are being threatened. Even those that are trying to stay above the fray are being attacked. The presidents of these universities are being attacked. Do you see this protest as an excuse by many in administration to attack academia?

Yes, of course. The faculty present their case. They teach us. They give us what we need to know to prepare us for the next world, the next life in terms of after we leave college. But I'm more concerned, I'm less concerned about the academics because academic freedoms will survive and it must survive because without academic freedom, there's no free speech. I'm more concerned that the administration of the various colleges and universities are ill-prepared to respond and deal with student protests. They don't know what to do. I would've thought after the years and years of protest of the past that someone would've done an analysis or study and put together a program, how it could be resolved in a more amicable way. For an example, why didn't someone call Dr. Wilmer? Why didn't someone call you? Why didn't someone call me? Why didn't someone call Bobby Seale? So there are instruments and vehicles that they could use to seek advice, but they talk to each other.

They talk to each other and well,

One more thing. As a result of talking to each other, they reinvent a wheel that is rusty and doomed to fail,

As we have seen it fail in the past. One of the things that, one of the reasons why they haven't called the folks that you mentioned or others, they're not interested in that level or that particular area of analysis. And also what I see here is the Israeli lobby playing such an important, a powerful role in that they won't tolerate any level of dissent in regards to the Zionist genocidal policies that are playing itself out in that settler colonial state. They won't tolerate any level of dissent, which is I believe what we're seeing, which is why so many, for example, look at what transpired at UCLA, the valedictorian and Asian American woman, a Muslim who is pro-Palestinian. She's the valedictorian of her class, 3.98 GPA on a 4.0 scale. First, they don't allow her to deliver her address. Then they decide to cancel graduation, and the excuse that they use is, oh, we received so many threats to her life that for her safety, we're doing this. That's not what happened. What happened is the wealthy benefactors that are in line with the interests of Zionism, they are pulling their money and they're threatening from pulling their funding from the institution. That's why the institution changed and canceled graduation because they're more concerned about the funding than they are concerned about academic freedom.

My question is whether or not academic freedom can be bought,

I think it can be stifled.

And so if it can be stifled, who suffers from it?

We all do. The entire country does. If not the world,

I think it's a cowardly act.

You are correct

For mature adults in academia and in government to blame students and not accept their role as part and parcel of the problem that allow for students to protest this undeclared war that allow us without question unfailingly to support one side or the other for financial reasons. It is a problem, it's a moral issue. And all wars to some degree. There's a moral question. If they would've asked me how to resolve this problem, I could not have fixed it, but I could have recommended a better solution than what I'm observing today. And I don't understand why they don't call the students in on all sides and get them all the benefit of understanding.

(12:55)

(13:58)

Well, a couple of things. One, there's a lot of discussion in the halls of Congress. The speaker of the house was at Columbia and he was talking about Jewish students feeling threatened Jewish students being attacked. And to your point earlier you said you haven't seen it. You haven't seen it because no evidence to support it has been presented. This is, and I'm not saying that there aren't students walking across campus that someone may make a comment to them or something innocuous, but from what I have been able to discern, 85% of that stuff isn't really happening. It's being blown out of proportion. There's no evidence to support this position that Jewish students are being threatened. In fact, when you look at the organizations that are participating in the demonstration, Jewish Voices for Peace, not in our name. When you look at some of the folks that showed up at Columbia University like Naomi Klein, there are a lot of American Jews that are in support of this protest, not against the protest. So those in the media as you referenced, who are in some binary type of thinking, them versus us, it's not nearly that complex. I mean,

I think it's rather odd that the House of Representatives cannot come together to create policy for the American people, yet they can form a bipartisan relationship to deal with indefensible students. Students that don't have the only armor that they have to defend themselves is they were the armor of morality. It exposes this government and the Congress both sides of the aisle for their intractable positions. And in doing so, we stand behind some of us, the courageous efforts of the students to bring together an understanding of what's going on. We were lied to about Vietnam, and students believe they're being lied to about what's going on in Gaza. They believe that some even believe that the Gaza Strip is designed and set up for future development. Ocean front properties.

Well, thank you. Jails,

Commercial Kushner. So the question is who is to control it? Well, I won't get into that. That's not really my feel. I'm suggesting, and I should not have necessarily said that's what I've heard. But most of us speak on rumors. So I thought I would share one.

No, that's not a rumor. Jared Kushner was very, very clear. Donald son-in-law was very, very clear. I heard him say it that this is great beachfront property and we can't wait to develop this. That's not a rumor.

Can't develop it if you can't control it,

Control it. Well, and

Not only that, going all the way back to ancient times, medieval times war is about the expansion of territory. And at the bottom line of the expansion of territory is economic gain. That may never stop. But let's not lie to the American people.

Well, and you raise the question about the irony that they can't find a coalition, a bipartisan coalition to pass a budget. They can't find a bipartisan coalition for voting rights. They can't find a bipartisan commission for hardly anything, but they can come together on this. Well, APAC has come out and said they're spending a hundred million dollars on campaigns for the 2024 election, putting money in the coffers of those that will support their Zionist colony. And there's Zionist interest. So they're spending money on both sides of the aisle.

But let's examine that for a moment. It's been declared by the courts that to deny anyone to write checks, to put 'em where to place 'em where they want to is in violation of First Amendment free speech. However, APAC naacp, they all have the right to do so and they all should do so. The question is, where are the stop gaps? Where is the issue? See, I always often, I should say, reflect on the courage of morality. I go back to if we have the principles of the founders of this society, that alone should embolden in you. If that doesn't embolden you, who will defend America's form of democracy? The most ironic government in the world, right? I say ironic because it is all right. It goes back and forth. It shifts. I don't always know where we are. But rather than confuse your viewers, let me just add something to all of this, and that might help to put it in perspective today in 2014, who is America?

(21:30)

And I want to add to that, who are we in a changing world? Because where we were in 1940, where we were in 1960, we after post World War ii, we were the unitary imperial hegemon. We ran the world. Now we're moving from a unipolar to a multipolar world. China is ascending. Russia is ascending with the creation of the bricks, which is Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And now the Saudis want to join bricks of Venezuelans, a whole lot of folks. So the global dynamic is shifting and the United States can no longer tell the world jump and the rest of the world asks how high. So in that shift in the global landscape, who are we? What are we about and what are we going to do? Because China is ascending economically, and our response to the ascension of China seems to be militarism, not economics. So that I think also has to be added to the question that you've posed.

The world in terms of power and economics evolves. And so America,

Every empire fails

America.

Every empire fails

Like Russia, like China, imperialist, Japan, Africa, the Sangha, Maori kingdoms and so on. They all fail. They all fail, but they don't fail externally. They fail internally. Confusion, frustration, egomaniacal leadership, tyrannical leadership, they fail. The course of America is on. Today is a threat. We're not threatened by the external forces. We're threatened by the internal forces of indecisiveness and being on the wrong side of just, or what is just when do we fall on the right side of just the right side of just must be demanded by the population, by the people? Cause we are the people. What does the constant say? Constitu say we the people, not we have the people and we the other half it says we the people. The more we recognize that as we the people, we are the government. That's why the students are extremely important to my framework, to my frame of thinking. I love the challenge that they're presenting to this government. And all the government can say is send in the police, arrest them, arrest the outside agitators. They want to blame everyone but themselves. But the government itself,

President Biden in part of his 2024 messaging, which is incredibly lacking, but that's a whole nother conversation. One of the things that he talks about in reference to Donald Trump is that democracy is under attack. That if you vote for Donald Trump, you're voting for the cheapening, the lessening, the attack on democracy. The first amendment of the Constitution reads as follows, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people to peaceably, to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That part is not the Constitution, that part is the moral document of the United States as the Declaration of Independence. The part the last. Right,

Right.

And what does that mean?

Well explain what you mean by that. So people don't think that I'm confusing constitute the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence. Declar, explain what you

Mean by that. The Declaration of Independence says to the American people that you have the right to redress your grievance. And in the course of human events, let me just paraphrase. When things aren't going right, you have the right to rebel. You have the right to address your government about your issues. You have that right to peacefully assemble. You have that right

And to pick up arms if it gets to that point.

But remember one thing, the Constitution is always quoted, but really, if ever do we hear about the Declaration of Independence,

You're a dot. You're connecting a dot on connecting the dots. Because your point is that part of the First Amendment came out of the Declaration of Independence, correct? You are absolutely right. So as Joe Biden wants to continually refer to January 6th and the uprising on January 6th as a threat to democracy, and we must vote Democrat and vote for Joe Biden because he's going to protect our democracy. He is undermining the democracy by championing, agreeing with and facilitating the attack on these students.

Let's say this, as I said a moment ago, the students aren't the problem.

Correct?

It's the government. It's the government. It's not Joe Biden, it's not Donald Trump. It's all of those who stand in the way of the students to identify the problem. And if it's not resolved because somebody or some bodies want to be the leader of America, that's a different issue. Completely different issue. I saw a note earlier this young lady said it's about Trump invited and it was troubling and it was troubling when the comment was made. To me, if an African-American voter has to decide between Trump and Biden, then that person isn't black. Who the hell can identify who is and who isn't black? That's not black. That's troubling. Joe Biden thinks he can. It's troubling. But lemme say this, let me say this. I don't want to jump on Joe Biden without jumping on Trump. Okay, now let me say this. The value value of the President of the United States is not a free economy per se. It's not small or big business. It is defending the rights of the American people, the Constitution. Well, we are witnessing a political entity who decided, who decided that they were going to stand in the way and block then President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court.

(31:14)

(32:33)

That happened after the Civil War in the south. That's why we had reconstruction. And that's why reconstruction was violently brought to an end.

Well, no reconstruction one was brought to an end. We are in reconstruction two today.

Oh, well yeah, I was talking about post civil War.

Yes, I get it, I get it. But you raised the correct point. And that is white primaries, Plessy versus Ferguson poll. Taxes, taxes, poll, tax. They're all coming back in a more sophisticated stealth form. Gerrymandering voting is one for an example. So we must spend time. I said this to some students recently, I figured out at least for myself, that the issues we deal with in America, African-Americans, our differences, our issues a little bit different from other ethnic groups. First of all, we're not people of color sharing the same experience. We're a black with a unique experience. That unique experience was the experience of inhumanity, of enslavement. No other group can claim that. And I don't want to claim it as a virtue. I'm claiming it as a historical fact. Now we understand what it's like to go through all these changes in the world, but we must stop being on the defensive end of it when something happens, we follow.

(35:04)

Oh, that makes perfect sense to me. I think an apt description of what you've just laid out or articulated is we spend too much time going along to get along and we don't spend enough time championing, articulating and ensuring that our interests are at the forefront and being addressed because there are interests. And we keep being told, not now, not now be patient. Yours will come by and by vote for the Democrats or vote for whoever. They'll take care of it. And we want, in fact, there is an interesting piece to this point. I'm glad you made that point about the point about Joe Biden saying in the 2020 campaign, if you vote for Donald Trump, then you ain't black. There is a piece, fewer black voters plan to vote in 2024. Post Ipsos poll finds 1300 black adults finds that a poll of more than 1300 black adults finds 62% of black Americans say they're absolutely certain to vote.

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Let me respond to that. The way a Philip Randolph responded to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president Roosevelt, they were having a discussion about the needs of African Americans and they, Phillip Random. I said, whatcha going do about it? Roosevelt responded and said,

Go, make me do it.

Make me do it. So we have to, the moral of the story is we have to make them do it.

Exactly

Now. And in saying that, I say this, so the front page stories or the talk show hosts are talking about black men not voting and why aren't they voting? You want us to vote, but what do we get for the vote? Oh, you get a Supreme Court justice. Oh, you don't get to tell the banks that control the mortgages that African-Americans are suffering because we don't have home ownership. In Los Angeles in 19 18, 30 6% of the American people owned their own homes. 36% had their own mortgage as far cry from today in 2024. So the question is, you want us with you and I would like to be with you, but make me be with you. Make me be with you. And how do you do that? Well, there's enough on your desk to show you what you haven't done. Now lemme switch over to Trump. Lemme switch over to Trump. This society is prepared to say to us, first of all, lemme say this, you shouldn't need any black votes to beat Trump.

We're only 13% of the population.

No, not for that reason. No, not for that reason, Leon. It's because there are some white people that say that they support Biden that obviously do not.

But that goes to my point. We're only 13%. So if you were able to rally your own, you wouldn't need

Us. But I'm going to a different issue. I

Understand

That I'm, I'm saying that there are, they're

Lying.

There are a great number of people that are being very stealth in their relationship with questioners questionnaires about how they feel about Trump. Because if I don't understand polls being almost even right now, it makes no sense. So you want to lean on African-Americans, but you don't want to lean on the white middle class. But the white middle class gained more than black supporters gained from any administration, Republican or Democrat. What Trump is saying is this, democracy is fine, but I'm going to redefine it. I'm going to redefine it for the people that support me.

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You may get answers. Well, to your point, Trump and a lot of people don't pay attention to this language. I'm drawing a blank on the guy that was his key political advisor in 2020.

You talking about Trump or

Trump's Trump's key advice? I'm drawing a blank.

Steve Bannon, Steve Bannon,

Steve Bannon, Steve Bannon talked in terms of deconstructing the administrative state in a lot that has gone over the heads of a lot of people. He said, we are going to deconstruct the administrative state. He's talking about attacking the constitution and folks that has fallen on deaf ears. People seem to forget the fact that that was ever stated. But I want to get back to this piece that's in the Washington Post that we've just been talking about. Again, the title is Fewer Black Voters Plan a Vote in 2024 Post Ipsos Poll finds. Because that story in and of itself speaks about an incredible reality. But there's also another element to how that story is being used, because that story is part of a number of stories that are laying the groundwork to blame African-Americans. If Joe Biden loses, and again, we're here to connect the dots. This story in a vacuum is very telling. And it's true. Joe Biden is losing the African-American base of support. But it's not because we're indifferent. It's not because we're apolitical. It's not because we're disinterested. It's because you haven't given us anything to vote for. And my years in studying political science in virtual, you tell me if I'm right or wrong, people are more inclined to vote for something than they are to vote against something.

The question is whether or not you won an enthusiast.

Oh wait minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. One more point. Because they did the same thing when Hillary Clinton lost. When Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. They blamed us. Oh, black people in Michigan didn't turn out. Oh, black people in Pennsylvania didn't turn out. They tried and there were a lot of black people in Hillary's campaign that tried to blame the black. It wasn't that we didn't turn out. It was that Hillary Clinton didn't give us any reason

To. Well, I think also you must, when you say that, you also got to add that white women supported Trump.

That's true too. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's true too. In fact, because a lot of those suburban white women that had that traditionally were voting Republican, that during the Obama administration voted for Barack Obama, they reverted back to voting Republican.

Well see we went to the apex of politics when Obama was elected president. And so you had a number of Americans, let's say, who would say, how could this have happened? And not only did it happen once, it happened twice, Obama's the only person that receive that won the presidency back to back with 50 plus percent of the vote. If you recall, bill Clinton had less than 48% of the vote the first, the second time. And 43% of the vote the second, the first time. And then we lost reelection with Carter in 1980. And so from 1980, well actually from the election of 80 until Obama's election, no Democrat had ever been elected twice except Obama. Since when? Can you remember the last time a Democrat won was reelected?

No, Kennedy was assassinated and Johnson didn't.

No. With 50% of the vote is what I'm saying. No, because Kennedy was a two term president, but not with 50% of the vote. And all of a sudden Trump said, I see my opening and I'll just create a controversy. He wasn't born in the United States. He's an illegal president. And that carried him because there are enough white people who wanted to believe that. I can't believe it. How did

He become,

He's a Muslim president less than 150 years outside from the Emancipation Proclamation and this guy's president of the United States, look what they could do in another a hundred years. So I look at politics as a method of delivering benefits. If you're in Oakland, California where we have history and then we support a mayor and this person, a candidate, and this person becomes the mayor, and we say, well, I'm bringing my winner's ticket to the winner's window. What do I get? I'm cashing in. But there are people that are able to bring the, they're losing tickets to the winner's table and win. There's something wrong with that calculation. But white privilege has always had its advantage. And that's why it's white privilege. They have the advantage that we don't have and will happen that way until we challenge the precepts. Until we find another parent, Mitchell, another Ron Dells another bill Clay, Charlie Wrangle sto. Until we, Barbara Jordan, until we find this old guard, we're not going to be able to compete. Period.

It's important I think at this stage of the conversation to delineate or differentiate between direct versus indirect beneficiaries. Politics is the debate over the distribution of limited resources, the allocation and distribution of limited

Resources. That is an aspect of politics. Yes.

And so Barack Obama wins his first term. What is the first piece of legislation that he signs? This is debatable. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. That is a payoff to the women that supported him. He gives us the Dream Act. The Obama administration gives us the Dream Act that's a payoff to the Latino community that voted for him. First American president to come out and support same-sex marriage. What does that do? That's a payoff to the alphabet community, the L-G-B-T-Q community for supporting him. That's politics. That's what's supposed to happen. Your constituents who successfully put you in office, get paid back for supporting and putting you in office. What do we get? Oh, well there are black women that those are direct beneficiaries, but

It's never the president's fault because you don't get anything without a demand.

Oh wait minute, minute. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Because you're right. But those are direct beneficiaries of participating in the process. We're told we're supposed to be happy being indirect beneficiaries because there are black people in the L-G-B-T-Q community, there are black women that are going to benefit from the Lily led better Fair Pay Act. There are black people that are going to vote. I mean, so we are supposed to be happy as indirect beneficiaries when real politics, the real winners are direct beneficiaries.

You cannot fault when we have representations in the name of the Congressional Black caucus. You can't fault white folks that don't represent our interests.

No.

Who don't deliver. Look, in 1968, Nixon was president. The Congressional black caucus went to Nixon and they were able to negotiate benefits for the black community. And that happened on and on and on and on until recently until the last 20 years or so. And why is that? And there's a reason for it because in the old days, I say old days among the initial group of congressional black caucus of members, they grew out of black activism. They grew out of the black community. They were with the OEO program. The executive directors of OEO program like Parent Mitchell was executive director. They all, bill Clay came off the city council and alderman in St. Louis. And he was a part of the labor community or interest there. I mean, the point is they came out of activism that taught them through practice what politics was about and how you get what you want to get, what you need to have.

(53:19)

Yes, he's

Cause that was his constituency.

Yes sir. Was he

Wrong to do that? No, because politically he was working for his constituency. I get that. Well what about me?

What? Wait a minute, wait a minute. See, because he is wrong. Because you made the point. They're Democrats first and black second. What? I'm drawing a blank on a guy's name from New York, what he

Torre Torres Torres,

What he fails to appreciate is Palestinians are black.

No, he didn't fail. No, no, no. Absolutely not. Yes, yes, yes, yes. No. What he was relating to is how many checks he'd get from the Jewish community. But wait a minute, he didn't.

That's my point. He didn't care.

That's my point. He didn't care about anything else because the Jewish community controls Manhattan.

We're saying the same thing virtually. Okay, alright. We're just coming at it from different sides of the equation. But no, we're saying the same. There's no way in the world that any black man in any position of power or black woman in any position of power should be siding with Zionist. You are supporting genocide.

You're

Supporting genocide.

See, you're going back to an issue, and I'm trying to lay out a distinction.

Richie Torres,

He is a Democrat. He's not black. And he's not black in his politics. He's a Democrat in his politics. So if that's true, and if you can agree with that, then the conclusion is yes, he supports genocide.

That's what I said.

No, I'm saying, but that's the rational conclusion.

Okay. And Hakeem Jeffries is in the boat. Gregory Meeks is in the boat. Kamala Harris is in the, wait a minute, they all support attacking Haiti. They all support the re invasion of Haiti under the global fragility. But I

Have given you a premise. And the premise is that their priority is being a Democrat.

I agree with

You. Okay. Because that is their priority. Then you can't distinguish them from the overall policy that Democrats support.

I agree with you. Wait a minute. And that goes back to a point that you made earlier. That's immoral politics.

Yes it is. How do you come out?

See, I'm listening to you

Support Israel. Good, bad or indifferent, but you can't support Haiti. Thank you. Explain that one to me.

It's inexplicable. You can't explain it. You might as well ask me. And I agree with you a thousand percent. I just want to say it this way to make the point. You might as well ask me to explain how one plus one equals seven because I can't, and I've taken a lot of years of math to get a PhD. I can't tell you why one plus one equals seven. And that's exactly what these fools are doing. It is immoral.

Yes it is. Yes it is. And you and most of the people that I know were raised with a great sense of moral values, period. That's the way we were raised.

Right. You know this, my father used to say to me all the time, son, the one thing about right, it's always right. And the one thing about wrong, it's always wrong,

But the politicians

So do right.

But the politicians will have you to believe that power determines right. The power determines wrong and they often do that. But it has nothing to do with what's morally correct.

That is Amen my brother nothing. Amen. So let me ask you this in just a couple minutes we have left. Is this an opportunity with the black vote trending? And as we sit here now, we're still months away from the election so things can change. But as we sit here now and the black vote is trending away from Biden, and Biden can't win without us because right now, as we sit here today, his approval rating is according to real clear politics, 39.7%. His disapproval rating is 56.4. When you ask the public, is the country heading in the right direction or the wrong direction? 24.3% of those poll believe it is 65.3. I'm sorry, 65.3 believe that it's not. And in battleground states, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada, Trump is, Biden is losing to Trump in some of those states outside the margin of error. So with all of that being laid out, is this the opportunity for us to say to Democrats, we want our peace, we want it now, and you can't win without us

Response. My response would be this. Number one, a poll taken in May of 2024 in elections in November is way too early to make final determinations.

Well that's why I said

Me. Ask me.

That's why I prefaced my point. My question with that point,

Ask me in September.

No, no, no. As we sit here now,

Lemme finish what I'm saying. Lemme finish what I'm saying. Alright. I will be more able to read this selection after Labor day of this year. Now in terms of, is this the time for black people to plant their flag? No, it's not the time because we don't have a plan.

Understood.

It's like Ossie Davis used to say when they put together a congressional black caucus, it's not the man,

It's the plan. It's the plan.

And so to do anything without a plan, it's almost political suicide. So we do need a plan. And until that happens, when we go to the polls, people will be urged to support the incumbent because the incumbent comes closest to us upon our wishlist than does is opponent. That part I absolutely agree with, concur with the problem is we cannot continue to go on and on and on and accept a sedative and fall asleep for four years. We need a plan and someone is going to come along. The modern day, black Moses is going to put together and put together a plan for black America to advance and further than we have. We haven't made any advancement in the last, you can say that the election of Obama was an advancement. You can say that Kamala Harris' Vice President is an advance. Yes. You can say that.

(01:02:33)

And to your point as we get out, to your point about Kamala, and to your point about Barack Obama, those are achievements to your point for the individuals, the question to the audience is how has your quality of life improved? How has your circumstance improved with an African-American president with an African-American Vice President, as the rate of homelessness increases in this country as unemployment increases contrary to the data that they want to use increases in this country.

I know you have to cut off, but let me ask you this. After Jackie Robinson, there was Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Larry Doy, so from Roberto Clementine and so forth and so on, after Obama, there's who?

And when you lay out Jackie, who, wait a minute, wait a minute. And with the point of Jackie Robinson, when you talk about Hank Aaron, and when you talk about Dolby and the rest of them, they decimated the Negro Leagues in order to get those

Individuals. But you're missing what I

Just, no, I'm not missing your point. Virtual. They adding another point.

I know, but the only reason I'm short circling the conversation cause I know you got to get off.

But no, there's nobody, to your point.

Yeah, that's right. There's nobody, there's, but after Jackie, we had some bodies,

Right? We had a whole bunch of bodies

Until they figured out there's too many black folks in the major leagues.

That's a conversation for another day. Yes, it's that's something that's near and dear to my heart.

Might as well,

Very dear to my, and a big shout out to the Metropolitan Junior Baseball League in Richmond, Virginia and the Negro Little League World Series.

I'm going to give a shout out to McClymonds High School that sent to America, bill Russell, Frank Veder, PE Peon, and Kurt Flood and so on

In Pursuit of America's Promise, memoirs of a Black Panther. Virtual Morre is the author, he's been my guest. Virtual. Where do people go to get the book,

Virtual [email protected]? Just go online and send it to Virtual [email protected] and you'll get your autograph signed. Copy of the book,

My brother. Thank you Virtual. Really appreciate it. Thank you so

Much. And thank you for all that you do to inform your listeners, your viewers of what's going on in America.

Well, as a brother from Sacramento, California that spent an awful lot of his formative years in Oakland, I stand on the shoulders of brothers like you. So thank you Virtual. I truly, truly appreciate it. Folks, thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wier Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. This is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a great one. Peace and blessings. I'm out

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube

Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd

Some articles referenced in the episode:

Nato Watch article: How Gorbachev was misled over assurances against NATO expansion

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon and this is a special episode. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum and we're failing to understand the broader historical context in which many of these events occur during each episode. Usually my guests and I have probing, provocative and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur, and this enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is what's really behind this most recent spate of military spending and is democracy really at risk? My guest for this discussion is me as the brilliant philosopher of the late Maurice White with Earth, wind and Fire said in all about love.

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Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube

Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. So here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the much broader historical context in which they occur. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between the current events and their broader historic context. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, there are a few events that have occurred and transpired recently that I want to get into. First, the United States has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution granting Palestine full membership in the United Nations. It's important to remember that Palestinian statehood was recognized by the UN General Assembly in November of 2012 when it was given non-member observer status.

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Good evening.

So with that long introduction, Tom, what's on your mind, man? What do we need to be paying attention to?

Well, it's interesting how you started off, and I would paraphrase what you said was what so many people are guilty of. That is an analysis of the results, not an analysis of how the results were obtained since we actually are told by the Israeli government and our government and the Western government that October 7th, 2023 started the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

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Well, it's very telling that you talk about leadership, because when I think about leadership, I think about Dr. Du Bois. I think about Dr. King. I think about activists like Dory Ladner. I think about Mrs. Hamer and Paul Robeson. I think about the Tom Porters of the world. Now we're looking at athletes and musicians. The discussion is LeBron James better than Michael Jordan? You asked that question. Oh man, you can be in a bar and wind up with damn near a fight on your hands that people are so personally invested in that conversation. But ask them about Palestine, ask them about Niger. Ask them about Haiti, and you'll get glazed looks, gloss looks, or you'll get talking points from CNN and MSN. Ask somebody about Ukraine. And the first thing you're going to get is, well, Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian and a dictator, or ask them about Taiwan and China and all they want to talk about is a spy balloon.

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You're so right. But the fundamental question for me as a black man, as an African man, I mean, at my age, 84, I'm okay, but when I think about the future of my kids and my grandkids, what about their future? And it raises the fundamental question, can African African-Americans obtain freedom, justice, and equality in a society that's imperialist capitalists and politically, economically, culturally, and socially? For all intents and purposes, that's a nation of white supremacists from the top to the bottom. And so the question is, do we stay here? One of the mistakes that I think that we've made that our politics and our politics has been to challenge the society to let us in on it,

(13:44)

Talk about that binary thinking because I wrote a piece a while back, the dangers of binary thinking for the African-American community. And what prompted me to write that was listening to these discussions about, well, if you criticize Biden, then you are either obviously or by default, you are championing Trump. And no, both of them are not above beyond reproach. Both of them are in fact, in many instances, they're engaged in some of the same activities because we tend to get caught up in the politics of personality and we lose sight of the politics of policy, not really understanding that Julian Assange, Donald Trump started that process. Joe Biden followed up on it. That's just one example. So this danger of binary thinking for us, it's got to be Biden or Trump. We can't see beyond the two options that we've been provided.

Well, that has to do with the philosophical underpinnings of what makes a society go in America. There's a rare university that offers political economy. They offer economics and political science at the same time. It's a rare school that offers, of course, in dialectical logic, symbolic logic is basically the structure of arguments. That's what you're going to see in New York in the trial is that who can argue correctly, not who's correct, but who can argue structure the argument that makes a better case than the other one. It has absolutely nothing to do, whether there's a crook and a bomb that's on trial that shouldn't even have gotten this far. Fortunately, I took philosophy, symbolic logic from a person who was a scientific thinker. And so he taught it in a electrical way, which means that your thinking should be rooted in the interconnected of things, the relationship between things, not this or that, black or white, either or. It can be boan.

Well, hence this program, connecting the dots, always trying to find context and provide the interrelatedness between events so that you're much better able to engage in better analysis because the factors that you bring more factors into your equation.

Oh, I mean, you're absolutely correct, but that is the thinking. If you don't vote for Biden, it's a vote for Trump. And if you don't vote for Trump, then it's a vote for Biden. That doesn't make any sense at all. But people say, those are the choices that we have. No, we have another choice. We forget that we made the most progress when we didn't have a black caucus, when we didn't have many black judges. When we had, maybe we had one judge on the Supreme Court, very few black mayors because we struggled, we fought, we banged on the door and push the door in. And that's not happening. That's not happening anymore. So you talk to people and it's that binary thinking, but it's that in everything. It's that. It's that kind of thinking. And that's one of the real problems that you have in the educational system here, why Americas is lagging far behind in certain critical bodies of knowledge. Because I soon realized when I was in undergraduate school that many of my professors concealed more than they revealed.

They concealed more than they

Revealed than they revealed. I remember when I started teaching at Antioch, one of the books I used in the child development course was Thought and Language by ky. And another faculty member said that that was too difficult for graduate students. How can a book be too difficult for graduate students? But the book by ky, which is thought Language is all the rage now rave now in educational psychology and psychology circles. But then because he was a Russian and therefore assumed to be a communist, even though he was born, if I'm not mistaken, before the Russian Revolution. But that's where we are. But the point is, my point today is what are we going to do? Are we going to go down with the ship? Are we going to get off the ship? But that's the fundamental,

Are we going to take control of the ship?

That's a good thought.

Well, to me, it only seemed like a logical extension of the other two options that you provided, or at least since we're using the metaphor of a ship, are you going to create your own lifeboat?

Well, I think it's now time before serious call, given some of the emerging forces in Africa and Brazil and what have you, even in Venezuela that it's time for a new Pan-African movement, 21st century style. It is really time. And I just talked to somebody who was in Geneva on, there's a conference, UN conference on racism and civil rights. I don't have the correct title, but he's on his way back and he said he's going to brief me in person, but he was very optimistic about some of the things that he was seeing. But also obviously, so there's movement and we're in a transitional period on the planet. So there was a unipolar world, it was United States, and it controlled mostly through NATO and other relationships, the politics of Europe and the United States. But now you have the bricks, you have a number of, we live in a multipolar world and it is not just the bricks with China.

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Oh, I think you're absolutely right. Not only is Gaza the Achilles tendon of Joe Biden, but I also believe that one of the reasons why the Biden administration and so many other forces in the West are so adamantly behind this settler colonial genocidal project is because I believe they understand as goes the settler colony of Israel, so goes the rest of colonization, period. And that the end of this is the, that

One of these days, somebody's going to really take a real look at the relationship between Israel, not just in this country, but in the rest of the world, and where does its power come from and where's his strength come from? Why would Biden put his presidency on the line, but not just his presidency, he actually believes what he's doing is right.

Well, he is on record and folks can scream antisemitism if they want to. He's on record very clearly as saying, I am a Zion, which a proves the point. Not all Zionists are Jewish, and not all Jews are Zionists because he's Irish Catholic, but he's very clear on I am a Zionist. And contrary to the dominant narrative, Zionism and Judaism or Zionism and Judaism are not the same thing. And being anti-Zionist doesn't mean you're, and being anti-Zionist doesn't even mean it means you are anti-Zionist. But their vested interest in controlling that narrative, which by the way, they are dramatically losing control of as evidenced by what we're seeing playing itself out on our college campuses. They've lost control of that narrative. And I don't see how they're ever going to be able to reclaim that narrative.

Well, it's very clear that the forces supporting Palestine is growing, and the questioning, which never happened before, Israel was never questioned before in a way that it is being questioned down. But the question is because, well, let's be clear. You strike up a conversation with the average white person about Jews and you'll get some antisemitism. And of course, Hitler was white. He wasn't a Jew, he was white, European, Mussolini was, and the rest of the fascists in Europe were Caucasians. And so what would make this country send him a bunch of weapons in the middle of a situation where the whole world is saying, you shouldn't do that?

Well, what did Al Hague say? He said, Israel is our unsinkable aircraft carrier in the region. And so they saw in that colony a ideological and military base bastion region that they believed would be their space to project power and to control that space.

I don't have the answer, but it's an interesting question. The reason why I say it's interesting because the relationship is not making sense now,

Right?

It's not making a sense. When you stand alone at the un, you voted against something that the rest of the world was for,

And you're voting for genocide. We're not arguing borders. We're not arguing an issue on the maritime navigation of the seas. We're not arguing whether it's 12 miles or 14 miles from your coast where you get into international waters. We're not arguing access to mineral rights. It's genocide. And it's not even debatable. It's not even debatable because those such as Netanyahu that are being in Morich and Benny Gantz, we have their own language. They have made it very clear in their own statements in court, you would call that statements against interest. We got to take 'em for their word because they're saying things that are really against their interest

And doing things that are

And do it exactly.

But still, the question comes back what's on my mind? I care less about the fight between Trump and Biden and more about what are we going to do because we come out losing whoever gets in, and we need to be clear about that. If Biden will do what he's doing in the Middle East and Haiti and in Africa, what will he do for us? When the vote comes up?

To that point, Tom, the house has just passed a 92 billion military spending bill where they're going to send something like 62 billion to Ukraine. They're going to send, I don't know, 20 something to Israel. And of course, Taiwan, while people in the United States are having to make decisions between paying rent and buying food or buying medicine, the homeless rate or the unhoused rate in the United States right now is somewhere 800,000. And that's just based upon the number of people in shelters that's not actually dealing in addressing the number of people that are living either under bridges in tents living with other family members. The social in indices in this country are, the rate of suicide is on the rise, particularly among white men. The rate of depression among children is on the rise. I mean, I can pick a litany of things. Oh yeah, go ahead.

The Misery Index, which used to be something that they used to measure the conditions of black people and other people of color in this country, now it's extended to looking at the misery index among whites, because when we talk about homeless, and DC is rare where you see a significant number of black people who are homeless, but you travel throughout the rest of the country in rural Virginia, rural Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, and what have you really see some poverty that you've never seen.

So my question is 92 billion, and that's just this latest round of funding. And we don't seem to, we're paying for healthcare in Ukraine. We're paying for pensions in Ukraine when Americans can't get either. But where is the pushback and the outcry from the Congressional Black Caucus, for example?

It really isn't. I mean, that's the problem, is the deafening silence come out of black leadership at all levels. Even here in Washington, I don't think the non-voting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton has stood out, stood up for a ceasefire.

Nope,

I don't think the city council has called for a ceasefire. So where do we fit in all of this? That's the fundamental question for me

That it keeps going back to that,

Right?

The A DL is going to spend, I think the number was a hundred million dollars. I think that was the number on this upcoming election to unseat, if I'm off on that number, folks, I apologize. I was just getting it off the top of my head. I think it's a hundred million to unseat what are considered to be progressive Democrats. Now, in the 2020 election, and in the 2016 election, there was all this boohoo and crying and concern about Russian interference and Chinese interference and Iranian interference in our elections. Now you've got APAC getting ready to, or in the process, or they're in the midst of spending a hundred million dollars and not a moan, not a grip.

And the reason why is the influence, again, people always say the United States is supporting Israel. It is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that in significant ways, Israel and the Israeli diaspora controls significant aspects of American business, cultural, social, and economic life. And that book hasn't been written well.

Oh, okay. Tom, sounds like my next book. Yeah, that

Book hasn't been written. And so from that stand, well,

If you could get it written, how are you going to get it published?

It's interesting question.

(37:11)

I asked the question about if the book were written, how would it get published? And I was looking off at my bookcase because this book right here, the Israel lobby and US Foreign Policy by John Heimer and Steven Walt, I remember when this book came out and they damn near ran these boys out of town. I remember it was how long I tried to get an interview with Heimer or Walt and what those guys were damn near in hiding because the uproar of the publication of the book, the Israel lobby. Now, it's interesting too, Tom, that you just mentioned how powerful Israel is, but give me that analysis. While they can't defeat Hamas and they can't defeat Hamas, they're getting their hind parts whooped in Gaza, Iran just sent them a real serious message about mess around with us if you want to, and we'll reign missiles down on you for the next 15 years. And Hezbollah has not gotten into the mix. Ansar Allah in Yemen has shut down the maritime traffic in the Red Sea, and before Iran launched their retaliatory strike against Israel, they captured a cargo ship in the Straits of Horus to demonstrate to the United States, we will shut down the straits of Horus. We will shut down the Red Sea, and you won't get a drop of oil or nothing. So when you talk about the power of Israel, talk about it in that context or those contexts.

Well, I think the United States,

Is that a good question to ask?

Oh, it's an excellent question because, but what we see in the West Bank and in Gaza, it's the same thing we saw in Vietnam. Same thing we saw in Korea. Same thing we saw in Cuba. Same thing we saw in Guinea Basa in Angola and Mozambique and South Africa. That is, you could misjudge the sentiment to say that the Palestinians don't support Hamas. Some of that is probably true, but one thing that all Palestinians are clear about

Freedom,

Freedom, justice, and equality. And I think that is a mistake that they've made. And I think that is a mistake that they've made in Lebanon. That is, they underestimate, in fact, they have increased the number of young Palestinians and young Arabs throughout the Middle East in their hatred for both Israel and the West and down the road. Arab leaders are going to have to deal with that. The people not going to,

And that's a very practical reality because some people listening to this conversation, when you make that statement say, oh, that's because they're antisemitic, and that's because they hate Jews. No, they hate oppression and they hate oppressors. And no matter what color stripe or size they are, I hate the person that has his or her foot on my throat, no matter what size that foot is. And no matter what kind of boot they're wearing, that's what I hate.

I think they're making the same miscalculation around the students. I mean, you can lock up 40, you can lock up 50, you can lock up a hundred people, but you really can't lock up an idea. And unless you are willing to make certain changes, the idea is going to grow. I mean, it's small, but it's significant that a group of auto workers, I'm thinking it was in Tennessee.

It was in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Voted to unionize. They thought they had broken the unions, but the conditions of such among workers, white workers and black workers, that something has to be done because they're filling it when they go to the grocery store. I went to Costco to fill up my gas tank the other day, and because I have to use premium in my 1992 Volvo wagon, it cost me almost $60.

I have to put premium in mine. It was 85.

Wow. So everybody's beginning to feel the decline of this economy At the same time that they're saying that the economy is growing, you notice they never say use the word development again. That's kind of like binary thinking. They never use the word, they always use word. The economy is growing. That's a quantitative analysis. But a qualitative analysis would be, are you developing as a society or your school's turning out educated people? But if you just deal with growth, it's all about numbers.

It's all about numbers, primarily because when they come and tell us that the economy is growing, they're talking about the financialized side of the economy. So if you have a 401k program, then you're happy as a clam because over the last three or four, maybe five quarters, the financialized side of the economy is running like gangbusters. But we're not manufacturing anything in this country anymore. The manufacturing base in this country is on the decline because we've exported all of those jobs to China and to Vietnam and to India. So the wage, has there been wage growth in this country? No. And to your point about the unions, so Sean Fe comes out the head of the UAW. He comes out in January saying the UAW endorses Joe Biden. But that same day, he has to give another speech where he comes out and says, the rank and file of the UAW does not back Joe Biden, because they're more concerned about their paychecks, and many of them are going to support Donald Trump. That's Sean Fain. That's not me. That's the head of the UAW making that statement. And that's what goes to the, as you talked about, the UAW in all places, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and from Chattanooga, they're going to Alabama now to a Mercedes plant in Alabama. Now that's going to be a harder fight. They're going deeper south. But still,

How can you have the largest economy in the world and be a detonation

And debt to your, who you consider to be your primary enemy, which is China,

Right? But how can you be? There's some oxymoronic about that, right?

That

You have the largest economy in the world, but

You're a better nation,

Better nation, and people are seeking different ways of economically engaging with each other other than using the dollar. And yet you, but every day people are feeling it. Every day people are filling at the pump, at the grocery store, at

The a pack of chicken wings and a gallon of milk,

The doctor's office. I mean, if you can

Get in.

Yep, yep.

So, Tom, to your point, what are we to do?

Well, we used to have men and women who thought these things. A lot of people are writing books. I'm encouraged about some of the things, and there's a lot going on in the street. There doesn't seem to be a unifying theme. I mean, the Montgomery Bus boycott was something that significant numbers of African-Americans, the black people felt in the north and the South, because many of us had a two-state experience, born in the south, grew up in the north, and so on our yearly summer visits back home, we ran into what our brothers and sisters and kin folks were dealing with. And it was a spirit in the community that it was our time to fight back and to be independent and what have you. That spirit, you can see it bubbling up young people. I'm encouraged by young people because you really can't lie to them as easy as you can lie to everybody

Else. Not watching CNN and MSPC,

Without a doubt. Without a doubt. So I'm actually encouraged. On the other hand, I would encourage people to get a passport. You never know when you're going to need it. I think you ought to look for options, particularly for your grandchildren and what have you. And that's not unusual. People are leaving America, not just black people going back to Africa, but white people going to Europe, and some of 'em are going to places like Puerto Rico,

Right? Central and South America,

And say nothing of Africa. So people are leaving. And that's one option. That's one option that has always been on my mind and

Abandon ship.

No, get on another ship.

Well

Get on another ship. Let Biden and Trump and that group fight it out. They seem to be doing a pretty good job of battling each other. But on the serious side, we've got to raise significant questions wherever we can. We got to discuss these things wherever we can. We can't allow this leadership class that we have, and even some of the so-called progressive pundits, we can't simply allow them to get away with what they've been getting away with. And I'm grateful for programs like this and some other programs or a few other stations where people are speaking out and are being heard and are being heard.

Just really quickly, did you happen to see the fallout from the National Action Network Congress, a convention where folks went in protesting as Hakeem Jeffries was brought in to speak and folks were protesting Hakeem Jeffries and Reverend Sharpton called him Renta Coons, and did you see any of that?

No, but I'm not surprised.

Okay, then I won't go any further into it.

Well, but you raised an interesting point about the bankruptcy of leadership. They used to refer to Al Sharpton as Jesse on a budget. But

Lemme just quickly make one point, because one of the things that Reverend Sharpton was promoting or displaying, he was basically saying, look at. So he got Joe Biden to do this little video and supporting, thank you Reverend Al, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But so everybody's, wow. Look, Reverend Al got President Biden to zoom in to the National Action Network Convention, but nobody seems to want to talk about that 10 days after Biden was inaugurated. Biden had to be forced. And I mean, kicking, brought in, kicking and screaming to have a meeting with black leadership. And when he got on that call, he disrespected everybody on that call. But if you didn't see it, you didn't see it then so

Well, but the role of, again, it just points out the bankruptcy of certain African leaders. I mean, here you have, well, a two-way race between Democrats and Republicans. Two Democrats are running in the primary to become democratic senators. One's a black woman and one's a white man. Without discussing Dem merits of either one of them, why would Hakeem Jeffries, Anthony Brown and Jonathan Jackson endorse the white candidate? I mean, why would you do that? I mean, Jonathan Jackson is from Illinois. I understand that connection between he and David Cron is Itron

Cone, cone, David Tron in Maryland.

He owns total wine and liquors, right? And Jonathan Jackson is in the liquor business. He's a big distributor in the Chicago era. I don't get Hakeem Jeffries, who's in New York. The point of it is, where's the integrity? Where's the integrity? On the one hand, you talk black out of the side of your mouth, and I'm not in any mean pushing black nationalism. I'm simply saying, why would you get in that fight? I mean, why would you get in that fight? Obviously,

Angela also, Brooks is running, right? That's what I'm saying. A black woman, and why wouldn't you back her?

But why would you get in the race at all since you got you from another state? And you would not want that to happen to you when you were running? And so there's obviously a cash nexus.

Well, we do know that Hakeem Jeffries has received, I think, over a million dollars from APAC over his tenure in office. And the same thing with Gregory Meeks. He's another one that falls into that same camp. And both of them, along with the Vice President, Kamala Harris, they're all behind the Global Fragilities Act, which is being used as the rationale for the United States to rein, invade Haiti. Go figure.

Again, we have to do an analysis of how the results were obtained rather than the results. I mean, it looks like Haiti is a failed state. So how do you go from the first independent black Republic on the planet? Well, not on the planet, but in that era, because there were black leaderships. But how do you become that, given any slave who could get to Haiti freedom? I mean, how do you get defeating Napoleon then? How do you become the basket case, a basket case in the world? How does that happen? Why do they still old friends and see should be the other way around,

Way around?

(57:29)

Of course. I mean, again, the Haiti situation, it gets played out and we go in, why did the United States involve itself in the overthrow of John Butra?

What was his aired? John Beron aired,

Aired

Twice

A legitimately elected democratic leader who's very positive. Why do you place sanctions on Cuba? Only because you don't believe in what they believe in?

Here's another, and

Then get upset when they're successful in the biotech industry and what have you. And the list goes on and on and on. But because they don't think that people study history or read history,

The average Haitian makes less than $3 a day. Folks, you can look it up. The average Haitian makes less than $3 a day, but somehow they can walk around with $1,800 sniper rifles, military grade equipment

Where they get 'em from. That's the question that you asked. All of these militias running around the deserts of Africa, where are they getting these weapons from? Where do they get food from?

Right, right, right. Brother Tom Porter. Man, as always, thank you.

Thank you for having me. It's been a long day.

I know it has, and I appreciate you giving me your time today. I got to thank you Tom Porter so much, man, for joining the show today. Greatly, greatly appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. Have a good evening,

Folks. Thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes each week. Please follow and subscribe, go to the Patreon account. We'll greatly appreciate you contributing to the program. We can't do this without your support, so please go to the Patreon account. The address for that is on the bottom of your screen. Also, leave a review. Share the show with those that you think will like it, and then those that you think will hate it, send 'em to 'em anyway. They might just surprise you. Follow us on social media. You can find again, all the links to the show are below in the description. And remember, folks, that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Follow this week's guest Scott Ritter on X/Twitter @RealScottRitter and his substack http://scottritterextra.com/ and read his latest article here: https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/15/scott-ritter-the-missiles-of-april/

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which they occur. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events in the broader historic context in which they happen, enabling you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before it says, what can we expect next? Now that Iran has responded militarily to Israel's attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria for insight into this, let's turn to my guest. He's a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is entitled Disarmament in the Time of Parika, and he is of course, Scott Ritter. As always, Scott, welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Wilmer Leon.

Well, thanks for having me.

So Pepe Escobar wrote the following. He called it the Shadow Play, and he writes, so this is how it happened. Burns met an Iranian delegation in Oman. He was told the Israeli punishment was inevitable, and if the US got involved, then all US bases will be attacked and the Rai of Horus would be blocked. Burns said, we do nothing if no civilians are harmed. The Iranians said it will be a military base or an embassy. The CIA said, go ahead and do it. Scott Ritter, you've been writing about these issues in Iran for over 20 years. First, your assessment of Pepe Escobar's assessment.

Well, I mean, clearly Pepe, he is a journalist. He is a journalist of some renno, and he has a source and he's reporting it. It's plausible. I can't confirm it. I can't sit here and say, I know that this happened. I have no idea if this happened. I do know that the CIA has over the course of time, taken on a shadow diplomacy role because the State Department in implementing America's hegemonic policies has alienated America with so many nations and that normal diplomatic relations are impossible. And so the CIAs assume this responsibility. Indeed, this is why William Burns was selected by Joe Biden to be the director of the CIA. He's not a CIA hand, he's not a man who has involved. He's a diplomat, former ambassador to Russia, and he's a man who has written a book called The Back Channel, which describes his approach, the back channel approach to resolving things. Burns has carried out similar meetings with Russia when trying to reopen arms control venues or talk about possible prisoner exchanges.

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(07:20)

That was my takeaway, whether it was Bill Burns or whether it was Mr. Burns from whatever that cartoon is. I was really focused more on the point that there was a dialogue between the United States and the parties involved, and that those parties came to a consensus. In fact, when I read, it might have been, I guess it was Thursday, that Iran had seized an Iranian cargo ship in the Straits of Horus. Then there was the missile launching, and then that drones were used as the kind of foray or entree into all of this and that the drones traveled as far as they did. I said, oh, well, Iran was really sending a message more than they were an attack. And I think the message was, and is if you're looking for trouble, you found it and you found a very big bag of it, and you really don't want to mess around with this. It seems as though the Biden administration is starting to get that message. I don't know that Netanyahu, I think it seems like it's falling on deaf ears in Israel.

What Iran did here is I have said that I've called it one of the most impressive military victories in modern history.

In fact, let me interrupt and say, folks, you need to read Scott's piece, the missiles of April. You can find it in Consortium News, Scott, you can tell me where else, but it's a phenomenal assessment of what recently transpired. Scott Ritter.

Well, thank you very much. It was originally put out on my substack, it's scott ritter extra.com, but then Joe Luria, who I have a very good relationship, he's the editor of Consortium News, asked permission to publish it with Consortium News. And then he and I had a discussion and he asked some questions, follow on questions based upon the article, and I gave him some answers.

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(11:29)

(12:44)

(13:45)

In fact, on that Pakistan point, that was what about a month ago, maybe month and a half ago, and when I heard that Iran had sent, I think it was a cruise missile into Pakistan, I did my best to calculate how far that missile traveled. And then I checked, well, what's the distance between Tehran and Tel Aviv? It was about the same distance. And I said, I think Iran is sending a message to the Israel that we can strike Tel Aviv if we so choose.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, just so people understand historically during the Gulf War, and not too many people know this, so Israel was very perturbed about Saddam Hussein's scud missiles hitting Israeli cities and locations, and they were threatening direct military intervention, which would've destroyed the coalition that George W. Bush had built up. And so we were doing everything we could to convince the Israelis that we had the scud problem under Control Pro. And you mean that you were personally involved in doing that? Yeah, no, this was my part of the war that, I mean, first of all, I wasn't a general, I wasn't a colonel. I wasn't lieutenant Colonel. I wasn't a major, I was just a captain. But as a captain, I played a bigger role than one would normally expect from a captain. I mean, when my name gets briefed to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, and when General Schwarz cov not only fires me, but arrests me because of what I'm doing, I'm having an impact larger than what I was wearing on my shoulder, and I'm pretty proud of the work I did during the Gulf War, but that's beside the point.

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I heard that. I heard that last Saturday night. I was at a buddy's house and he said to me, I walk into his house and CNN is on, as it always is, chirping in the background. And so finally he says to me, so what do you think? I said, think about what he said. What do you think about the Iraq? I said, oh. I said, man, that was collaborated. That was done with collaboration. He said, man, you always come in here with this junk. I said, well, okay. So I hear that a lot.

Well, but in this case, it's not junk because I'm telling you, as somebody who has been in the technical analysis business of ballistic missiles for some time now, there are various ways to send a message. To give you an example, in the arms control world, sometimes the way to send a message is to open up telemetry channels that are normally closed down and launch a missile test. You're not saying anything. You don't put out a press release, but the people monitor because you don't want to say anything. North Korea does this all the time, all the time. They open up some telemetry channels and they just go, Hey, listen to this. And they send a to the Sea of Japan, and the technicians are going, ohoh. They got, oh, they did this capability. Oh, no. And then they're writing secret reports, and that message gets, meanwhile, the public is just sitting there, going to the beach, surfing, smoking dope, and doing whatever we do because we are not meant to get upset about this or worried about it.

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Well, lemme tell you. I don't know if you saw the report of the guy that was kicking the back of his seat on the airplane, and he came over. He kept asking the guy, Hey man, can you stop kicking my seat? And the guy wouldn't leave him alone. And the folks on the plane said, finally he came over the top of that seat like Iran and pummeled the guy. They had to carry the guy off the plane and a stretcher.

Well see, that's deterrence supremacy. There you go. Deterrence supremacy is when I jump into the ring with Tyson and Tyson knocks my face in, kicks my teeth out, and I'm on the ground hospitalized and bites your ear, pardon? And bites your ear. That is a bonus. Yes.

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(26:55)

No, I'm saying because I got one over my house. Yeah, they got two over 2.0. This is 2.0 man.

They got this radar there that has the ability to do overheard the horizon surveillance, but it's not just the radar, which is the most sophisticated radar of its type in the world. It's linked into the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in the United States Strategic Command and the satellites that we have over hanging over the area. So all of that's linked in into a common command center that's shared with the Israelis. So this data is fed to the Israelis and around Nati.

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Well, for example, just for a quick example, that's why facial recognition technology fails to the degree that it does. It's limited by the abilities and capabilities of the people that are programming it. That's why facial recognition technology doesn't work on Asian people, and it doesn't work on people of color. Dammit, I'm the wrong race. I could have put that a long time ago. Go ahead,

Touche. So the Iranians are programming the ai. They're sending missiles in, and the system is starting to normalize to come up with a, because it's wartime now. So now you're actually detecting tracking and firing. Then what you do is you throw in, it's like a pitcher, fastball, fastball, fastball, changeup, and here comes the changeup. First changeup they do is, and I don't know the sequence that they did this, but we see the video evidence. There's a warhead that comes in, and again, it's about timing. So you're sending these missiles in. Now they have separating warheads. So what happens when a missile has a separating warhead is the radar's picking one target.

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(43:11)

Well catcher called a change up, and a fastball came through. Fast ball came in.

So then they came into Na, Nevada, and they touched Naum at least five times. The Iranians were saying seven times. I would probably go with five. And the reason why I say this is that there is a chance the most heavily defended space on earth, there's a chance that they got two of 'em. I'm going to concede that point to the Israelis and the Americans that you put all these hundreds of billions of dollars into building something, and you got two out of seven, but five hit. But the idea, none of them were meant to be a knockout blow. Each one was just a, Hey, hey. And the Israelis know that They're sitting there going, and now they've come to the realization, and this is the whole point. After all of this, the Israelis have come to the realization that Iran can reach out and touch us anytime it wants to, any place it wants to, and there's nothing we can do to stop them. So now the Israelis are in a quandary because Iran has war is an extension of politics by other means.

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Wait a minute. That's that's very important politically, because that is part of the whole Zionist ideology, is we we're the persecuted people, and you all need us to protect you because the wolves are always at the door. And now what is the reality is all that insurance money you've been paying for those insurance policies, you've wasted your money.

Absolutely. I used to live in Turkey, and when I've traveled through the planes of Turkey, they have shepherds with their flocks, and out there amongst the flocks are the sheep dogs. I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of an Anatolian sheep dog. Yes, big.

I'm a big dog guy. Yes.

Okay, so these are like bears, right? Some of them are bigger than bears. And I remember we were walking once in a Kurdish village and we got too close to the sheep, and all of a sudden, these two things coming at us, and they're bigger than we are. I mean, these are bigger than humans, and they're coming at us, and they're going to kill us. And we knew that it was just all over. Then you hear, and the shepherd gives whatever signal, and the sheep dogs stop, and then they come up and they sit down and you pet 'em.

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oh, wait a minute now, wait a minute. Now, Scott, now you've crossed the Rubicon is Iran is responsible? Yeah, Iran is a, they're ravaging. Crazy. Raghead. Come on, Scott.

That may be true, but they're ravaging, crazy Raghead who operate based upon a law-based system as opposed to a rule-based system. Not only that, a law-based system that is based on thousands of years of history and culture, right? I mean, that's their own national culture. I mean, a lot of people go the theocracy, the theocracy, theocracy, yes, but Persian. Persian, Persian. I understand that this is a civilized people who have been around. They invented cataract surgery. They invented a lot of stuff. They invented the agrarian watering system, the irrigation, the irrigation system. They invented the wheel. I think they probably did.

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I just had a conversation with another dear friend. And when you look at their diplomats, when you look at their leadership, many of them are engineers. President Amad, the first time I went to Iran, I got to sit for two hours with then former president Amadinijad has a PhD in engineering and teaches engineering at the University of Tehran. I sat there for two hours listening to this cat going, oh my God. Yeah, he's not what?

(52:22)

A brilliant madman maybe. But the point is, brilliant dude, genius. No, they're all that way. They all have extraordinary. First of all, let's stop picking on Ayatollahs. If people understood what it took to become an ayatollah in Iran, the level of seminarian study, what you have to know, not just about. And here's the important thing about the Shia theocracy for all the Shia people out there, if I got this wrong, please forgive me, but it's my understanding, especially in the Iranian model, they have something called the Marja, which is basically, it's like your flock.

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That's what the Ayatollah Khomeini was doing when he was in exile in France.

Bingo. Okay. But you have compete, for instance, Al Sistani in Iraq, he has a competing the Najaf. Marges compete with the coal Marges that compete with Carval, which compete with, there's competing margins. And even within Comb, there's different margins.

I'm drawing a blank on the guy in Iraq that was raising all kind of hell. Muqtada al Sadr. There you go. Yeah. Who is the son, if I have it right? He's the son of a the, Grand Ayatollah

yeah, yeah, yeah. And he, in order to become credible, had to go to Cole and study and learn things because everybody, when he was out there talking, he had a lot of personality. He had the name, but people are going, you don't have the credentials, man. You can't sit here and play religion because we take our religion seriously. So we had to go disappear and go to calm and train up and all that.

Had to coach him up a little bit.

But he also then has to go out and sell himself right? To an audience. And a lot of people weren't buying what he was selling. I mean, he's a very popular man, very influential in Iraqi politics today. But it's earned. It's not given. But the point is, the Iranians are a responsible nation, and if Israel was smart, they would've said, okay, we're in a bad position here, bad position.

(56:12)

(56:58)

(57:52)

And on the other side, you have Iran shutting down the strai of Harmouz. And that's why I go back to that ship that they captured because they wanted the United States to understand will shut your oil off.

And the United States, remember, we've been running guardian prosperity or something like that, whatever the name of our wonderfully named operation to deter the Hootie. And we, I don't know if everybody understands, we had to approach the Hoothie last week and beg them to stop it. Please, please, please, please, please. We'll stop bombing you. We'll do everything. We'll lift the terrorism thing, but just stop this, please, because we can't force you to stop it. And the Hootie went, no. Yeah. They said, here's another one. The missiles, you guys are deterring. That's a failure. But that's the thing. The failure of deterrents policy has been played out with the Hoothie and it's being played out. See, America no longer has deterrents, superiority. We no longer have deterrence. We can't deter a minute.

Wait a minute. We sent the Eisenhower into, now this takes me back to, so we sent a couple of aircraft carrier groups into the region when I think it was the Eisenhower. Oh, it was Gerald Ford. We first sent the Gerald Ford in President Putin says to Joe Biden, why did you do that? You are not scaring anybody. These people don't scare. And oh, by the way, we can sink your carrier from here with our Kenjal missile. Hypersonic missile. So stop it, Joe. You're not scaring anybody.

But here's something else that happened, and I'm glad you brought this up. This is an important thing. The United States linked at least two of its ships to this system, and this is part of the American anti-ballistic missile strategy. We do this with Japan, we do this with Korea, we do this with Europe. We have a whole bunch of ages, class destroyers in Spain that we now are going to fan out to protect Europe from Russian missiles. And we're telling everybody, no worry. We got this. We got this. Remember guys, when that satellite was coming down, we shot it down. We're that good? We can pull it, hit a bullet kind of stuff. So we went to the Israelis and we plugged in to the world's most sophisticated anti-ballistic missile shield in the world. We plugged in and the Iranians went.

(01:00:55)

(01:01:52)

I was talking to KJ Noh last week, and KJ was talking about the United States sending all kind of hardware into Taiwan and that the United States may even wind up sending personnel in Taiwan and in anticipation of China making a, I think this is what KJ said, making a land invasion in Taiwan. And I said, kj, why would China do that when all they got to do is sink an aircraft carrier with a hypersonic missile? And he said, well, that's a good point.

No, I mean the United States, but now we come to, because America's facing the same problem that BB Netanyahu is, except there's not a political dimension to it. BB Netanyahu right now has to do something to stay in power politically so now

and not be prosecuted for theft.

Correct. For his corruption. Yeah. Second, he leaves office, he gets arrested and he gets put on trial.

Ala Donald Trump.

Except, yeah, I mean, yeah,

that's a whole nother story. But I'm just saying that right now is what Donald Trump is facing.

Correct.

And I'm not saying it's legitimate or not legitimate.

Yeah. That's my only reason why I did that is I don't want to get into the, no,

it's happening.

Because Netanyahu is a criminal. He is a corrupt person. Donald Trump is an imperfect human being who may have committed some crimes, but in America, you're innocent until proven guilty. And he has these trials, many of which people believe are politicized, designed, and diminishes. We can move on. We don't need to go down that rabbit hole on this episode. But the fact is Israel right now is desperately looking for a face saving way out of this because the fiction of we were so good that we stopped this Iranian attack is not believable. It's not believable domestically. So now the Israelis are looking for the ability to do something that if not gives them deterrence, superiority they're looking for right now, deterrence, parody. Parody. And so here's the question, because you remember now we come back to Pepe, and this is probably a good way to spin this around.

(01:04:53)

(01:05:59)

(01:06:53)

Really quickly. One of the reasons why President Putin went into Ukraine light in the beginning was he doesn't want a war because it's bad for his economy.

But the West didn't pick up on that. Now we got thing.

And now he's kicking ass and taking names and folks are all befuddled. Hey, you started. You went looking for trouble. You found a big bag of it. And now, so thank you for your time, Scott. Two things I want to hit quickly. One is the estimates are in very simple terms, that Iran spent a million dollars on this attack and Israel lost a billion in their response to it.

I'd say 60 million for the Iranians, about 3.2 billion for the Israelis and the United States altogether.

Okay. Okay. And this other thing, is it velvet or violet, this AI program that Israel has developed that they assign a score? Are you familiar with this? They assign a score to Palestinians based upon a number of predetermined social behaviors. And when your score gets close to a hundred, you get assassinated. And this is all generated by artificial intelligence. You mentioned ai, so I want to just to quickly drop that one in there before we get out.

No, I mean, again, it's a criminal enterprise. It's about killing innocence. And part of this AI too is that it calculates the number of civilian casualties that'll be assigned to that thing target. And unfortunately for the Palestinians, one would think if you're a rational, look, I keep telling people, I'm not a pacifist, and if you want to go to war, I'm old. You're the guy. But guys, I have no problem killing you. I mean, I know you're trying to kill me, so I will kill you, and I'm not going to weep at night when you die because you wanted to play this game. But I'm not in the business of killing you and taking out innocent civilians. Okay?

(01:10:17)

(01:11:05)

about the way of life and quality of life. Yeah. Scott Ritter, my man, as always, thank you so much for joining me today. Greatly, greatly, greatly appreciate your time.

Thank you very much for having me. It was an honor and a privilege. Thank you folks so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Go to Patreon. Please contribute because this is not cheap to do. Leave a review. Please share the show. Follow us on social media. You can find all of the links and all of the information in the show description. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge, talk without analysis is just chatter. And we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Have a great one. Peace

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube

Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. And I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the historical context, the broader historic context in which these events occur. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issues before us are, what are the anticipated results of the most recent China Russia meetings is the US pivoting from Ukraine and Russia to China, and is the US independent is the US as an independent actor in Haiti as it claims, and we'll also discuss some other issues. My guest for this iteration of Connecting the Dots is a man who I am very proud to call a friend. His analysis is always spot on, and he's really just cool people. He's an author, two time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Knight Fellowship recipient with more than 20 years of journalistic experience. He's a former Washington Post Bureau chief and award-winning foreign correspondent on two continents. John Jeter. John, my brother. Welcome to the show.

My pleasure, brother. Thank you. That's an outstanding introduction. I really appreciate

It. Well, I know my check is on its way, so I'll sit by the mailbox. So, hey, so earlier this week, the Global Times reported Chinese President Xi meets Russian foreign Secretary Lavrov and reaffirms China's emphasis on partnership with Russia and Chinese analysts said the meeting sends a strong signal that China will firmly develop its strategic partnership with Russia despite pressure from the West, and that the China Russias partnership continues to be key for the global strategic balance and the hope of promoting a multipolar world in which countries in the global south will have greater roles to play. John, your thoughts?

Yeah, no, this is a tectonic shift and we've been talking about this for quite a while on your show, and it's like a tanker. And of course it takes a while for that tanker to move, but it is moving. It is in motion. We see that geopolitical shift from the west as the United States, as France, as the UK gets increasingly desperate as they grow increasingly out of favor with what they're doing in Gaza and backing Israel's genocide. And we see this is a victory lap for Russia, what they've done in Ukraine. It is all over. But the shouting, if I can use a phrase from my southern cousins, and this is, from what I understand, it's very rare for the president of China or any other country to entertain the foreign secretary. Usually it's foreign secretary or foreign secretary.

(03:48)

I think people really need to pay attention to the next statement that I'm going to read because the western narrative of this is militarism. The focus of the West as it relates to this rising partnership is militarism. But Lee Ong, a professor at the Chinese Foreign Affairs University, said China and Russia will not target any third, but if hegemonic forces threaten China and Russia or threaten world peace, China and Russia will stand together and fight to protect their own interests and safeguard world peace together. And I want to reiterate, they will not target any third party. So I take this as they're saying, don't start, nothing

Won't be, won't be none.

We're going to handle our business.

Yeah, yeah,

(06:26)

Analyst.

Yes, analyst. I'm sorry. Yeah. He said in a speech recently that Putin had once said, or very recently said that the United States and Russia at some point will find common ground, but the EU in Russia will never find common ground. I think very interesting, but I think don't think the Putin, I don't think he's ever read Maya Angelou when she wrote, when someone tells you who they are, believe them, believe them. But I think he believes them now. I think he believes in the United States. And so we see this alignment where China and Russia, and this is our shock in all moment really. Right? We are not looking for the smoke, but we here for it. If you've got some, for us, I think this is a very direct message at Washington. At France, this thing in Ukraine is over. I mean, it's all over, but the shouting again, there's some loose ends to wrap up, including this terrorist attack that was very likely staged by Ukraine and Russia a few weeks ago. So there's some loose ends to wrap up, but this thing is all over, and I think the Russia and China are now turning to the next phase, which is this inevitable rise to the top of the geopolitical order. Again, it's not a linear thing. Take some time. We see them sort of orchestrating bricks and bricks has not really been the dynamo that we expected, but what we see is that other,

It's coming.

It's coming though. And we also see that there are other countries, particularly in Africa, particularly in Latin America with Mexico and Venezuela has been there for a while, but we see countries sort of mimicking bricks, parroting bricks in terms of Zimbabwe is talking about a gold back currency. And we see, of course, what South Africa is doing, which is sort of defining itself outside the US orbit, the Western orbit. So we see some things that are in motion, and Russia and China are at the center and the United States and the West, the collective West is increasingly being pushed to the outer margins.

Well, and I'm going to stay with that pushed, let me just say, because people, I'm glad you brought up bricks because people have to understand that this isn't just China and Russia. This is China and Russia, and the Bricks is an acronym for Brazil, India, China, I'm sorry, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And then you have the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. So there are a number of countries that, Venezuela, Iran, there are a number of countries that are looking to join this group as well. And I'm glad you used the point that the United States is going to be pushed to the margins because what a lot of people really, particularly in the West really have to pay attention to is the fact that it's the sanctions regime of the United States. It's the threat of militarism by the United States. It's the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline by the United States that has really forced this relationship to develop and to grow, and now to become to the part where you've got G and Lavrov meeting for what will eventually be a meeting and a signing of documents between G and Putin. It's the United States fault that they have come to the point that they have John G. Yes.

No, that's exactly right. And a couple of things I think it would be important to note. One is that Janet Yellen was just in China and compare her meeting with, I don't know if she met with G or not, but she met with, I know she met with her finance people.

She met with the finance people, and I think she met with Wang Lee, the foreign minister.

Yes. And so her message was, you're overproducing and it's hurting us, which is foolish. And I'm being generous by saying that it's fool. That's a foolish message. It's almost like Rip Van Winkle waking up after 50 years saying, you're over producing too much. It's hurting us. What did you think was going to happen? Do you not understand how this capital system works? So you compare

That minute. And also I thought that the United States was all about free markets.

Right, exactly.

I thought the market was supposed to determine what succeeds and what fails. The invisible hand and all

This. Yeah. Jack Young's a socialist who knew, right? I think that's amazing though that we see this desperation.

She was begging

Yes and no. I said this before, but I keep returning to it. It's amazing how this self adoration and self worship by the United States doesn't lead to self-awareness, right. This idea how this looks like to the rest of the world. The other thing too, I think this is a perfect segue. It is what the rest of the world is starting to see. And you might argue that it's late even for that to happen for them to see what's happening, but at least they are starting now to see that this world that was defined by the United States with neoliberalism, beginning with Ronald Reagan, really pushed by Bill Clinton, this whole neoliberal idea has failed, has failed. The idea was that if you do these things to open up your markets to us, you'll look like the United States one day. You will be as rich and prosperous as we are.

(13:36)

(14:33)

To your point about stealing money, for those that may not understand what you're referring to, many people remember the United States froze Iranian assets and was slowly returning some of those assets to Iran. Then the United States, when Juan Waid do became, was forced on the Venezuelan people in the world. Then the United States froze Venezuelan assets that I think were held in British banks, and now the United States is talking about freezing some of the Russian sovereign wealth fund that is being held in banks around the world. But the interesting thing is, a lot of those banks are telling the United States, that's not a good idea. Don't drag us into this because we don't want to have to deal with the repercussions of what Russia will do to us if we steal their money. And I think some of that perspective is coming from the reality that the United States is not the only game in town anymore. That's right. And Debo, if we go back to the movie Fridays, Deebo got hit with a brick,

Right? That's right. He got knocked the F out,

Laying out on Craig's front lawns. So this is, man, this thing is unraveling. It is unraveling quickly, and folks really need to pay attention. President Xi said, he said, China and Russia have embarked upon a new path of harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation between major countries and neighbors, which has benefited the two countries and their peoples and contributed wisdom and strength to international fairness and justice. A couple of things in that statement. One, win-win cooperation. A lot of people need to understand that win-win is not just some euphemism that is thrown around carelessly win-win is an actual international cooperation strategy that Russia tries to reach with the countries it does business with. They don't go in and overthrow your government. They don't come in and tell you how to run your country. You have resources, they have money. They want to buy your resources at relatively fair market value, and they want you to be happy and they'll be happy. And that's how they do business. And they contribute wisdom and strength to international fairness and justice. That's not just rhetoric that they hide behind as some kind of excuse for overthrowing your government. That's right.

(18:48)

Yeah, there's no doubt. I just think as someone who considers himself a Pan-Africanist, I think this is a very exciting time. It's not written in stone yet, but there's a very real opportunity, I think for, we see things happening in Africa now, some bad things with the militarization of Africa by Africa in the United States, but we also see in some ways that has backfired. So we see this militarization as a result of, in these cos by soldiers who have been trained by the United States, but who are representative of their people, particularly in Burkina Faso with this young man. And these, we see Africa turning more towards Russia, which is actually where it was during the Cold War. But we see it turning back towards Russia finding these

Ties. Where is Patrice Lumumba University?

It's

In Moscow. That's

Right. That's right. And the Chinese, I don't think it's a thing where African countries can sort of just lay back and be passive and say, oh, China's going to save us. And I think they know this. I think China has cut a better deal than the United States, but one that's so far has not necessarily been favorable and has led to economic development, which is what Africa most needs is economic development. Their own industrial sector at this point, one that is more environmentally sustainable, but they need their own industrial sector. They, they grow coffee, but they don't actually roast the coffee. Things like this. This is what they need. But I do think this,

They need to wait a minute to that point, because that's a brilliant point. People need to understand that we all know that the continent of Africa is the repository of minerals, but in most instances, they don't process the minerals from raw form, raw ore, for example, into a marketable commodity

Value added.

In fact, I think it was either Ghana or Guyana that makes cocoa, cocoa

Beans, Ghana, I believe it's Ghana.

Okay. So Ghana had been selling the unprocessed cocoa beans to Switzerland, and Ghana decided we're going to start processing our own cocoa bean into cocoa powder domestically. Switzerland said, well, then we won't buy your product. China said, we'll buy it. You processed it, buy it.

That's what I'm talking about. Yes, yes. That's a very different relationship. That's one where there's an opportunity to grow to, because these value added industries are where the money is, right? Correct. They raise wages for people. I'll tell a very quick story about my time in South Africa about 25 years ago when I was a young man, and I had a girlfriend at the time, and I was famously cheap. I'm still famously cheap, although I'm also broke, but I thought, I'm going to South Africa, so I'll buy some gold. And they have diamonds here, so I'll buy her a nice tennis bracelet. I thought thinking it would be cheaper there actually turned out it costs more there because while they mine the gold and the diamonds in South Africa, they have to send it all the way to Antwerp to get it cut, then send it back to South Africa.

(22:33)

Cannot be born, has yet been born or cannot be born. Cannot

Be born, right? Yet

Two things, and we'll move on to talking about what's happening in Haiti. And that is, I was listening to Lloyd Austin, secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and his testimony before the Senate, and I don't remember the senator, but one of them asked him, can you tell us that you'll support our move to break the ties, the supply chain with China? Because the Department of Defense, all of this rhetoric about China is our enemy, and we hate China. The Department of Defense buys critical components from China for defense equipment, for drones. And it's not just as easy anymore as saying, we're not going to get this stuff from China because some of these things, China is the only place you can get them. That's right. So on the one hand, we're standing here beating our chests about screaming at China, and at the same time, we're getting key military components from them. And by the way, Janet Yellen is there meeting with them about trade and finance. Why? Because they hold so much of our debt. That's right. That's right. And so those are elements, that's why I say, folks, you've got to connect these dots and things don't happen in a vacuum. There's a much broader historical context in which these things are operating, but CNN and M-S-N-B-C-I-A and the Washington Post, they won't give you the context. That's one of the things that is so invaluable, I believe about this show. And guests like my good brother John Jeter.

(25:59)

What did Tupac say? You got money for wars, but can't feed the poor. There you

Go. And what did Dr. King say? War is the enemy of the poor.

That's right. John Jeter. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. I was listening to Jeffrey Sacks the other day. I spent half my time just listening to these podcasts with people like Jeffrey Sacks. But he was saying he was answering, he was on that show Rising, I think, and he was answering a question about his critics who said that he was a Putin apologist. And the anchor asked him, what do you say to your critics? He said, I told you so.

(28:08)

How so explain that for the audience,

Because what you'll see, and you'll see this actually cyclically going back to even radical reconstruction, where this radical black political tradition, what it's allowed to express itself freely as a way of galvanizing the people, or if you are Marxist or Marxist friendly, the working class, that's just what it is. And so I've interviewed people like Bernadine Dorn who was with the Weather Underground. She says she spent her first year as the head of students for a Democratic society going around to these white college campuses telling them the first thing you need to do is get in touch with the black college, the historically black college down the street. You need to get in touch with them, see what they're talking about. So this is, that's

Part of what Bois was writing about in reconstruction in America.

That's exactly right. That's exactly, it goes back to that reconstruction. If you look at that era, right? A lot of things happened, but there was Confederacy in the former Confederate states. There was a interracial political party of some type in every Confederate state in the union after the Civil War. And they all had varying degrees of success, but they all redistributed wealth from the top to the working class. They have some success in doing that. And so it is that black political voice that really has shaped and modernized this country, especially when you look at the New Deal. We look at the blacks who are allowed finally to join the labor unions. And together we fought. And of course, I mean, honestly, whites just went back to being white after that battle was won or after we were winning the battle, they started going back to being white in the seventies. That's what Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were about. Really fast,

But minute, minute. Wait a minute. Just take a step back there, because I think it's important for people to realize that post the abolition of enslavement, you had newly freed Africans that were actually joining forces with poor whites. Oh, no question. And the industrialists realized that's a force that we cannot allow to grow in this country. And they then started injecting the whole construct of race into that relationship to draw a wedge between the two. So when you say that in the seventies, whites went back to being white, I wanted to be sure that people understood where that mentality came from.

And just to be clear, if you understand, people who are of a certain age will remember in the seventies when we started to see these movies, I love Paul Newman, but he was in that movie, what was it? Ford, Apache, the Bronx, these movies and these television shows, which starts to show basically, blacks is unfit for public office or blacks is unfit for public to participate in public affairs. That's what it was, right? So we're criminals, we're drug dealers, we're unpatriotic. Just as one example, if you remember the movie Alien from 1980, the most dangerous thing, that movie, other than the monster that had crept on board was Koda, who didn't want, who was just concerned about his pay, right? So this image is what has shaped modern politics. The black as unpatriotic, as unfit to lead is unfit to participate. And so this is what we're really dealing with at bottom. This is why there's never been a socialist movement or working class movement in the United States the way there's been, even in Europe.

And Point could take us into a eugenics conversation. Yes, Dr. Chantel Sherman, I'm going to give you your props here and now, in fact, I got to get Dr. Chantel Sherman on, because you're talking about the way that we were misrepresented in the films. That's also been a history of eugenics supporting the whole argument that scientifically, that biologically, we are incapable of managing and blah, blah, blah, because our brains are too small, our heads are too big and all that. So anyway, again, connecting the dots, folks, this is why you watch this show. I'm sorry, go ahead, John, you.

No, no. Yeah. So I was just saying, I think the understanding these connections are what really helps us find a way forward. I don't know, honestly, if black and white can unite and fight the United States at this point, but I do believe that as Fred Hampton said, we can achieve black power for black people, white power for white people, yellow power for yellow people, and X power for all the people we left out. I do think that's possible if we can start to eradicate this tribalism, or at least put it aside long enough to work together and understand that we're at war Ukraine, not because Putin is trying to

Take

Over Europe. Yeah, he's not trying to. There's no history of that, right? Either the Soviet Union or for Putin, this is about the Wall Street profiteering. They don't have any way to make money. They shipped all the jobs overseas. They killed the goose, delayed the golden egg, and now they're trying to make money. That's what I'm just looking at at a television ad. I was watching the NBA game. They had an ad about gambling, and the gambling is illegal everywhere. Now why is that? Where Cuba is, like Cuba was in 1958, right? It's because they can't make money any other way or through gambling through these Uber, which is basically just rent seeking what the French call rent seeking, looking to profit off something that already exists. This is how they make money, and war is part of that. So you really do have to connect the dots. Your show is aptly named. You really do have to connect the dots historically and contemporaneously to understand what's going on, because that's the only way you can actually work your way out of this. As my father would say, my late father would've said this trick bag that we find ourselves in,

And the new Deputy Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell, to your point about profiteering quote, I would argue that working closely with other nations, not just diplomatically, but in defense avenues, has the consequence of strengthening peace and stability more generally. So what he's saying is dumping more military hardware into already very tense situations and making them more volatile somehow is going to strengthen peace and stability. Or as Orwell said, in terms of doublespeak war is peace.

Right? I think Obama said the same thing. Did he not?

Yes, he did,

Basically, which tells you a lot about Obama and why he was put in that place, why he was installed. It says a lot about Obama and this country.

So let's quickly move to Haiti because there's been a lot happening over the last, a lot of negative things happening for Haitians in Haiti. The Washington Post of all places had a piece. When Haiti's gangs shop for guns, the United States is their store. Now, there's a lot of crap and a lot of garbage in this piece because again, it is the Washington Post. But

My former employer, I should, I should.

There you go. So am I wrong?

Not at all.

Okay. Not

At all.

So heavily. This is the Washington Post. Heavily armed gangs controlled 80% of Port-au-Prince, according to a un estimate where they rape, kidnap, and kill with impunity. Haiti doesn't manufacture firearms, and the un prohibits importing them. But that's no problem for the criminals when they go shopping, the US is their gun store. And what there is so much context and so much reality that is omitted from this piece. For example, Haiti doesn't manufacture weapons, but that's no problem for the criminals because the elite in Haiti that control the ports A, allow the weapons into the country. John Jeter.

Yeah. And I even take issue with that phrasing, the criminals who exactly are the criminals.

That's my point. That's why I mentioned the elite.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, the problem with Haiti, people think it's just these sort of animalistic Haitians who are always fighting. And this guy named Barbecue was just this crazy maniacal cannibal Haitian. Yeah, cannibal. Right, right, right. They

Were talking about him eating people last week.

Yeah. Well, but if you ask the Haitian people, right? I mean, really the Haitian people, right? Not the elites, but they'll tell you if you really, everybody of course knows what happened with Haiti and Napoleon and then the debts and the United States going in in 1915. But they'll tell you, people in Haiti will tell you, well, you can trace this back to when they got rid of John Tron Air, Steve Credit elected president, who is I think still

You said they, who was the they?

Oh, the United States. Thank you. Who at gunpoint. At gunpoint went in. They

Kidnapped him,

Kidnapped him, and then would not, Obama did this first black president, my president is black, would that allow him back in the country to run for president? But when let baby doc back in to run for president? And then part of the reason was, and they've got all these arrangements sweatshops there. They're taking land that can be used for agriculture. Your

Levi jeans are probably made in

Haiti, baseballs are made,

Baseball are made in Haiti.

And this is a company apparently that Hillary Clinton fought to keep the wages low to make these baseball. I can't even watch baseball anymore knowing that. Right. And so we always,

Hang on a second, because you talk about the wages. So let me make this point so I don't forget it. So they talk about the arms that are trafficked, however you say it to Haiti, are purchased by straw purchasers in states such as Florida, a 50 caliber sniper rifle that sells for $10,000 in the US can get as much as $80,000. In Haiti, a 50 caliber sniper rifle that sells for $10,000 in the US can fetch $80,000 in Haiti. What is the average annual gross income per capita income for a Haitian,

I don't think it's $8,000. I don't think it's one 10th of that. It's

1000 as of 2022, which is the last time the data was collected, $1,247 and 89 cents, which averages $3 and 42 cents per day. So how is somebody who makes on average $3 and 42 cents per day going to buy an $80,000 50 caliber sniper rifle?

Right? Right. Who's buying these weapons?

Thank you, John G. Who's

Buying these weapons? The job of the media today is to, and it's always been this way, but now it's worse than ever. The job is to decontextualize the news is to disconnect it from the history. And that's why you get this sort of constant barrage of, well, the economy's doing great. I don't know why people are so upset because they're broke, fool. That's why people saying

To the position of decontextualization. So you see these pictures, or you see this footage of these Haitian young men roaming the streets with AR fifteens, AK 40 sevens. 40 caliber Berettas, which will run you close to a 40 caliber Beretta, depending on a model will run, you say between $700 and a grand. And nobody asks the question, where'd that kid get their pistol from? That's

Right. That's right. That's right.

He's making $3 and 42 cents a day, $1,200 a year, and he's walking around with, and we aren't even talking about putting bullets in the thing. Nobody's asking that question.

Right? Right, right.

Yeah. Well, we are right. But the media doesn't want to ask because the answer is very uncomfortable. The answer is very discomforting. It's the

Core group. They're called the core

Group. That's right. That's right. They're

Called Montana Group.

Was it six families that run Haiti basically? Right. None of them black, by the way. None of them black. I think they're Lebanese and something

Else like that, that I'm not sure of. I think,

But they're not black. Maybe some of them are, but most of them are not.

Most of 'em are not. Okay. So folks, you've got to understand the context here. And now, I can't remember the guy's name, but the United States has just appointed a new ambassador to Haiti. But here's the trick bag. If I can quote the late Mr. Jeter, in order for an ambassador to be recognized, he or she has to present his or her credentials to the president of the country that he's going to.

There's

No

President. There's no president. How does that work? So

How does an American ambassador land on the ground in Port-au-Prince? Who does he turn to? Jimmy Rizzi.

Right? Barbecue. Right. Who

Does he turn to? There's nobody home. But again, I didn't hear Rachel Maddow asking that question. I didn't hear Joy Reed asking that question. And folks, look, you can look in the US Constitution article under Article two where they described the responsibilities of the president, one of the responsibilities of American president is to what? Recognize ambassadors from other countries. That's how the international diplomatic game is played. The American Ambassador to China presents his or her credentials to Xi Jinping and Xi Jinping goes, okay. Or Get out of my country.

I don't think so. Right, right, right.

Don't play that.

Right. And on another note, I related, but not quite at the point, but I just think this is so interesting. I was reading a recent piece, I cannot remember where, but they were talking about the origins of Hades gangs, and if you read it, they didn't mention this, but I know the history. It's the same as the gangs in Chicago, Los Angeles. They were formed to protect the community from the police, right? From harassment. The Black

Panthers.

Exactly.

The Black Panther party for self-defense, for

Self-defense. That's exactly right. And Huey Newton and Bobby Seale got their start getting a traffic signal on a particularly dangerous stop in Oakland. So this was, now, I'm not saying that they're still necessarily representing the people, but that's how they got their start. They filled this void that was left by the state because the state was just serving the interest of rich people and the United States and the West Canada and France and all that. So I just wish people was such a dumb down nation. I don't mean that to be judgmental, but it's just the case.

What was one of the major actions that the Panthers in Oakland performed every day on the street? They were policing the police.

That's right. That's right. That's

Right. So when they came across cops in a traffic stop, they would pull over, locked and loaded. Right? Right. No, you couldn't have a round in the chamber, but they were armed, and they would stop and be sure that the traffic stop was proper and that the person being pulled over, usually the African-American driver of the car was not going to be. In fact, folks need to understand what was the Mulford Act in California? The Mulford Act was the law that was passed in California, I want to say 71, 72, when the Panthers went into the California State House, state House armed, legally armed, so long as you didn't have one in the chamber, legally armed. And the folks in California said, oh, no, we can't have this anymore.

Gun control.

Gun control. That's why I've been saying for years, if you want gun control in the United States, let the government see law abiding black people legally buying and legally training with firearms. You'll find gun control, as they would say, liquidity split.

It is gun control in the United States is very similar to our edict that Iran can't possess nuclear weapons. Why can't they? They're a sovereign country, right? Because we know we don't want them to defend themselves. That's why, just like we don't want black people to defend themselves. We've got this plague of black people being shot by the police, and we don't want black people to be able to shoot back.

And quite as it kept, Ron is a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation

Degree, read the Israel Is Right, Israel, and they got, I think something like 300, 400 nuclear warheads. Iran don't even want nuclear weapons. They want nuclear energy. They've said that they banned, they had a fat wall that banned or needed from the, I told it banned nuclear. But on the news here, including one of my former colleagues of the Washington Post Gene, I can't remember his name now, but he says, well, of course I ran once nuclear weapons. Really? So you know something that the intelligence agencies of the United States don't know because they say that there's no such nuclear weapons programmed by Iran.

There isn't, and they don't need one because of the missile technology, the hypersonic missile technology that they have developed. And also they don't want a nuclear weapon because they understand the attention that brings to them, and it's negative. They don't want none of that smoke because also their military perspective is defensive, not offensive. Right,

Right, right. Very protect the Soviet Union. Very protect the Soviet Union.

That's why Ukraine is being turned into rubble.

Right? That's exactly

Right. Is because Russia has been planning for 25 years for this very type of ground ballistic missile ground or artillery driven ground war, war of attrition. I will just send missiles into your bathroom all day, every day for the next 10 years, and eventually you'll call and ask me, will you please stop sending missiles into my bathroom? I do

Appreciate it. I don't know much about militarism and war strategy and things like that, but I've been reading up a little bit on Russia, and what I've concluded is you don't want nothing to do with Russia. You don't want no smoke for Russia. Look,

When the United States sent, I think it was the Eisenhower, I think it was USS Eisenhower into the Mediterranean about three or four months ago. No, it was in October in response to October 7th. Oh, right,

Right. That's right. I

Remember that. The Biden sent, I think it was the Eisenhower Aircraft carrier group into the Mediterranean, and Putin called Biden and said, Joe, why did you send that aircraft carrier group into the Mediterranean? He says, you're not scaring anybody. Because he said, these people don't scare. And oh, by the way, I can sink your aircraft carrier from here with our SU 35 fighter jets with hypersonic Ken Jaw missiles. I can sink the thing before you even know the missile has been fired,

Joe. Whatcha doing?

Yeah.

We started by talking about Mike Tyson's theory about everybody's got a plan. I think it's appropriate to mention, just like Mike Tyson, he beat all these people, all these other boxes because they were afraid of him until he met Buster Douglas.

Buster Douglas.

Buster Douglas was not afraid. He did not back up. He kept coming. And I don't want no smoke from Mike Tyson, but Buster Douglas was ready for him. And so yeah, this is the United States. Now we're Mike Tyson, but we're in the ring now with Buster Douglas. Putin is not afraid. Right.

And to your Mike Tyson analogy, the thing that Mike Tyson was always susceptible to was a jab. The problem was he didn't come across an opponent that was big enough in stature that had the jab until he fought Buster Douglas. That's

Right.

What's his name from Easton, Pennsylvania, the heavyweight he was in.

Larry Holmes.

Larry Holmes. Larry Holmes. Larry Holmes would've wiped the floor. Oh, is that right? Hands down. Yeah. Man, Larry Holmes had a jab.

Oh, I remember Larry Holmes. Yeah, I know. He was a bad man.

I didn't mean to turn this into a boxing conversation, but just for the point. Larry Holmes' problem was he came in the shadow of Ali. Of Ali. Right. But you go back and look at footage of Larry Holmes in his day, man, that brother, he would've wiped the floor because that's, and I go through all of that here. I'm going to connect the dots, is you have to understand the weakness of your opponent and exploit that weakness. And that's what Russia does. That's what Iran does. That's why President Raisi of Iran, in response to the Syrian bombing of the embassy in Syria, he said, we will respond when we are ready. The United States Intelligence Services told us last week, expect a response within 48 hours from Iran. I said, no, we'll get to it when we're ready. And what has Israel already done? Closed 30 embassies around the world. So in Iran's mind, we've already won. You've closed 30 embassies. We didn't have to strike one of them. We skewed you into action.

And from what I understand, again, I'm new to this sort of military strategy, but from what I've understood that the weakness of the United States is this overconfidence, it's arrogance that beginning, I think with, what was it? North Korea and China, when they lured them into the United States, lured them in and basically just, they just trapped. They knew they would come because they're so arrogant. They knew they would take the bait. And that's the Achilles tea of the United States is their overconfidence.

Look, that's what Iran isn't doing. They're not taking the bait. Russia did not take the bait as they went into Ukraine, but they went into Ukraine, not in the manner in which the United States thought they would. They didn't take the bait. China as it relates to Taiwan. They're not taking the bait. They hence the adage, you have the watches, but we have the time.

We got the time. That's right.

We'll handle this our way when we are ready. Look at what's going on right now in Gaza. You've got Hamas, right? Hezbollah hasn't really jumped in like everybody thought they would. Right? You've got the Houthis or Ansar, Allah in Yemen. They're handling the Red Sea, but they aren't really in it. Not everybody's in the pool yet. And see, this is something that folks really need to understand is they are biding their time. All of those entities are sitting back watching the show, and there's a reason that Hezbollah hasn't jumped in because Hamas is winning.

Yeah. I'm a big fan of all the podcasts. The one that I watched the most is Ali Abu Ma with the electronic ada. And from everything I'm getting from there, and they seem to really know what they're talking about. Hamas is handling this business.

And when I say Hamas winning, folks could look at this and scratch their head and say, Wilmer, have you seen Gaza lately? Yeah. Here's the thing. Hamas wins by not losing. When they live to fight another day, they win. Israel comes into Gaza. What is Israel saying? Now? We're getting out of Gaza. They come in, they get thumped, they get out. When the dust settles, Hamas will still be in existence. And by being in existence, they will have one.

That's right. And I think this was all very calculated by Hamas. I'm not sure if they even understood this kind of blowback, but again, they were trying to pull Israel under this war because they realized they

Knew what Israel would do. I'm glad you brought this up because when you talk about that, I was trying to get that together in my head, and that was a point that I was trying to make, was that Hamas lured the IDF into strategy. They knew what their response would be because of their arrogance, and they are thumping them,

And there's no way out. I can't repeat the lyric. I want to, I think it was Ice Cube said, I don't want to hear that. I ain't mean it. Right. That's what Hama is saying to Israel right now. I don't hear none of that. I ain't mean it. Right. I don't. Don't gloat for anyone's death. And what's happening there is horrific, and I'm not sure if it's worth the cause. It's a period victory if it is one for Hamas, but this is the way it's going to end. Israel is not going to exist as we have long known it. If I can quite a phrase from Bill Clinton,

Let's wrap up with this. The Nation magazine reports more than half a million Democratic voters have told Biden Save Gaza, the campaign to use uncommitted primary votes to send a message to Biden has won two dozen delegates. More than 500,000 Americans in states across this country have cast Democratic primary votes for either uncommitted, unconstructed or no preference.

That's right. That's

Right. I think the Democrats are shaking in their diapers.

It's a wrap for the Democrats, certainly for the Biden administration. And of those 500,000 votes, I believe a hundred thousand are in Michigan. Joe Biden can't win Michigan. Joe Biden does not win reelection.

And Joe Biden only won Michigan by about 130,000 votes.

That's right. Yeah. If the vote was today, he would not win Michigan. Not because everybody would vote for Trump, but because a whole

Lot of people, a lot people stay home

And Michigan, lemme just say this very quickly, Michigan and the Arab community and the board, I lived in Detroit for a couple of years in the early nineties. They are really impressed in terms of their organization, and they're showing us a roadmap for how we can fight back as a people.

Exactly.

Organized,

Organized. And I've listened to a number of interviews from Arab Americans in Michigan, and the reporters will say, well, don't you realize that your uncommitted movement could wind up resulting in the election, the reelection of Donald Trump? And they look in the camera and say, we know. And we don't care about that. We have a bigger point than Donald Trump that we are conveying. And plus they realize, is it a blue car or a green car? It's still a car. You're going to wind up basically. And for the most part, in the same circumstance, because to a great degree, and you are much more adept at this than I am to a great degree. It's not Trump policy. It's not Biden policy. It's American foreign policy.

That's right. That's right.

Irrespective of who the president is, John G. Yeah.

No, and I just don't think they understand. What part of genocide. Don't you understand? I'm not voting for a genocide.

Well, if you ask Lloyd Austin, he doesn't understand it at all. He said during the Senate hearings, there's no genocide in Gaza.

If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck

And it dies like a duck, it's genocide.

Right. That's the genocide, man. It just is. You're a lawyer. So what is it low?

I went, I went to law school. I went to law school. I'm not

A lawyer. Okay, okay. I mean, I didn't mean to defame you like that,

But I did stay at Holiday Inn Express last night. So what you got,

So what is it, low ipso Ur, is it? The B is as it appears? It is as it looks. No,

You just combine two phrases, rest ips, aquir.

Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't even go to law school and I didn't understand the Holiday Inn Express

Rest ips. Aquir, I think is what is the Latin you were going for?

Yes. The thing is, as it appears, right, it is as it looks, yeah, that's the genocide. But it's most horrific thing I've seen in my lifetime, and it's just nothing else to say. I don't know how anyone's going to pull the lever for Joe Biden seeing the horror that's happening in Gaza. It's traumatized. It's traumatized. So I don't think there's a path victory. I didn't think there was a path of victory to victory for Joe Biden before October 7th. I certainly don't think there's one now. And I still think people laugh at this. I know Joe Rogan said, and I don't know that I believe very much in Joe Rogan's political acumen, but he said that he thinks that Democrats are going to replace Biden in May. I don't know if they're going to do it. I don't know if they're going to do it in May, but I still,

I've been saying that for a year and a half.

Yeah, I think they might. I think they're looking to, I'll say that I think there's a fact of the Democratic party that's looking to, I think a year and a half ago, they were actively looking at Michelle Obama. I know that, as a matter of fact, I don't think she's going to do it. I'm not sure if that's still a movement, but I think because they know he can't win and it's too important, it's money that they will lose if he's not president. Because Trump, for all his flaws, is not the war profiteer that Obama was. And the Bidens,

I've been saying for almost a year and a half that I don't think that when you come out of the Democratic convention in August, I think right now it's the 19th, but we just found out that Ohio has told the Democratic Party that if it's held on the 19th, Joe Biden can't be on the Ohio. Oh,

I heard that.

Yeah, because it has, you have to be the nominee 90 days before the election to be on the ticket in Ohio. And so Ohio has told them. But anyway, no, I've been saying that, I said almost a year and a half ago that when you come out of the convention, it's not going to be Biden. It's most likely going to be Gavin Newsom and what's her name from Michigan, Gretchen. And I said, the top of that ticket could go either way.

That would be the best foot they could put forward. If they can't get Michelle Obama, that would be, and I don't think they can beat Trump, I'll be honest. But

No, I'm not saying that's going to win. I'm not saying that's going to win. But when you look at the numbers, and since I said this, Biden's numbers have only gotten worse. And Gretchen Whitmer most likely brings the Democrats, Michigan, the governor of Michigan. And because they're also, when you get rid of Biden, you got to get rid of Kamala Harris as well. Oh, yeah. So then you're going to wind up with a bunch of angry women, and you're going to wind up with a bunch of angrily black women.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's good. So

Gretchen Whitmer brings the women back into the game. And I think, and I'll probably get bricks thrown at me for saying this, but I think a majority of black women will fall in line with the Democratic party. I seriously doubt that they would get so angry that they would abandon the party. I think they would be convinced to fall, because Kamala will be convinced to go away quietly and be a team. They'll offer her,

Oh yeah, like they did with Al Gore. They'll offer her a bunch of money

Or something, or tell her, this is not your time,

Dean of some university where she can go and Oh,

They might make her secretary of, I mean, ambassador to, I don't know, Botswana or,

Right, yeah. I can play the Botswana might run her outfit into the seat though.

That's why they'll send her there. So anyway, so Gavin Newsom, young white cat, governor of California looks good in a suit, is articulate, can raise money, can raise his own money. And so I'm not advocating this. I'm looking at the landscape and saying they have no arms in the bullpen. I

Wouldn't bet against that. I would not be.

This is baseball season. They have no arms in the bullpen, but Biden is behind in seven of the nine battleground states.

Yeah. He can't, I think Pennsylvania's tied, but even that is trending

And trending in the wrong direction

Because

In a lot of these states, in a lot of these states, Donald Trump is now ahead outside the margin of error of the

Polling

And growing. So no, I've been saying that Joe Rogan, and I agree on that, and I've been, I'm on record for a year and a half saying Joe Biden is, and I don't think they can do it in May because the voters will cry foul at then. Why did we have primaries? You haven't had any debates. So I think they have to make the switch at the convention. I think the vote has to go down to the floor and it'll be the way it used to be when we were kids watching the conventions on television where there was all of this tension and all of this anxiety over how were the votes going to go as they did the roll call for the states from the floor. I think it's got to go that way. I don't know how they make the switch now before the convention.

Yeah, I don't either. I don't know this though. What they don't want, their worst nightmare is for Joe Biden to appear on a debate stage with Donald Trump. They not, can't have that. They don't want that. That's just

No. Yeah,

That can't happen. No, can't happen.

You don't even want to see, and I mean this very seriously. You don't even want to see Joe Biden, walk to the podium versus Donald Trump. Just the appearance of that. Stiff.

Yeah. Oh, I,

No, no. You think

About that. Yeah. Donald Trump is a dinosaur, but he still looks better than, he still is. More commanding than Joe Biden. Mr. That's,

Do you want pterodactyl or do you want, anyway, so I want to thank my guests and my dear brother John Jeter for joining me today. And John, when I say that you say,

Thank you, brother. It was wonderful to be here. Wonderful.

And folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share, share, share, share, share the show, subscribe. Doing this every week is not cheap, trust me. We need your help. Also follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Go to Patreon. Please contribute to the Patreon account. And remember, folks, that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we do not chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historic context in which these events occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze these events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode. The issues before us are, what are the three steps leading to war, and what's the real story behind the so-called Uyghur genocide or oppression in China? My guest today is a peace activist, a writer, a teacher, a political analyst, KJ Noh. KJ, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Pleasure to be with you.

So in talking with you yesterday, you had expressed this concept that there are three steps leading to war. You talked about an information war, you talked about shaping of the environment and provocation. As we look at what's transpiring between the United States and Russia, as we look at what's transpiring more specifically between the United States and China over Taiwan, walk us through these steps and how these steps apply to where we are today.

Yes, this is exactly what is going on. So the first thing to understand is that before the US goes to war, there is an information campaign, which we can understand as both manufacturing consent and stirring up people's emotions to demonize and to other the opponent. And so we see that very, very clearly in China. That's been ongoing for many years now. But if you look at all the polls, everybody is convinced that China is a threat. So the first step is information warfare, which is the pre kinetic sube dimension of war. The second dimension is shaping the environment. The US never likes to go to war without shaping the environment first. So in order to do that, it wants to weaken the adversary and it wants to bring as much force to bear as possible against its opponents. So we see that right now with the United States.

(03:08)

(04:25)

So we saw in the seventies, we saw Nixon go to China. Henry Kissinger helped to orchestrate that entire process and a development of a reproach mon with China. And one of the objectives of that was to be sure that China stayed on our side of the equation as the United States was still involved in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. When we got to, I think it was the Obama administration, that's where this whole idea of the pivot towards China started to manifest itself. What, first of all, do I have my history? And then secondly, if so, what is it that or who was in the American foreign policy elite that decided that this pivot needed to take place?

Yeah, that's a really, really good question. I have to go back to a little bit of the history. You absolutely are about Nixon. Nixon tried to peel China off away from the Soviet Union as part of their Cold War strategy, and then they engaged with China, and then they dumped Taiwan, which previous to that had been considered the legitimate China, but they were always hedging, so they always kind of had their foot partially on Taiwan because they didn't want to give it up completely.

They who

The US establishment didn't want to give it up completely as a US outpost. And so they always kept a little foot in there. And so this is what they call strategic ambiguity. But the official line was the one China policy. The Shanghai communicates essentially there's only one China. The PRC is the legitimate government of China. Taiwan Island is a part of China, and any issues between Taiwan province and China are to be resolved amongst themselves. The US is going to withdraw troops, it's going to withdraw arms, and it's not going to be involved. That was the agreement, and that was the foundation of the relationship between the US and China. All of that is now completely dissolved. It's gone. There is no defacto one China policy anymore. But who started this war? That is the $64,000 question. In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, the NeoCon Mino, Greece, he wrote a document called the Defense Planning Guidance Document, and essentially it was declaration that the United States would be the uni polo global hegemon, regardless, and at any measure, uni polo global hegemon simply means that it would be the boss of the world and it would take any measure, it would go to war, et cetera, as necessary.

(09:12)

Dick Cheney,

Yes,

Richard Pearl,

Richard Pearl, all of these neocons, they simply bequeathed their legacy onto a younger group of neocons, the neocons who are associated with the Center for New American Security.

In fact, let me jump in. I'm sorry. Just really quickly on the pen side with Wolfowitz and Pearl, I think Scooter Libby, when George HW Bush was in the White House, that crew came to him and wanted to promote all of this rhetoric. He referred to them as the crazies and said, and this is from Ray McGovern who was in the White House at the time with the CIA said, get these crazies out of here and keep them away from me. And I think it was George HW that by pushing them out, that moved them to Form P NAC and all of that.

Absolutely. And remember, these crazies also wanted to go to war against China in the early two thousands. So it was actually, and

They also wanted Bill Clinton to overthrow Saddam Hussein. They sent, and folks, you can go and look on the, you can Google this and you can pull up the letter and see all the signatories to the letter. They sent a letter to Bill Clinton when he was president, asking him to invade Iraq. And he said, no,

Exactly. And then nine 11 happened, and the Pen Act document actually said, we need something like a Pearl Harbor in order to be able to trigger our plans. And so then conveniently, nine 11 happened, and then Iraq was invaded. But anyway, these crazies never went away. They went into various think tanks, but one of the key think tanks is CNAs, which is an outcome. It's a kind of an annex of CSIS itself, one of the deep state think tanks. And starting 2008, they drew up a plan for War against China specifically. There's an organization called CSBA, which is, it's a kind of a think tank. It's a procurement and strategy think tank associated with the Pentagon. And it was once again, related to another deep state think tank inside the Pentagon that does long-term strategic planning. And they came up with something called Air Sea Battle, which is the doctrine of war against China.

(12:48)

(14:06)

That's what they tried to do with the Soviet Union.

Exactly, exactly.

Under Gorbachev,

Exactly right. Yes. So we would become a tenant under the global US capitalist plantation, or it would collapse. That was what they believed. And then in 2008, the Western Catalyst financial system collapsed on itself, and it turned out that China was not going to collapse. It was actually incredibly strong, incredibly resilient, and they actually had to go hat in hand to China to beg for support, in order to prop up the system and then to do a controlled demolition on the backs of the working class here. And so when that became clear that China was not going to collapse and it was not going to be subordinated, then the DCAS came out and explicit doctrine of war started to be prepared. This is what I referred to as Air Sea baffle. So that doctrine of war was created inside various think tanks, CSBA, and then supported by css, CNAs, et cetera.

(16:18)

I think I said when I made the reference to Russia that that's what they try to do with Gorbachev, but I think it was Yeltsin to Gorbachev is where all of that financial intrigue was taking place. And I think it was Gorbachev who realized the danger on the horizon and shifted the game plan on the United States, which is why one of the reasons why Gorbachev Gorbachev had to go leading us into where we are now with President Putin. But that's another, I hope I have again, that history, right? Yes,

(17:50)

Yeah, no, it's absolutely valid. I mean, it's a very, very good point. That's the core contradiction. The US has outsourced

Needs, and by the way, the country that you go to buy your bonds so that your economy can stay afloat.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. So not only has China financed the United States and supported or propped up the US dollar as the global reserve currency, but also the US exported its industrial base to China because it thought that it could simply exploit the hell out of the Chinese worker at the cost of the US worker,

The sick man of Asia mentality, and we can just play these Chinese people for fools.

Exactly. Exactly. So exploit the hell out of them, make a killing, and then eventually China would be completely absorbed into the US capitalist system, or it would collapse, right? It was either collapse or be absorbed. This is what Bill Clinton believed. So that was the plan, except that China developed on its own terms, and it showed that not only is it possible to develop that it doesn't have to become subjugated to the west, to the western institutions, that's when the daggers came out. But now there is the contradiction that on the one hand, the US wants to go to war against China. On the other hand, it's significantly, it's so deeply enmeshed with Chinese industry and the Chinese economy that it is not easy. And so it's trying this very delicate operation of what they refer to as de-risking, but it's really decoupling, and they're trying to separate themselves from China as you would try to separate conjoined twins.

(20:43)

So the first element of the three that you mentioned is the info war. So we're being told that President Xi is an authoritarian. We're being told that China has stolen American manufacturing secrets and has exploited American manufacturing processes. We're being told that China is trying to take over Africa. There are a number of stories that get repeated ATD nauseum, very little if any evidence to support them. But this is the info drumbeat that you keep hearing on M-S-N-B-C and CNN and Fox News. So let's start with the G is a authoritarian, and he's the dictator of China. China is a communist country, and therefore everything is evil that comes from China.

Yeah, I mean, this is warmed over Cold War rhetoric. It's essentially a red scare plus yellow peril, right? I mean, we've heard this stuff before. I mean, if you go to China, you realize that there's nothing authoritarian about it. Actually. You feel much freer and much more at liberty to do what you want and to be who you are than you do here. It's not at all an authoritarian state. It's simply the US plasters, the label authoritarian against any country that it doesn't like and where it's usually planning to go to war against. So that is a very, very clear signal. I mean, just from a kind of statistical polling standpoint, the Chinese government is the most popular government on the planet. It ranks in the 90th percentile, and this is

High 90, I think 96 was the last number I saw,

Something like that. Yes, certainly in above 90 percentile. And this is from Harvard University, correct? With longitudinal studies. So clearly they have the trust and the full faith of its people.

Repeat that, because most people, when they hear, I know this, when I say that to listeners or if I'm in conversation and I say, well, when you poll the Chinese people, they back their government at around 96%. And of course, the response I get is, well, of course they would, because that's Chinese polling, and that's Xi telling them what to think. And if they don't do what Xi tells them to do, then they wind up missing.

No, no, no, that's sorry. Yeah, I mean, it's good. It's what people think, but first it is not Chinese polling. It is US polling, it's Harvard University doing this over a longitudinal study, I think over 10. It's over a decade, maybe 15 years long. And so it's us polling, not Chinese polling. The second thing is that over 150 million Chinese travel abroad every year, they travel all over the world. They go as tourists, they go as students, et cetera, and then almost every single one of them goes back home. You would not get that in an authoritarian state. You think that if you live in a prison or a concentration cab that you go free and then you come back of your own volition? No, that's not possible. It's absurd. So as I said, the Chinese travel all over the world, and then they simply come back because that's where they want to be.

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Yes.

Okay,

I didn't know that.

Yes. So it's about the same. So it's a kind of a net zero. So anything that says otherwise is usually an exaggeration or a misconstrue of the actual numbers

To this idea of authoritarian, and I was just thinking about this as you were talking. I think one of the great misnomers is the conflation of a planned economy versus an authoritarian government. I don't think I'm off base to say that China is very, very focused on planning its economy, and that makes it very nimble. That makes it, in my opinion, easier for the government to shift as world economic dynamics shift. Also, because it doesn't have predatory capitalism in China, corporations in China and the Chinese government that owns corporations, they reinvest their money into their economy as opposed to into stock buyback programs and high executive compensation packages. Hence, we wind up with a lot of technological advancements coming out of China, which to a great degree is what is scaring the hell out of the United States government. Yeah,

You're absolutely right. Yeah. So the Chinese system is planned, but it's planned in a very rational way. Most of the leaders are unlike the United States, most of the leaders in the US are lawyers or failed business people in China. Most of the leadership are scientists and engineers, and they go through an incredibly complex vetting process where they have to show their capacity and show their ability over and over again before they even reach to the level of becoming a city or a province governor. And then from there, it just gets harder and harder. So you really make sure that the top people are leading. And then there's a system where there's a constant process of feedback and consultation with the people. So the government makes sure that it's doing what the people wants. And so it's planned

In political science. That's the Easton model, I think James Easton model of the feedback loop, how effective governments are supposed to function. They implement policy, they get feedback from the populace on how that policy is being implemented. They then translate that into better policy. That's the eastern model of called the policy feedback loop.

Yes, exactly. There's this policy feedback loop, and once again, as I said, the Chinese leadership are scientists, so they do this thing called a trial spot. What is when they have a policy, they try it out in one city or one area, and if it works, then they scale it up and they try it again in a larger province on a larger scale. And if it works, they scale it up even further, et cetera. So it's a very kind of scientific method that they use called trial spots where they're essentially using the scientific method and a vast system of feedback and consultation in order to see if something works or not. That's why they're, for example, creating sustainable cities, sustainable energy generation, mass transit, et cetera, all sorts of public goods. But the problem with this is that the Western concede is that if it's not liberal capitalists, that is if you don't let the capitalists do whatever they want to, this is an infringement on freedom, and that's the framing that they use.

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I want to go back to the point. China has brought 800 million people out of abject poverty over about what? The last 10 to 15 years

Over the last, I would say over the past 40 years. Okay, 40 years ago, China was poorer per capita than Haiti.

That's poor.

And now there's no comparison, right?

The United States has on the upper end, in terms of what the government numbers are, not 800 million unhoused, 800,000,

Yeah. Somewhere in that range.

And so me being from Sacramento, California, you go to north side of Sacramento near the American River near the Sacramento River, people living under bridges, you go to Oakland, people living under overpasses, you go to San Francisco, people living under overpasses, people can't even afford the middle class in San Francisco, can't even afford to rent an apartment that people that work in San Francisco can't afford to live in San Francisco. Okay, pick a city, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia. Pick one. You see people standing in the medians of intersections with signs and cups begging for money. 800,000 people homeless in the United States. We can't fix it, but China brings 800 million people out of poverty. Folks do the math.

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty astounding. I mean, the 800,000 homeless is probably an under count because it's hard to count.

Sure. That's why I said it's a government number.

Yes, it's a government number. But even without looking at the homeless, think about the fact that 60% of the people in the United States do not have $500 to their name. That means if they get a flat tire, if they need to change their tires, fix their car, or get a parking ticket, they are in real trouble, right? I mean, there's just no margins. And so the vast majority of working people in the United States are struggling, and they see no light at the end of the tunnel at the same time that they expect their children to have even worse conditions. No longer housing is no longer, nobody can think of housing anymore. Now its cars are no longer affordable. Right? When I taught in community college, I was told that 80% of the students were housing insecure. When I taught, most of the students would come to class and they couldn't focus because they were hungry.

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Can't say that I have.

You must be doing something wrong then.

I can't say that I have. Let's move to element number two, shaping the environment. What are the techniques and what are some of the tangible elements that we can point to in terms of shaping the environment?

Okay, the first thing about shaping the environment is creating alliances. So the US is creating multiple alliances. That's alliance between the United States, Korea, and Japan. I refer to it as jackass or jackass. You see the alliance between Australia, the United States, uk, to prepare for war, nuclear war against China, Aus. You see the Japan, Philippines, US Alliance, and the South China Sea jaas, which is once again unthinkable as it is with Korea, that the colonial dominator, Japan would be creating a military alliance with the colonized. But all of this is mediated and midwife by the United States. And then you see NATO coming into Asia. So already when the US does military exercise in the Pacific, you see the LFA flying over. You see NATO exercises. You see that Korea is linking up to the NATO intelligence system, B-I-C-E-S, bcs. And that Taiwan is getting the link 16 tactical data link, which allows the US to create a common tactical and operational picture of the Warfield in order to create what they refer to as a transnational kill chain.

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In fact, the sanctions regime that you've just talked about as it relates to Iraq is exactly what the United States has been trying to do with Russia, has been trying to do with Iran has tried to do with China. And what the reality that the United States now finds itself dealing with is that sanctions regime has forced those sanctioned countries to establish relationships amongst themselves and relationships amongst themselves. So they've entered into trade agreements. They've entered into the bricks, for example, the Chinese development Bank. There are a number of elements now where China and Russia have developed trade agreements, have developed defense cooperation agreements. So really what the United States has done through this sanctions regime is really shot itself in the foot because what it thought it could do with economic pressure and other types of sanctions has actually created a much bigger problem than the United States ever could have imagined.

Well, I mean, the US has sanctioned what something close to one third of the countries on the planet or something approaching that. I mean, the idea is that it's simple. A sanction is like a siege. It's like you're building a wall around a country. The problem is if you build a wall around a country, you're also building a wall around yourself, and eventually you're walling yourself in, which is what the United States is doing here. And so with the financial sanctions, with the trade sanctions and economic sanctions, essentially it's strengthening China, Russia, Iran, and the countries of the global south, and it's weakening itself. And so that is the contradiction there. But they don't understand that, and they think that they're still capable of destroying, for example, Russia. I mean, they still believe that they almost brought Russia to its knees, and it's just a matter of applying a little bit more pressure. They're not reading the situation directly. But yes, this is what they want to do, and they consider this to be part of shaping the environment.

And one quick example of that is the whole chip sanction where the United States figured that it could cripple the Chinese economy from a technology side by prohibiting China's access to high processing chips. What did China do? They figured it out. They make their own and better than the ones that they were getting from Taiwan. And an example of that is the Huawei made 60 telephone. A lot of people in the West think that the iPhone is the greatest phone on the planet. No folks, it's a phone that we can't get in the United States. It's the Huawei mate, 60 plus, which not only is a cell phone, but is a satellite phone as well.

Yes, it's an extraordinary piece of technology, incredible engineering, and it just goes to show that when the US tries to sanction China or even a single Chinese company by putting it in a choke hold, and its CFO, China just responds with even greater strength and better technology. So it's not happening. It's not happening to an individual corporation, and it's not going to happen to China in general, which is why the US wants to pull the trigger on war. I think there's a part of the NeoCon elite that are so desperate, they see that kinetic war is the only thing that it's the only Trump card that they have left.

And I've been saying for a while to Jake Sullivan and to the Secretary of State, to the President, be careful what you pray for because you might get it even with the hypersonic missile technology. I want to say that, what was it last year or about a year and a half ago, the United States War gamed against China 25 times and lost 25 times.

Yes, each time it lost and it lost faster, and then eventually they had to deposit all kinds of hypotheticals that didn't exist in order to give themselves some kind of pretext of winning. Clearly, if they do the math and if they do the simulations, it's not going to work out for them. But the really dangerous thing here, and I'll be very, very honest here, the dangers is that because the US no longer has overmatch and none of these offsets work, it's going to go back to the final first offset, which is mass a bigger bomb, which is to say that they're going to go nuclear on this war and going nuclear against another nuclear power is a very, very bad idea. The US is doctrine of counterforce, which essentially argues that in order for us to prevail, we have to strike first with nuclear weapons.

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Provocation is the third. We've talked about the info war. We've talked about shaping the environment. And now the third element is the provocation. And we are seeing this play itself out damn near daily, right before our very eyes. And thank God that President Rai in Iran, that President Xi, that Kim Jong-un in North Korea and President Putin, thank God that these are sensible, sensible people that are not reactionary and engage in knee jerk responses to provocation. Because if they weren't as thoughtful as they are, we'd be in a much, much different world circumstance than we are right now.

I agree with you. I mean, I think it's the sober sanity of US opponents, which is keeping the world from exploding into war. Just as during the Cold War, it was Russian officers who understood US culture and for example, understood that when there were signals of a nuclear attack being launched, they also understood that the World Series was happening at the same time, and they thought it was unlikely the US would launch a nuclear attack during the World Series. But this is predicated on the idea that you have cultured intelligent, calm people who are able to make clear distinctions. And we see that in RACI and President Xi and President Putin, who are very, very measured in their responses. And they're not seeking war. They're seeking diplomacy and peace. And you can see that there is a constant attempt to provoke them and to demonize them and to trigger war, but they understand that time is on their side, and these are the mad thrashings of a dying empire, and their approach is not to engage.

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Is, wait, wait a minute. Before we get to that, I want to touch on one thing you mentioned not firing the missile. And I want to say that that was a Russian technician, Vasili arch, about what, 65 years ago, who was looking at his radar screen, saw what most would've perceived to be an incoming nuclear missile from the United States on his screen. And the protocol was you got to push the button. And he, to your point, said, wait a minute. This doesn't make sense right now. This might be a mistake, and thank God he was right. It was a mistake. I wanted to make that point because you kind of glossed over that point. But it's very important for people to understand how perilous the circumstances are that we're in today.

Absolutely. I mean, there were so many close shaves during the Cold War, and they're even more now, and the world owes a debt of gratitude to vestly ov. I think he's one of the unsung heroes of world history, but we can't rely on the fact that there will always be a vasili arch of a patient measured, well-informed, educated person on the other side who exercises prudent caution. There's no guarantee of that. And everything that we are doing on our side is simply escalating the danger that that will not happen and that this could end in a nuclear conflagration.

Final point on that, then we'll go to the Uyghur issue. And that is, that's one of the points that President Putin was making about NATO and why his perception was a uk, a Ukraine in NATO means NATO missiles in Ukraine, which means his response time to a message of incoming would be cut more than in half. And he was saying, we can't do that. You can't put these missiles on my border and cut my response time from 16 or 17 minutes down to seven minutes. That means if my system say incoming, I got a button to push. I don't have a phone to pick up. I don't have questions to ask. I got a fire on receipt.

Absolutely, yes. Launch on warning,

Launch on warning.

Yes. And that's exactly the danger. And this is why this was so important that by bringing NATO right up into Ukraine, the Soviet Union, well, Russia lost all of its strategic debt that it had no cushion with which to make a rational decision. And that is a very, very dangerous thing to do against a nuclear superpower that you have designated as an official enemy. So yes, it's absolutely correct, and this is both the danger and what we are seeing replicated in against China. Once again, the US used to have nuclear weapons in Taiwan Island. Right now, they're probably preparing more nuclear weapons, certainly the tomahawks that are being prepared for Japan or nuclear capable, they can carry nuclear warheads. And if you take US troops and place them right three miles from China's mainland, I mean, you've essentially said that you either have to preempt the attack or you are going to be annihilated. So that is the danger here.

The other great myth, one of the other great myths is the genocide of the Uyghurs and the oppression of the Uyghurs who are a group of Chinese Muslims in a region of China. And also if they're not being genocided, then they're being put into reeducation and concentration camps. Where did this myth come from?

It was started by a guy called Adrian Zant, working for the victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which is extreme far right organization, fascists, Nazis, anti-communist, who essentially have it on their banner head to destroy communism. Adrian ZZ himself believes that it is God's mission, his mission from God to destroy Chinese communism. And he essentially pulled those figures and those facts out of, pardon my French, his rear end. And so initially, so

Actually French kg would be ass, he pulled those data, excuse my French, out of his ass.

I think the French word is true or football.

But

Yes, the BBC asked him to do the research. He said, I can't do it. And then they offered him more money, and then suddenly all of a sudden he was pulling numbers out of his rear end. Apparently there were perhaps a few dozen people that were interviewed. A small percentage of them said that certain things happened to us, and then they extrapolated that, and all of a sudden we have 1 million, 2 million, 3 million, 5 million, 7 million uighurs either in concentration camps or being genocided. Okay,

So how does that jive with the population of Xinjiang, which I think is the western part of China, which is where these folks are supposed to be.

There are about 12 million Uyghurs. And so if you had even a million that had been disappeared or in concentration camps, you wouldn't have a functioning society. You would have almost every adult male in prison. And that's certainly not the case. 200, 250 million people visited Xinjiang last year, and it was fine. The people in Xinjiang were doing fine. It's a vibrant, multicultural society that is thriving and happy, and anybody can go there. You and I could go there. Anybody listening to this podcast could go there tomorrow. You don't even have to. A visa. China allows Americans to go to China without a visa now for a short period of time, and you could go immediately to Xinjiang and see for yourself. But essentially the fact is there is no Chinese genocide happening in Xinjiang because there's not a single shred of credible evidence. Let me emphasize that. Not a single shred of credible evidence. This is the only genocide in history that one has no deaths. Nobody can point to a body, no refugees.

Well, that's, they've been disappeared. They've been taken up by the mothership, and I guess they're floating around in the nuclear. I mean the, what do you call this? The nebula

In the fifth?

Yeah, they're in the nebula somewhere,

Right? Right in the fifth space, time war somewhere. But look, there are five Muslim majority countries. China has borders with 14 countries, and Xinjiang itself has borders with five Muslim majority countries, very porous borders. If there were any credible oppression, you would see massive refugees going to all these countries right next to it. But it's not. Instead, what you see is preferential treatment of the Uyghurs. For example, they were exempt from the one child policy. They had two, three, sometimes more children. They received preferential treatment in school, admissions and employment. The population has increased sixfold since the start of the PRC, and the life expectancy has increased 150%, and you can look high and low and you will see no hate speech and no tolerance of hate speech against Muslims, and no messages or rhetoric targeting the group whatsoever. In fact, the organization of Islamic Corporation, which represents the rights of 2 billion Muslims in 56 countries, commended China for its exemplary treatment of Muslim minorities.

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And the United States is also trying to foment another genocide in Haiti. So there's a false one in Xinjiang. There's a real one in Gaza, and there's another one on the horizon in Haiti, and thank you United States because it's our tax dollars that are fanning the flames and funding all three kj. No, my brother. Thank you, man. I really, really, really appreciate the time that you gave this evening and for you coming on connecting the dots, because as always, kj, you connected the dots, man. Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you. Always a pleasure and an honor to be with you.

And folks, I want to thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wiler Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe, leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below. Go to Patreon. Please contribute. Please, please contribute because this is not an inexpensive venture to engage in. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge, talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Have a great one, peace and blessings to y'all.

Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.