When U.S. Imperialism Lands on US at Home

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TRANSCRIPT:

Announcer (00:06):

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

Wilmer Leon (00:13):

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 broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode of this show, my guest and I will have probing, provocative and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historical context in which these events occur. This will enable 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 anti imperialism in the US today. What is it and what is it not? And for insight into this, my guest for the discussion is the chair of the coordinating committee for the Black Alliance for Peace, an 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, as always my brother. Welcome.

Ajamu Baraka (01:21):

Good to be here, Dr. Leon. Thank you.

Wilmer Leon (01:24):

So today's topic is based on a piece in Oroco Tribune entitled Anti Imperialism in the US Today, what it Is and Is not. It's written by Stanfield Smith and he opens his piece by quoting the late Cuban president, Fidel Castro, saying there is an enemy that can be called universal, an enemy whose attitude and whose actions threaten the whole world, bully the whole world. That universal enemy is Yankee imperialism. Ajamu your thoughts on Castro's assessment, especially in the context of the recent president Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers urging the Republican controlled House of Representatives to take up this $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, for Israel and Taiwan and other allies, especially understanding if the United States wasn't using Ukraine as a proxy, you wouldn't need that money. The United States is funding the genocide in Gaza and is also trying to use Taiwan as the tip of the spear against China. Ajamu Baraka.

Ajamu Baraka (02:45):

Well thank you so much for that question because it's a very important question and a very important conversation that we have to have. Fidel's position is in alignment with my position, the position I've been advocating or arguing for the last few years that one of the issues among left forces in the US primarily and also in Western Europe is that they seem not to understand the difference between a primary and the secondary contradiction. That is that they don't seem to recognize that for many of us in the colonized world, in the global south, in the northern states, but in those parts of the northern states where we are exploited and nationally oppressed, that for us the primary enemy, if you'll emanates primarily from the US and is Western European allies, we see the US and Western European allies as Fidel sees them as in fact representing an existential threat to the rest of collective humanity.

(04:02)
Therefore, that enemy becomes the primary objective of our political activity. Now, some western left leftists, they confused by that and so they will look at some of the issues or contradictions and some of the emergent socialists countries or countries with socialist aspirations, countries that are just trying to build some kind of progressive movement in their nations to have some breathing room for development but who find themselves as a consequence in the crosshairs of the US and US policies attempting to undermine their projects and these leftists will focus in on those internal issues, giving left coverage and rationalization for the targeting of those nations. We see that as fundamentally contradictory. We see that as in fact reactionary confusing what should be the primary objective, which is the defeat of Western imperialism with the internal issues in these various states as equal and they are primary and secondary contradictions are in fact that they are different.

Wilmer Leon (05:28):

You mentioned the United States and its Western European allies and what is even ironic now is many of those Western European allies are finding themselves being victimized by US imperialism. We're looking at over the last seven months to a year a dramatic decline in productivity in Germany as a result of the United States blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. Now Europe is having to pay exorbitant amounts of money for natural gas. We find that impacting Britain, we find that impacting France. We find that all over Europe and and now for example, for those who may have listened to the interview with Russian president Putin and he's supposed to be the villain and Donald Trump mentions moving away from NATO and folks in the United States were screaming, how can Donald Trump talk about NATO like that in the United States attacked a NATO ally in act of war in blowing up Nord stream. So again, you mentioned the US and its allies and now American imperialism is even attacking its Western European allies.

Ajamu Baraka (06:57):

Exactly. I mean it's really amazing. I mean look, one of the objectives of the proxy war in Ukraine was in fact to ensure that there would be policies that would disarticulate the Russian economy from western Europe, specifically from the German economy. And the objective there was to weaken the German economy and also by extension various Western economies in order to make the further exploitation and in fact the intensification of the exploitation of the European market more favorable to US capital and the Europeans and the European ruling class fell right into that trap and to make sure that that plan was successful. As you indicated in your question, the US ensured that there would be no backsliding by blowing up Nord Stream two. They knew that once the German workers, once many European workers and even parts of the middle class woke up to the fact that they had got suckered into supporting this aggressive war in Ukraine and that they were being negatively impacted, that there'd be political pressure on these various states to reverse course and to reengage with the Russians. Whether us said, oh no, you're not going backwards. In fact we're going to make sure that by blowing up this pipeline and making sure that you remain now dependent on the importation of liquified natural gas coming from where from the us as Anthony said, the secretary of state of this is a marvelous opportunity. And so that was part of the objective of this war. It was a war to enhance the positionality of US capital in Europe.

Wilmer Leon (09:08):

In fact, going back to, I made reference to Vladimir Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson and Putin raised the question, he says, well, you blew up part of Nord stream because folks don't know there's Nord stream one and Nord stream two. He said, you blew up part of Nord stream, one of the pipes still works. Why don't you turn it up? He said, Europe can get natural gas from Russia through Ukraine. There are pipelines running through Ukraine that could carry natural gas to Europe. He says, turn it up. He says, there are pipelines that run from Russia through Poland. You can get natural gas through Poland. He says, why don't you turn those up? It all goes back to Western hegemony and imperialism.

Ajamu Baraka (09:58):

It goes back to the issue of the European ruling class that understanding that they have interest that are really counter those of the US and that irrational policy of allowing themselves to be suckered into this proxy war and not looking out for their own national interests is resulting in real political issues within their countries. Not only the issue of natural gas. You and I talked about on another one of your programs, this issue with using the Ukrainian war, the US capitol that's gone in and basically bought up some of the best land in Ukraine and are now exporting from Ukraine various agricultural products. They are using the war as a battery realm to avoid or to circumvent the requirements of the importation of agricultural products across Europe and imposing the products from Ukraine into various European markets as an act of solidarity. Well, the problem with that of course is it's undermining the positions of European farmers across Western Europe.

(11:24)
And so you find that farmers and places like France and other countries, I say, Hey, wait a minute, we are now losing money because of our markets now being flooded with wheat and other products coming in from Ukraine. What is this? We have to engage in production by very clear meticulous requirements, regulations, and now using this solidarity issue with the Ukrainian war, you are undermining our position. You're undermining our ability to make a living. And so that's causing real political issues in these various nations. So these policies being pursued by these European nations are really such that they are putting themselves in a position where they are creating issues for themselves politically that they're going to find it very difficult to reverse very soon, as a matter of fact in the next few months.

Wilmer Leon (12:34):

And in fact to that point talking about agriculture, there are farmers in Germany that have been protesting for weeks. They're dumping manure in the roads, they're doing a lot of activism, real on the ground, practical activism to show their resistance to the policies that you're mentioning. And also they're incredibly angry because a lot of the subsidies that the government was providing to them in order to offset the price differentials that they were experiencing as a result of flooding the market with Ukrainian products, those subsidies have been cut if not totally eliminated as the German government, as the French government, as other EU countries are sending more money to Ukraine, so many of them, many of these Western Europeans are experiencing a lot of the same issues there that many in the United States are suffering here. As our infrastructure is in decline as our schools are underfunded, as healthcare costs are going up and people are, as homelessness is on the rise, we can find 95 billion to send to Ukraine and to send to Israel and to send to Taiwan. All three of those fights are fights that would not be ongoing if the United States hadn't started them. But we can't seem to find the way to take care of Americans here in the United States.

Ajamu Baraka (14:05):

We can't find the way Dr. Leon because we can't have an honors and open and free national conversation because the same interests that are advancing themselves in Western Europe of the same interests that control the means of communication in the us. And so therefore a conversation with the people of the US around what really makes sense in terms of policy. Does it make sense to have 886 billion devoted toward defense? So-called defense or should we use some of those resources to in fact address issues of homelessness, invest in education, create the conditions where everybody can have access to healthcare pay for free education up to through the university level. US population is paying a price for supporting the policies that only are benefiting a small minority of the population, in fact about 1% of the population. So that kind of understanding that kind of discussion, it's not taking place, it's only taking place in spaces like this in alternative media spaces and as a consequence it makes it very difficult for us to turn the corner with advancing policies that make more sense, that address the real interest of the American people

Wilmer Leon (15:49):

And in this piece, anti imperialism in the US today, what it is and is not Stansfield Smith, he draws the distinction between progressives and anti-imperialist. He says that imperialism uses human rights and democracy issues in countries that it is targeting for regime change as a rationale for foreign interference and that many progressives swallow and even join in these disinformation campaigns to support these moves where in contrast, anti-imperialist, they focus on uncovering and bringing to light US disinformation and interference in national sovereignty. So can you elaborate a little bit on this issue? He talks about progressives versus anti-imperialist you use in many instances, use the term the left if you could because we hear these references, we hear these terms baned about all the time and many people mistakenly think that they're all the same, but in fact they're not.

Ajamu Baraka (17:01):

Well, they really aren't and I'm glad you raised that question. I think the way Stanfield is using that term and many others, when you talk about progressives, you're really talking about liberals and maybe social Democrats. That is those individuals who have politics and very similar to say for example Bernie Sanders who's a social democrat, who have a soft socialistic orientations Bernie Sanders, Cornell West, as opposed to elements of the left that are not only anti imperialists but of course politics that suggest that this global system of colonial capitalism has to be transcended and be replaced with a new kind of political economy, one that's organized around socialistic lines. And so that to me constitutes the left, the real left if you will. But even within that camp, if you'll, there's still some issues in terms of how one gets to socialism and that's where you have some of the confusion because even among the left, they will sometimes find themselves inadvertently often providing political cover to the US because they are in opposition to a particular nation's experiment, be it Nicaragua, Cuba or Venezuela, Peru or Bolivia, that if the politics aren't developing in ways in which these western leftists believe they should be developing, if they don't correspond to some kind of imagined model, then they will, they begin to criticize those experiments at the same time, did those experiments find themselves in the crossheads of US subversion?

(19:08)
That's backward. It's backward and it's contradictory. So that is the issue that Smith is alluding to in that very important article. Dr. Leon? Yes, there's another element to this, okay,

(19:25)
Even the way in which the bourgeoisie, meaning the bourgeoisie, meaning the ruling class has used and weaponized democracy and human rights in order to obscure real interest in undermining these various nations as a consequence of gods. They're not going to be able to use those weapons like they did in the past because they have now been exposed. It's quite clear to so many people around the world and even people within the US the hypocrisy of those positions. What happened to the responsibility to protect a component of humanitarian intervention in order to protect the human rights of certain collectives? It doesn't exist when it comes to the Palestinians. So they have undermined in their own short-term greed and their own short-term pursuits to undermine a very important and powerful weapon that used to use to be able to obscure their reactionary politics

Wilmer Leon (20:39):

To that. It is really amazing when you look at how long the been exposed to the genocide, how long that struggle has been ongoing and how quickly things turn post October 6th. One of the ways that I have described it is I tell people that Israel has bombed the world into reality that now that this horror, now that this genocide is playing itself out on your telephone screens, not to mention your computers and your home screens, the atrocities, the reality of these atrocities have just decimated the myths

Ajamu Baraka (21:39):

Exactly, and they're never going to be able to return back to the ideological status quo. They have exposed themselves, we are seen behind the curtain and we understand now the reality of the naked power that they are exercising to try to maintain their global control. We now see the nature of the settler colonial project in Israel, and by extension we are getting a better understanding of the settler colonial project in the territory called the United States of America. At the core of these projects is the reality of naked violence to establish those regimes and to maintain them. So that understanding of the nature of colonialism coupled with a deeper understanding of the nature of capitalism disconnected is radicalizing millions of people across the globe and millions of people within the US So the politics going forward are going to be fundamentally different, but it's going to be different but even more dangerous.

(22:53)
Dr. Leon, why without the ideological weapon that they were able to use to impose conformity and support for their policies, now they're going to be more and more dependent on the use of naked force. That's why you find the naked use of force in various local environments. That's why you see in Atlanta, for example, the use of RICO laws to criminalize the opposition to cop city. These are examples of the hysterical reaction from the rulers to this change in consciousness. That's why the O rule three is facing federal prosecution because of their to the policies in Ukraine. So the repressive apparatus and the repressive network of the state is being strengthened and being utilized against this growing consciousness that's being manifested within the United States of America.

Wilmer Leon (24:06):

And another place where I believe that we're going to see this manifest itself is in the Middle East itself. Hassan Nala, the head of Hezbollah in Lebanon recently gave a speech where he said, and I'll paraphrase, he said, basically for as horrific as all of this is, he said, this is really going beyond the Palestinians and that this is an issue for the entire region. And there have been a number of interpretations of that statement. What that says to me is he is not only speaking to the Palestinians that he and speaking to Anah in Yemen and others, he's letting the United States know he's letting the west know that you all are about to start a global conflict that he's saying everybody in the pool and because they see themselves as facing a common oppressor, they see themselves facing a common enemy and he's saying, you all are about to ignite a fuse, the likes of which you will not be able to exterminate or put out, and it's going to be all adults in the pool, and the result isn't going to be very positive,

Ajamu Baraka (25:34):

Dr. Leon, and what's going to really like that is if there is in fact a ground assault in Rafa, the Egyptians have already said that that can very easily result in the cancellation of Camp David, the Saudis have said that there's going to be dire circumstances. This is going to see what has happened is that these policies have forced these monarchs and all of these Arab and Muslim right-wing elements to have to respond to the pressure that they're feeling from their own populations. So horrific what is happening in Gaza, they can no longer collaborate under the table with the us. They are being now forced to take more forthright positions in opposition to what is happening in Palestine that you couple, what is happening on the Israeli Lebanon border was Hezbollah. You look at what is happening with the Hutu that have basically shut down shipping as it relates to ships going into and supporting Israel, and you see that these unwise policies are creating a situation that can very easily span out of control and even elements within the US believe that this has gone too far.

(27:16)
And that's why you find some fleeting commentary from genocide, Joe talking about that the Israelis have gone over the top because now they understand the real possibility of this igniting a regional conflict that they're not going to be able to control. If it does in fact lead to that, and they know that you have leadership in Israel, you have a lunatic that's in power. You have a right wing racist settler regime that is engaged in murder, not only supporting the murder in Gaza, but they are actively murdering Palestinians on the West Bank. Over 400 Palestinians have been murdered by settlers since October the seventh. So this is creating a situation that's untenable, and so there has to be a pullback. Yesterday the Moody credit agency downgraded Israeli stocks and downgraded the economy. So there is a real economic consequence now developing. So it's a very dangerous situation that the wiser elements of the international ruling class is saying, we've got to get a hold of this

Wilmer Leon (28:47):

And talk about how this hypocrisy of the United States has been exposed, is being exposed and the international reaction, what I mean by that is as we sit and look at the genocide that is taking place in Gaza and the United States is paying for it, the United States is arming it. And on one hand you hear Tony Blinken saying, I'm traversing the region, I'm talking to the leaders. I'm asking them to be very careful. Basically what he's saying is he's asking for a kinder, gentler genocide and Joe Biden is saying that we are concerned about the Palestinians and while in fact he's not telling Netanyahu, I'll just pull the plug on your money and we'll put a stop to this thing in about two or three days, days. What's your take your sense as you travel the world and speak to those around the world, how is that hypocrisy resonating around the world?

Ajamu Baraka (29:54):

The result of this is that the US has lost prestige, will never regained, that the world understands that the US and Europe is basically finished and that nations are deciding that they're going to put their eggs is a different basket, and that basket is called bricks. This emerging group of nations that now control something like 36% of global GDP as opposed to the G seven that's controlling about 30%, the shift has already taken place materially. Now the shift is taking place ideologically and politically. So it is a shift in momentum is a recognition that for all intents and purposes, the decline of the west is irreversible, but it's also a recognition of the danger that all of this poses for all of us because it becomes quite clear when you see the support that all of the western nations have given to the Israeli fascists that the west is prepared to blow up the world before they voluntarily surrender power.

Wilmer Leon (31:19):

Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Elaborate on that because a lot of people will hear you say, blow up the world. Oh, that's hyperbole. Oh, he's just being over the top. Oh, that Aja mu Baraka. He's so dramatic. But no, that's real talk.

Ajamu Baraka (31:36):

Yeah, it really is because they're still flirty with the possibility of nuclear confrontation in Ukraine. There's still the possibility of some kind of wild and reckless attack by the Israelis on Iran and even the use of a nuclear weapon. There is the situation we haven't touched on yet, that is the unwise policies of the part of the US in providing support to and propping up and encouragement to the government on the island of Taiwan, the provocative moves being made in the South China Sea, the whole pivot toward Asia. There is always the possibility of these situations escalating to a nuclear confrontation. And it seems like that there are elements within the foreign policy community that believe that they in fact can not only escalate, but they can engage in a first strike and win. There are people openly talking like Dr. Strange love and talking about the possibility of winning a nuclear confrontation.

(32:55)
That's what makes it so incredibly dangerous because when you have missiles in western Europe, for example, in and Poland and Romania and other places that are theoretically defensive according to the us, but the Russians know that they can be recalculated if you'll or refitted in a matter of minutes and to become offensive, which means that you have the ability to strike from say, Poland to Moscow in six minutes. Now you have the Russians who are on a head trigger alert, they have to launch on warning because you can't allow your nuclear arsenal to be caught in the silos. So when you had situations in the past where there were computer glitches where one side thought that the other side had launched, launched, we had 30 minutes to correct it, we have documented situations where that in fact happened at least on two or three occasions. How do you do that when you are on a trigger hair launch or warning in six minutes? So it's very, very dangerous. So that's what we are referring to. This is not hyperbole. People talk about in five years I'm going to be doing so and so and so I'm like, are you sure you're going to be here in five years? Yeah, I'm being dramatic because I'm being for real. We can see the possibilities of these maniacs escalating a situation to the point of a nuclear confrontation because the amateurs, Dr. Leon,

(34:36)
The gap between the leadership in places like Russia and China and the US and in western Europe, it's never been bigger before. They don't know what they are doing and that's what makes us so incredibly dangerous for all of us.

Wilmer Leon (34:54):

You just mentioned the mistake being made, and that is not theoretical. I want to say it was 1983, a Russian, I don't even know what his title is, but he's in a silo in a Russian silo. His name is Stanislav Petrov, and he is a missile technician, I'll call him, sitting in a Russian silo looking at his screen and he sees a blip on his screen. And the protocol is when you see this blip, you push a button and when you push that button, silos open, missiles come up, we're ready to launch. But he thinks that there's something wrong with the blip on his screen. And thank God he did because by his taking just a couple of minutes to be rational and to think, what he found out was it wasn't an incoming missile. It was a mistake in a software program that miscalculated or misinterpreted something that was transpiring.

(36:05)
So that was 1983. Folks can look this up. Stanislav Petrov is his name, and if it hadn't been for him, we would've been in a nuclear conflict. What you just talked about in terms of missiles in Poland and Yugoslavia and other places, that's one of the big reasons why Russian president Putin is so hell bent on Ukraine not becoming a part of nato because he says, and he's right, if Ukraine becomes a part of nato, NATO will put missiles in Ukraine. You've now cut my response time from seven or eight minutes to three minutes, which means Stanislav petrov, God bless his soul, that doesn't work anymore. Launch on notice. And the other point is Putin has made this point a number of times saying, look, you guys got to understand something. I got missiles too. I got missiles like you got missiles. And in the west that gets spun as Vladimir Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons. No, what he's telling you is if you think you can come in here and punch me in the face, understand I can punch back. I have what you have. And now what we're seeing from a technological perspective is what they got is a little better then what we're used to seeing. So this is not hyperbole, this is not fantasy. This is real talk.

Ajamu Baraka (37:59):

Yeah, no, they have demonstrated with supersonic weapons that they have

Wilmer Leon (38:04):

Hypersonic

Ajamu Baraka (38:05):

Hypersonic weapons. They have a technological advantage of us and not been able to catch up with yet. It's very dangerous

Wilmer Leon (38:14):

Minute. Wait a minute. To that point, when President Biden, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want people to understand this isn't theoretical high hyperbole. When Joe Biden sent the USS Gerald Ford into the Mediterranean Sea as a show of force to Hezbollah and to the Houthis, Vladimir Putin said, Joe, why are you doing this? You're not scaring anybody, you're not scar. He said, these people don't scare, and oh, by the way, we can sink your aircraft carrier from the Black Sea with our armed missiles, the Ken Jaw missiles, he said, and they're hypersonic. You won't even know they're coming until your aircraft carrier is sinking. That's real talk.

Ajamu Baraka (39:19):

And what's also kind of funny but tragic at the same time is that while they are engaged in provocative activity in the Endo Pacific region outside of Taiwan and in the Taiwan straits, the Pentagon has war games, a confrontation between the US and China, and I think we talked about it before, and they were lost every time,

Wilmer Leon (39:48):

25 out of 25.

Ajamu Baraka (39:50):

So it's like, what are these people doing? What are you doing? The whole concept that was coming out of the project for a new American century in which they argued that the US had the capacity to fight two theater wars simultaneously that should have been put to rest when they lost both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, basically global solve nations. But now they are actually a few months ago you thought they were really going insane because they are fighting in Ukraine and they are fighting in Ukraine. Make a mistake about that is the Ukrainians are dying, but this is a Western and US ward, while at the same time they were needling the Chinese. So it's like what? You all are going to fight the Russians and the Chinese at the same time? It wasn't making and they

Wilmer Leon (40:48):

Are allies.

Ajamu Baraka (40:51):

Yeah, well, part of the conflict,

Wilmer Leon (40:54):

You got to throw North Korea in there too.

Ajamu Baraka (40:56):

Well, part of the conflict water of the element that we didn't talk about, when you talk about what's happening in Ukraine in terms of the secondary objectives of this proxy war, it was to weaken the Russians to the point where they would not be a very effective ally to the Chinese. The target was not just Russia, it was Germany as we talked about, and the Chinese. So they were creating a situation where they were going to win regardless of what happened in their own imagination.

Wilmer Leon (41:27):

There are some neocons that thought you could go at China directly. There were some neocons that believed that you could go at Russia directly, and then there were others who believed the way you get to China, you've got to go through Russia.

Ajamu Baraka (41:42):

Yes, exactly. All

Wilmer Leon (41:44):

Are wrong. All are wrong.

Ajamu Baraka (41:47):

They were proven wrong. I mean the Russian economy was supposed to be destroyed, be destroyed as a consequence of this conflict. And as Putin indicated in that interview that the Russian economy is stronger than there's ever been. Every time they have imposed series of sanctions against the Russians. Even Putin said this a couple of years ago, it allowed him to impose economic reforms that he couldn't have done without the sanctions. He made the oligarchy disengage from the European economy and reinvest and the Russian economy. So they have become more economically independent as a consequence of these sanctions. So it's always been counterproductive and you have some realists in the US foreign policy community that predicted that. But the realists have had to take a second, have had to stand back and allow these neocons who have been driving policy in both parties for the last 20 years basically or more. And the result is the US is weaker than it's ever been since the end of the second imperialist war that we call World War ii.

Wilmer Leon (43:14):

Another example, and I think a more practical example, and what I mean by practical is it doesn't involve the oligarchs. It involves the everyday Russian person. One of the things when President Biden told us that as a result of this Ukraine conflict that he was going to turn the ruble into rubble, and by imposing sanctions on the Russian economy, one of the things that they were projecting was or predicting was that the Russian citizens would run to the Russian banks and take their money out of the banks and put their money other places. And what Putin did was he raised the interest rates. One of the things that he did was he raised the interest rates that the banks would pay on deposits. So the Russian citizens found, oh, I'll make more money if I leave my money in the bank. And what a lot of people don't know about him, dude has a PhD in economics. Not only is he an attorney, he has a PhD in economics. So he has a little bit of understanding. He has a better understanding of econ than Joe Biden.

Ajamu Baraka (44:41):

I mean Joe Biden's a moron. I mean most of the US leadership are morons. One thing we can say about Barack Obama, though he was not in that same category. He was just a slickster. And same thing with Bill Clinton. But the quality of the leadership in the US state has been a mean, been dangerously. Frighteningly are incompetent. And that's the thing that scares me the most, that we are going to trip up into a situation that the US is not going to be able to reverse and all of us will suffer as a consequence. Look, when you hear no matter what your opinion may be a Putin or a President Xi when they speak and even the way they comport themselves, these are adults, these are statesmen. If you'll, and you compare that to these idiots in the US started with genocide jokes and these idiots who are making policy both in the Democrat and Republican parties, there's no gravitas, there's no worldly sophistication. They're just like country bumpkins. They are so incredibly unsophisticated and adolescent. That's the term that I use to describe US culture. It's an adolescent dangerous culture. And because it has so much power, that's what makes it so incredibly dangerous to all of us that people need. If you haven't seen this check out that interview, you can have your views about Putin and the cartoon characters that's been drawn up for you by your bosses, but you cannot conclude that this is not a states person with a sophisticated understanding of the world.

Wilmer Leon (46:46):

If you look at a couple of examples of what you're talking about, particularly as it relates to the Chinese, I'm not even going to get into Secretary Lavrov because that dude is oh, just brilliant. But Wang Ye, the foreign secretary of China early in the Biden administration, Tony Blinken was supposed to meet with the Chinese delegation in Anchorage, Alaska. And so they all convene in Anchorage and Blinken starts lecturing the Chinese and they look at him and they say, whatcha doing? You have no idea who you are talking to. We didn't come here to be lectured by you. We're China, we hold your debt. You don't hold out out.

Ajamu Baraka (47:52):

What was so incredible about that was this was the clumsy attempt on the part of the Biden administration to assert their white maleness. They're going show it was whiteness. We going to show we running the show with these Chinese. I mean it was incredible. And like you said, the Chinese

Wilmer Leon (48:17):

Said the sick men of criticize,

Ajamu Baraka (48:19):

You're not competent enough to criticize us,

Wilmer Leon (48:21):

Right? Our culture is thousands of years old. And then you've got the whole spy balloon. What a lot of people don't understand is Tony Blinken said, I'm going to China to meet with President Xi. He was not invited. He said, I'm going to China. And G said, no, but he said, I'm coming to China. So usually diplomats are welcomed in Beijing. President Xi said, okay, well if you're coming, I can't remember the name of the city, but there's another city where they send lesser caliber diplomats and folks that they really don't want to deal with. He said, I'm going to send you here. I'm not going to meet you in Beijing and I'm not even come see you there. And Blinken got embarrassed and that's when the balloon comes in the jet stream, the weather balloon comes in the jet stream as weather balloons will do.

(49:30)
And they used that calling it a spy balloon as the basis of, oh, you're sending a spy balloon, therefore I can't come see you. No, it was, Xi didn't want to totally embarrass Blinken by saying, I'm not going to let you in my country. What he said was, I'm going to send you off to the hinterlands and you can go on a tour if you want to. And Tony Blinken said, well, no, I ain't doing that. I mean, those are just examples and they don't get explained as such by Western media, but that's what really happened.

Ajamu Baraka (50:10):

Look, Dr. Leon, I was in China a couple of months ago.

Wilmer Leon (50:14):

There we

Ajamu Baraka (50:14):

Go.

Wilmer Leon (50:16):

Am I right?

Ajamu Baraka (50:18):

You are absolutely right. I'm going to tell you they can't can't be defeated. This what they are building there is absolutely incredible. I'm sitting on this bullet train going from Beijing to Shanghai, and I had a cup of water and I was doing something and I put it down and I realized, oh, the water's on the floor cause fly when you do Amtrak. You know how that on Amtrak,

(50:52)
They have this tick or take thing on the end of the car that tells you how fast the train's going. We sitting there going 325 miles an hour. It's like you're not even moving. You're going across the countryside is flat plains. And then you look up and then there's a city with skyscrapers, and I don't want to go into it too much, but what I saw in just those few days I was there was incredible. And so they're not keeping allowing people to understand what's happening in China. They have an urban development policy that when they create these cities and these communities, every social service in that community has to be within a 15 minute walk. The hospitals, the schools, the elder care, 15 minute walk is fully integrated everything that you need. So you compare this and what I saw in terms of infrastructure, it made the US look like, unfortunately, like a developing country and see the bourgeois there, they know this, but they're not telling the US population how far behind the US has fallen.

Wilmer Leon (52:18):

Well, and a perfect example of that is 5G technology. The Chinese approach, the United States, I'll say now, 15 years ago about working with the Chinese on developing 5G, and the United States said, no, we don't need to work with you on that. And so China went ahead and developed 5G. And with that we're talking about the internet of things and the ability of your refrigerator to talk to your cell phone to talk to your car, all of that kind of stuff. And so now when you turn on your phone, it says 5G, but the United States does not. All we really have is faster 4G. It's not truly the 5G technology that Huawei and other Chinese companies have developed. And they're now, they're on their way to six and seven G. We just don't get it.

Ajamu Baraka (53:26):

And the funny thing about it too, the US thought that they were going to undermine the Chinese by undermining the ability to have access to advanced Chips, chips. But they are rapidly developing their own capacity for that. And see, people don't understand as part of the struggle with Taiwan, also the home of one of the largest semiconductor chip factory in the world.

Wilmer Leon (53:55):

Psc, is that what? It's

Ajamu Baraka (53:56):

Something like that, yeah. Right. And that reincorporation of Taiwan into China would be a nonviolent and relatively seamless if it wasn't for the agitation on the part of the us. This notion that Chinese want to invade Taiwan militarily is all complete and utter nonsense. There is a political process there. There was developing in favor of the Chinese until the last few years when the US really began to ramp up is meddling within the Taiwanese political system. So that's part of the issue that basically the technological advances that the US has, and they still have some, that gap is being progressively narrowed down.

Wilmer Leon (54:50):

And as we move on to our final segment, there have been studies and reports put out by various elements within the government that if China were to invade Taiwan, and that's not on anybody's drawing board, I always challenge folks that want to have this conversation with me, show me one time where President Xi Jinping has said that they're planning to invade China. You can't find it because they're not going to do it. But the United States says if that were to happen, the United States would blow up the TSC, I think it's TSC chip manufacturing facilities so that they would not fall into the hands of China. And now China has designed its own chips, it's on its way. Necessity is the mother of invention, and China is on its way. I want to tie something else into coming back to the northern hemisphere, and that is this immigrant conversation.

(56:01)
All of this conversation about the Republicans in the house are trying to hold up this defense bill because they say there's not enough money for the immigration bill. But in all of this bipartisan discussion about immigration, nobody talks about the American foreign policy in the region as in Central America and South America that is basically forcing these people to leave their homes and come here. The analogy I use is if you're sitting in your basement watching a game and water starts coming down your stairway, you want to close the basement door instead of going upstairs and figuring out, oh, either your tub is overflowing or your sink, your kitchen sink is overflowing. They just want to close the, they don't want to turn off the spigot. And the way you turn off the spigot is by changing your policy. That is decimating the economies of Nicaragua decimating the economies of all of these other countries in central and South America. They never talk about the US foreign policy policy that creates the motivation or motivates these folks to want to come here. They just talk about building a wall to keep 'em in Mexico.

Ajamu Baraka (57:31):

No, they don't talk about that. And what's interesting too is that you remember at one point the Democrats pretended to be the party of progressive immigration policy, but who talks about that now? Now they are the party that has embraced the same kind of policies of Donald Trump border security expanding a wall. So there is consensus now among both wings of the ruling class represented by the Republicans and the Democrats on this issue of so-called border control. And they're never going to talk about the kinds of imperialist policies that are decimating the economies of Central America and parts of South America driving immigration. That's not part of their analytical framework. And so an understanding of these forces, again, has to come from sources like your show and other alternative sources that help people to understand the complexities of the world and sometimes how simple some things are. Like you destroy an economy and people have to find a way to survive, and they are a few hundred miles away from the most powerful and richest country on the planet. We need to go there. It's quite simple. So this is what has to be dealt with a better understanding on the part of people in the US to these issues and understand that you have more in common with understand. Understand that basically if we're able to put a break on these imperialist policies, these exploitative policies in Latin America, in South America and in the us, then we have the material basis for all of us to live a little better. So that's really where we need to be going. That's the level of understanding we have to arrive at.

Wilmer Leon (59:47):

And you talked about, I'll use these words, the misinformation and the disinformation in western media. I want to hit on one more thing, but before you go, if you can just give me two or three more minutes, and that's Haiti, and that could be three hours on its own, but this is from the Washington Post this week, rebel leader who ousted risid set sights on Haiti's current leader. The crisis here keep compounding armed. Gangs have forced more than 300,000 from their homes. The police are outgunned and overmatched. Half the people don't have enough to eat. This Caribbean nation of 11 million has no dramatic democratically elected officials. The National Assembly is empty, the presidency is vacant. That's left Arial Ri, the unelected and deeply reviled prime minister in charge appointed by president jovial Moise days before. Moise is still unsolved assassination in 2021 on re was due to leave office on Wednesday, but is so far successfully stymied a political transition. They're talking about GI Philippe coming back into Haiti. And this is written as though the United States has had absolutely no involvement in the decimation of Haiti. And so people read this from the Washington Post and they go, oh, these poor, ignorant, silly Haitians, they just can't seem to do anything for themselves. We must intervene and save them from theirselves. Doesn't talk about GI Philippe. And he was an American operative and how much time he spent in American prisons and how, by the way, does he get back into Haiti after none of that ajamu Baraka?

Ajamu Baraka (01:01:37):

You're absolutely right. And the situation in Haiti has become almost untenable. And that's how they wanted, he was reinserted into Haiti to intensify the chaos, to make the situation even more ripe for outside intervention. They don't trust him. He doesn't trust them. But there is a convergence of interest, short-term interest that is

Wilmer Leon (01:02:05):

Financial interest,

Ajamu Baraka (01:02:07):

Financial interest, political interest, right? Is it terrible situation in that country and one that we have to continue to monitor because the result of this situation is the possibility of more violence inside the country as the consequence of those issues.

Wilmer Leon (01:02:23):

And this is another example of the United States through what it created called the Global Fragilities Act. It is creating the fragility and then claiming we now have to use the US military to go in and resolve the chaos that we created in the first place.

Ajamu Baraka (01:02:41):

Exactly. That is the objective. That could be the end result if we don't stop it.

Wilmer Leon (01:02:50):

Brother Ajamu Baraka, I want to thank you so much for joining me today.

Ajamu Baraka (01:02:54):

My pleasure. Thank you so much Dr. Leon.

Wilmer Leon (01:02:57):

I want to thank you all for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Please stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow me on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. I'm going to see you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. And remember that 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. Peace and blessings. I'm out