Caleb Maupin, convener of the Center for Political Innovation welcomes members and guests with a statement envisioning the rebuilding of America with popular power while breaking free from the current globalist system based on exploitation, underdevelopment and repression and war. He notes the recent FBI attack on the African Peoples Socialist Party (APSC) and the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, demanding that the FBI raids on black people organizing to improve the conditions in their communities must stop. Kalambay Andenet from APSC speaks about experiencing the raid in St. Louis and their determination to fight back.
Panel speakers: Tara Reed, Garland Nixon, Dust James, CJ - CPI Chicago
Tara Read was a former aid to then Senator Joe Biden. She went public during the 2020 presidential campaign that she had filed a formal sexual harassment/assault complaint against Senator Biden when she worked in his office. She recounts the attack on her character and how corporate media tried to ruin her life for speaking out. She links the corrupt media-corporate government nexus to the lies being reported as news from Ukraine.
Garland Nixon refers to himself a "radio guy". But unlike most he has a knowledge of class struggle, the benefit of unions in that struggle, and the role imperialism plays in supporting a "standard of living" in the U.S. long taken for granted, and why the ruling class, having pissed off workers in other countries with death squads and non stop abuse, has now turned inward to strip mine the U.S. economy of both public and private wealth in search of "profit". He tells the story of how he met Paul Robeson, Jr who became his mentor and offered a window on the racial and political fight of his father against the fascist at the core of U.S. industry and business culture that were out to destroy any resistance to their form of savage capitalism: neoliberalism. He recounts a visit to Venezuela where the government builds houses for those who need them in contrast with U.S. where disposable workers die on the street and a college graduate can graduate with a house payment but no house. He broadcast on Pacifica KPFA and also RT.
Dust James a working class truck driver, organizer speaks about NAFTA, how it displaced people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. He speaks about how he became a committed Marxist Leninist and what he has witnessed traveling the lower 48 that is both burning and smoldering.
CJ speaks of the Chicago chapter of the Center for Political Innovation and the projects it is undertaking in these transitioning times.
Center For Political Innovation - https://cpiusa.org/
A large picture of John Brown and one of Fred Hampton framed the speaker's podium at the center of the stage. Both murdered by the State for their fight against racist repression and their work to unite people against the injustice at the core of capitalist America.