Amazingly, in his four decades confinement, he refused to let anger, despair and resentment destroy him alive and used his time to gain an education, learning civil and criminal law. He kept fighting against his conviction, which was overturned then reinstated several times. Eventually the cause of the Angola 3 was taken up by human rights activists, legal teams and celebrities and real progress was made. Even the widow of the murdered prison guard became an ardent supporter of the Angola 3’s freedom.

Richard Nixon’s directive to Helm’s 50 years ago set in motion a series one of the more infamous acts in the annals of U.S. foreign policy. To instigate a coup CIA soon focused on providing guns, funds, and even life insurance policies for Chilean military operatives to remove the commander-in-chief of the Chilean armed forces, General Rene Schneider, who opposed a golpe. On October 22, 1970, Schneider was intercepted and shot on his way to work; he died the next day. His CIA-supported murder became one of the most legendary cases of U.S. involvement in the assassination of foreign leaders.

CALEB MAUPIN—In this chat Caleb covers as usual a wide range of topics, including: A major and powerful analysis of the political origins of 9/11 (the attack on the Towers).  Caleb explores the rise of Wahabism, a fanatical branch of Islam supported by Saudi Arabia and the US, and used criminally and cynically by the latter to fight genuine anti-imperialist forces and nations. Caleb reminds us that the 9/11 attacks were NOT carried out by anti-imperialist forces or nations, and that such nations —Cuba, Iran, Syria, Russia, China, etc., well acquainted with the consequences of Wahabism—were in fact clearly opposed to such an act of indiscriminate terror against the American people.  The conceptual failure of the left to point out that the attack on the twin towers was not the work of anti-imperialists, but of a Washington proxy and ally, was a huge tactical failure for the American left, including its most famous voices.

“Climate change is the ultimate cause, even if the proximate cause is something different,” claims McCann. “These type of things are only going to become more common, more frequent and the issue of warming waterholes is going to become worse and worse in time.” Because of climate change, Southern Africa’s temperatures are rising at twice the global average, according to CSAG, one of the leading climate research groups in Africa.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—And now the complex cold war escalations he kept urgently warning us about have become even more complex with the addition of nuclear-armed China to the multiple fronts the US-centralized empire has been plate-spinning its brinkmanship upon, and it is clear from the ramping up of anti-China propaganda since last year that we are being prepped for those aggressions to continue to increase. We should heed the dire warnings that Cohen spent his last breaths issuing. We should demand a walk-back of these insane imperialist aggressions which benefit nobody and call for détente with Russia and China. We should begin creating an opposition to this world-threatening flirtation with armageddon before it is too late. Every life on this planet may well depend on our doing so. Stephen Cohen is dead, and we are marching toward the death of everything. God help us all.

ERIC ZUESSE–The states which will be boldfaced in this report are states that voted for Trump (shown as the red states on this map). Non-boldfaced states voted for the Democratic Party’s nominee. In order, starting with the state that has America’s highest percentage of its population who have been diagnosed with the coronavirus-19 (or “covid-19”) virus, the worst 11 states, in that rank-order, are: Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Iowa, Arkansas, and Texas. 

MoA—That is of course bollocks. The Ukrainian plot was real. We know that because officials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, which is supported by the U.S. State Department, have officially admitted it and because the Ukrainian media have been all over the story.

TOM CARTER—It is not a question of “speaking ill of the dead” but of maintaining a standpoint of independence and objectivity, and of not getting swept away by the deluge of official propaganda. These campaigns of official mourning are a ritualized spectacle of American political life. The deceased is inevitably held up as an “icon,” a “towering figure” and a “legend.” Every bourgeois politician and media personality is expected to line up to render the proper obeisance, with each individual politician “paying respects” becoming a news item in itself. The accomplishments of the decedent, sometimes real and sometimes invented, are spun out of all proportion to reality. The propaganda campaign functions as a sort of loyalty test, with anyone who is not willing to recite the official slogans flagged as a possible traitor.