ACTIVISTS & HEROES

GLEN FORD—Chicago has the most developed movement in the nation for community control of the police. Spearheaded by the recently re-founded National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, led by Frank Chapman, the Alliance turned a 60,000-strong list of anti-police protesters into a force that has changed the political complexion of the city council, 19 of whose 50 members are now co-sponsors of the Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). But Chicago’s newly elected Black mayor, Lori Lightfoot, opposes community control and defunding the police, ostensibly because defunding would lead to disproportionate lay-offs  of minority officers.

AJAMU BARAKA—After the first trial ended in a mistrial because the jurors refused to convict the protectors, the government offered to drop the federal charge and not seek any jail time for the defenders. In return, they wanted the defenders to plead guilty to a local DC charge of incommoding. After discussing this offer with members of this committee, other members of the Embassy Protection Collective and other allies, they decided to accept this plea agreement. 

Jimmy Dore and Chris hedges discuss the events following the police murder of George Floyd, and where these mostly leaderless, spontaneist protests might be taking the country. 

PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—An interview with extraordinary investigative journalist Whitney Webb, formerly lead correspondent with Mint Press News, and now with Last American Vagabond, whose dispatches are now found in most leading alternative media.

ANGEL GUERRA CABRERA—The history of terrorism against Cuba and, in particular, against its diplomatic headquarters, is a long one. But there is reason to believe that the fascist mafia in Miami and the cronies in the (dis)government of Donald Trump intend to encourage a return to such practices. The United States continues to be complicit in the machine-gunning of the Cuban embassy in Washington on April 30. And yet not a word about such a serious event from the State Department seems to hide something unutterable. If this attack is not investigated and cleared up in accordance with the laws of the United States and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, it will set a terrible precedent.