Zoom announced that it will deny its services to San Francisco State University today to block an online panel featuring Leila Khaled from happening with its software. Pro-Israel groups, including one partially funded by the Israeli government, are taking credit for the cancellation.

By Michael ArriaSeptember 23, 2020

Zoom has announced that it will deny its services to San Francisco State University (SFSU) today and block an online panel featuring Leila Khaled from happening with its software. As a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khaled was connected to two plane hijackings that took place in 1969 and 1970.

The event (which was titled “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice & Resistance”) was to be sponsored by SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program and the Women and Gender Studies Department.

A statement from the company to the group reads, “Zoom is committed to supporting the open exchange of ideas and conversations, subject to certain limitations contained in our Terms of Service, including those related to user compliance with applicable U.S. export control, sanctions, and anti-terrorism laws. In light of the speaker’s reported affiliation or membership in a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization, and SFSU’s inability to confirm otherwise, we determined the meeting is in violation of Zoom’s Terms of Service and told SFSU they may not use Zoom for this particular event.”

The event was protested by a number of right-wing, pro-Israel groups including The Lawfare Project. The Act.IL app, which targets the BDS movement and is partially funded by the Israeli government, has taken credit for helping to cancel the Zoom event.

Michael Bueckert, a PhD student in sociology and political economy at Carleton University who tracks the app online, points out that its users have sent emails to the California State University Board of Trustees and informing them that they “may be violating US law by supporting a terrorist.”

Saree Makdisi, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, tweeted, “This is what happens when we subcontract our universities to Zoom: they decide which events are acceptable and which aren’t. It’s outrageous.”

“This is a dangerous attack on free speech and academic freedom from Big Tech: Zoom cannot claim veto power over the content of our nation’s classrooms and public events,” said Palestine Legal director Dima Khalidi in a statement “The threat to democracy is elevated by the fact that Zoom’s decision to stamp out discussion of Palestinian freedom comes in response to a systematic repression campaign driven by the Israeli government and its allies.” 

Organizers and individuals connected to the event have been responding to criticisms since the event was announced. After SFSU President Lynn Mahoney wrote an article declaring that she welcomed diversity but condemned hate, former political prisoner (and scheduled panelist) Laura Whitehorn wrote Mahoney a letter about the webinar.

“Leila Khaled is a leader in the movement for the rights of the Palestinian people,” the letter reads. “She has fought in many ways for the right of return to historic Palestine, and she will offer important lessons and information about the history of women’s involvement in working for the rights of the Palestinian people under occupation and in exile. I found your acceptance of a narrative that brands her a terrorist or a hater to be deeply offensive and in conflict with what I believe an educator should say, teach, and promote.”

People who signed up for the event received an email from organizers, saying that they expect the school to “uphold our freedom of speech and academic freedom by providing an alternative venue to this open classroom.”

Update: Since this post was published, Facebook removed the event page from its site and YouTube shut down the stream just minutes into the talk.

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression came together in response to the FBI raids on seven homes and an anti-war office on Friday, September 24, 2010. The FBI also handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to 14 activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan. These activists were involved in many groups, including the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society, several labor Unions and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

The activists were subpoenaed to a Chicago-based grand jury investigating ‘material support for terrorism.’ All of them refused to appear in front of the grand jury and there was an outpouring of support.

The U.S. government uses ‘material support for terrorism’ charges to choke off free speech, curb freedom of association, and to lock people up. It was an attack on every open and public campaign in solidarity with liberation movements in Palestine, Colombia and the Philippines.

Let us not forget the 500 or so American Muslims framed by the FBI and other agencies using ‘material support’ laws as part of the bogus U.S. War on Terror. The FBI and prosecutors continue to use paid informants to frame up people. In many cases, they pretend to be your friend. They tried to do this to the Antiwar 23. It is especially treacherous and ugly.

Sheriffs raided the home of Chicano leader Carlos Montes in Los Angeles. Montes faced trumped-up charges, but we defeated the case against him by speaking out and organizing. Then the U.S. government arrested an icon of the Palestinian liberation movement, Rasmea Odeh. An organizer of Arab women in Chicago, Odeh was forced to depart the U.S. after an almost four-year struggle that put Israeli crimes on trial and lifted up the cause for Palestinian liberation.

We recite this history not only to talk about the past or to express gratitude and solidarity with the organizations and individuals stood together to protest the United States government’s attempt to silence and criminalize activists. We raise these things because people can use them to learn lessons that are very much relevant to today.

These raids and grand jury subpoenas were serious attacks on anti-war and other progressive movements. Legal or otherwise, any attack on our freedom to speak or to assemble with like-minded people in opposition to government actions and policies is a political attack on the people’s movements.

We are still here because we resisted government attacks and organized others to support that resistance. We fought every case and resisted every grand jury subpoena and today we are still out on the streets. We are opposing U.S. wars, standing with freedom fighters around the world and demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and all targets of police crimes. The attacks on today’s movement have already begun. We have the experience to defend our movements, and that is just what we will to do.

Join our online event this Saturday! The Fight for Our Movement: 10 Years After the Raids.

Learn more about past and current struggles on the CSFR website, https://stopfbi.org/

https://bit.ly/367K0Wn

Republished in honor of Dr. Nkrumah’s birthday

By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Published Oct 4, 2009 11:30 PM

According to the history books, 100 years ago on Sept. 21, 1909, Kwame Nkrumah, the founder and leader of the African independence movement and the foremost advocate of Pan-Africanism during his time, was born in the western Nzima region of the Gold Coast, later known as the independent state of Ghana.

Nkrumah was the first head of state of an independent post-colonial nation in Africa south of the Sahara, after he led Ghana to national liberation under the direction of the Convention Peoples Party in 1957. Educated at the historically Black college of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Nkrumah became involved in the Pan-African movement in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s as a leading member of the African Students Association, the Council on African Affairs, as well as other organizations.

After leaving the United States at the conclusion of World War II in 1945, he played a leading role in convening the historic Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England—a gathering that many credit with laying the foundation for the mass struggles for independence during the 1940s and 1950s.

During his stay in England from 1945 to 1947, he collaborated with George Padmore of Trinidad, a veteran activist in the international communist movement and a journalist who wrote extensively on African affairs. Nkrumah was offered a position with the United Gold Coast Convention as an organizer in late 1947 and made the critical decision to return to the Gold Coast to assist in the anti-colonial struggle that was intensifying in the aftermath of World War II.

After being imprisoned with other leaders of the UGCC for supposedly inciting unrest among veterans, workers and farmers in the colony, he gained widespread popularity among the people, who responded enthusiastically to his militant and fiery approach to the burgeoning anti-imperialist movement. After forming the Committee on Youth Organization, which became the best organized segment of the UGCC, Nkrumah was later isolated from the top leadership of the Convention, who objected to his demands for immediate political independence for the Gold Coast.

On June 12, 1949, Nkrumah and the CYO formed the Convention Peoples Party in Accra, Ghana, at a mass gathering of tens of thousands of people. They were prepared to launch a mass struggle for the abolition of British colonial rule over the Gold Coast. During this same period, Nkrumah formed links with other anti-colonial and Pan-African organizations that were operating in other colonies of West Africa. When the CPP called for a Positive Action Campaign in early 1950, leading to massive strikes and rebellion throughout the colony, Nkrumah was imprisoned by the colonial authorities for sedition.

The executive members of the CPP continued to press for the total independence of the colony, eventually creating conditions for a popular election in 1951 that the CPP won overwhelmingly. In February 1951, Nkrumah was released from prison in Ghana and appointed Leader of Government Business in a transitional arrangement that eventually led to the independence of Ghana on March 6, 1957.

Vision of Pan-Africanism, socialism

At the independence gathering on March 6, Nkrumah—now prime minister—declared that Ghana’s independence was meaningless unless it was directly linked with the total liberation of the continent. This statement served as the cornerstone of Ghanaian foreign policy during Nkrumah’s tenure as leader of the country.

George Padmore became the official advisor on African affairs, and was placed in charge of the Bureau of African Affairs, whose task was to assist other national liberation movements on the continent in their efforts to win political independence. In April 1958, the First Conference of Independent African States was convened, with eight nation-states as participants. This gathering broke down the colonially imposed divisions between Africa north and south of the Sahara.

In December later that same year, the first All-African Peoples Conference was held in Accra, bringing together 62 national liberation movements from all over the continent, as well as representation from Africans in the United States. It was at this conference in December 1958 that Patrice Lumumba of Congo became an internationally recognized leader of the anti-colonial struggle in that Belgian colony.

By 1960 the independence movement had gained tremendous influence throughout Africa, resulting in the emergence of many new nation-states on the continent. That same year, Ghana became a republic and adopted its own constitution, making Nkrumah the president of the government…

By 1960 the independence movement had gained tremendous influence throughout Africa, resulting in the emergence of many new nation-states on the continent. That same year, Ghana became a republic and adopted its own constitution, making Nkrumah the president of the government….

https://blackagendareport.com/biden-and-democrats-have-no-plan-stop-bleeding-home-or-abroad

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor 23 Sep 2020

The Democrats say they’re running against the most “dangerous president in modern American history,” but Joe Biden has no prescription for resolving any of the crises facing Black and working class people.

“Trump is the symptom of the U.S.’ racist and imperialist system and Biden is no threat to the dictators of capital.”

The 2020 election has no bearing on the crisis of U.S. capitalism. None. Neither Trump nor Biden have any plan to stop the bleeding that this crisis has produced. The corporate media has made the 2020 election into a referendum on Trump’s disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the real story behind the 2020 election is that of the precipitous and permanent decline in the legitimacy of US politics as a whole. 

Politics in the United States are almost entirely discussed from the vantage point of personalities and choices. For Republicans, Trump is the preferred personality because of his willingness to serve the rich with an intense amount of racist scapegoating and open contention with the so-called “left”-leaning values of the Democratic Party. Democrats have embraced Joe Biden because of his willingness to serve the rich with an emphasis on scapegoating Donald Trump for the countless ills of U.S. capitalism. Neither conclusion is correct. Trump is the symptom of the U.S.’ racist and imperialist system and Biden is no threat to the dictators of capital. In fact, Biden and the Democrats are so wedded to the capitalist class that the 2020 election has quickly morphed into little more than a contest between which kind of political poison the masses can tolerate best.

“The real story behind the 2020 election is that of the precipitous and permanent decline in the legitimacy of US politics as a whole…”

SEIU Local 73 Day 10 recap: Teamsters 705, Council 25, Teamsters 325, IBEW 364 & individual trade union members honored our picket lines today. We cannot express how much this act of solidarity means to us as we continue to fight for UIC to respect us, protect us, & pay us. #StrikeForOurLives

http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2020-09-17/big-data-and-the-science-of-manipulating-the-masses

At the beginning of the 20th century, Edward L. Bernays, publicist, journalist, and inventor of the theory of public relations, considered the father of modern propaganda and the engineering of consensus in the United States, stated in one of his texts, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.

Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | informacion@granmai.cu

september 17, 2020 10:09:56

At the beginning of the 20th century, Edward L. Bernays, publicist, journalist, and inventor of the theory of public relations, considered the father of modern propaganda and the engineering of consensus in the United States, stated in one of his texts, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

Born in Austria and the nephew of Sigmund Freud, he applied many of his uncle’s theories and discoveries to “the science of manipulating the masses.” Now an art form for members of the “invisible government,” this science is one of the most important tools used to construct the image and symbols of U.S. capitalism.

With the advance of communications technology, the information society and internet, this knowledge has become so sophisticated that its impact is difficult to estimate.

Analysts can construct models capable of predicting a variety of attributes of unknown persons, among these, political preferences, sexual orientation, how much you trust people with whom you interact, how solid these relations are, all thanks to the information that users themselves post on the web.

Our e-mails, tweets, online presentations, Facebook likes… supply the volume of data that is generated online every day. There are more cell phones on the planet than humans. And as the use of these devices continues to grow, the amount of information available will grow exponentially.

Data on human behavior is recorded, stored and processed. Applications we use leave footprints, thousands of footprints used by Big Data corporations.

Big Data offers socio-demographic information that can be used in an electoral or political campaign and in subversive efforts directed toward an adversary. This allows forces to be mobilized to get out the vote, and above all, win over the undecided.

During Mauricio Macri’s campaign for the presidency of Argentina, his team cross-checked socio-economic data on a large scale, and with this information implemented a strategy based on micro-segmentation of voters, sending messages that reflected very specifically the concerns of every neighborhood, every family and every person.

Barack Obama, Francois Hollande, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro… all used Big Data. The coup plotters in Bolivia and the strategists of subversion against Venezuela and Cuba use Big Data in their destabilization campaigns.

We know about the scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, the company that designed the Brexit ‘Leave’ campaign, Donald Trump’s electoral campaign and those of several European government leaders.

Cambridge Analytica was denounced for the theft of data from Facebook users, but it is not the only company that employs these practices. There are corporations that gather information on more than 500 million citizens around the world and sell it as aggregated data.

In accordance with directives outlined by Donald Trump in his Presidential Memorandum of June 16, 2017, the State Department’s Cuba Internet Task Force was established, also known as the internet subversive operations group, a program created by the U.S. government to undermine the internal order here.

Scholarships and trips for young journalists with deceptive purposes, detailed strategies for work on social media, and generous pay for cyber-mercenaries to constantly harass anyone who defends the Revolution online, have all been part of implementing this tactic, financed by Washington and third country proxies.

Every undercover action plan against Cuba, crafted by every U.S. administration in office for the last 60 years, has included well-paid media operations, that now have Big Data to help out.

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Freedom Inc

We Demand Answers! Why do the police continue to kill Black people with no fear of being held accountable? We know they are harming our communities and they have the nerve to absolve themselves from blame.

It’s not just Louivsille Police. Its MPD killing Tony Robinson, It’s Monona Police causing the death of 2 Black Youth in the space of a few months.

Call Madison Police Department and have them answer for every wrongful arrest, every brutal beating, every high-speed chase, every murder.

Call MPD on Friday from 12-3pm to stop business as usual and make them hear us! Join us on Zoom here: bit.ly/mpdanswers

Freedom Inc

Freedom Fighters,Our heart is breaking for Breonna Taylor and her family. Even though the verdict was expected, it is still devastating. We will continue to fight for justice for Breonna Taylor. No justice. No peace.

Love & Power,Freedom Inc

change.org/DefundPoliceMadisonWIhttps://www.facebook.com/events/1409882399217743/