Ajamu Baraka is a former U.S. Green Party vice-presidential candidate, a longstanding political activist, and a spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace. He joins Lee Camp this week for an interview with "Behind the Headlines."China's rise, U.S. meddling worldwide, international resistance to Western domination, and much more are covered in the hour.
"It would be unbelievable just a few years ago to see that the Chinese are able to broker an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, that countries in Latin America would actually openly criticize U.S. policies," Baraka said, discussing signs that global power is shifting away from U.S. hegemony.
In 2002, Baraka co-founded the Black Alliance for Peace, a coalition of organizations working to end U.S. militarism and imperialism. He was also a founding member of the U.S. Human Rights Network. He publishes with, and edits for, Black Agenda Report and recently wrote an Iraq war retrospective where he argues that the U.S. is the greatest threat to world peace. As he explained:
The U.S.-based transnational ruling class is fully invested in the doctrine of U.S. 'Full Spectrum Dominance,' and as a consequence, the U.S. state has become an existential threat to collective humanity on our planet."
The broad conversation between Baraka and Camp details the many ways that this threat from the U.S. manifests itself on the global stage. They address the corporate media demonizing enemies of the empire, the U.S. military's global command structure, its neocolonial behavior, and the white supremacy inherent to U.S. hegemony.
Baraka explains how the U.S.-backed lawfare operation that got Brazilian President Lula da Silva thrown in jail happened, criticizes Lula's participation in the 2004 coup removing Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power, and considers the current situation with both Brazil and Mexico demanding sovereignty from U.S. domination.
They also cover the failures of the Black Lives Matter movement, Vice-President Kamala Harris's recent trip to Africa in the context of U.S. military activity through its African Command formation, and Baraka's memories from his time in Palestine. As he told Camp:
I've been to Palestine and I'll never go back.... It was the most horrific experience of my life. And I've been in war zones and everything else. But the daily degradation of the Palestinians is outrageous. I said when I went in 2014, if there was a documentary that got mass showing in the U.S. of the reality of a life in Palestine, I have enough confidence in the decency of the people of the U.S. that they would be outraged."
Don't miss out on Baraka's insights during this time of instability, growing inequality, and shifting geopolitical power. He has taught political science at various universities and has been a guest lecturer at academic institutions in the U.S. and abroad. He brings his academic and organizing background to his analysis of the world today in this fascinating interview.
Lee Camp is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and activist. Camp is the host of Behind The Headlines' new series: The Most Censored News With Lee Camp. He is a former comedy writer for the Onion and the Huffington Post and has been a touring stand-up comic for 20 years.