 It's my pleasure to now introduce Eric Mann. He's the host of Voices from the Frontlines, heard on KPFK FM 917 radio in Los Angeles here. He's a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality and Students for a Democratic Society. And he's director of the Labor Community Strategy and co-chair of the Bus Riders Union. He's the author of Playbook for Progressives, the 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. I just wanna thank Aaron for having Rachel and myself on his show this Tuesday on KPFK. Eric, you there? I hope so. Hi everybody. This is deeply moving experience. You can't hear me, right? Okay. Deeply moving experience. You know, I was like most of you, I think, very active in some way in the United Front to defeat Donald Trump and to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It was a tremendous victory in what we would call United Front against fascism. But it was not a United Front against imperialism. And now we're faced rapidly with the Biden administration moving even in a more hawk-like fashion than the Trump administration. In fact, he ran on saying that Trump was soft on dictators from Venezuela to Russia to China, so we're now in a very difficult situation which I think the Biden administration is trying essentially to integrate a multiracial imperialism to shore up some of the weaknesses of the present empire, but also carrying out the most extreme anti-Asian violence as we speak with just recently, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin and Biden have threatened China in the most fundamental way. Imagine that the department of so-called defense is involved in creating a new US power in the Pacific. Now, I come out of the tradition where the black movement and the anti-imperialist movement were both integral and that the black movement drove the anti-imperialist movement and vice versa. So the first thing was important to understand is we believe that black people were a nation inside the United States, that Chicanos were a nation, indigenous people were an oppressed nation. We did not believe the United States was capitalist but we believed it was imperialist. And therefore, when I joined the Congress of Racial Equality and SNCC, MFDP, there was all talk about black nationalism, black liberation and therefore Vietnamese liberation and black liberation would be integral. The white movement was very important. Dr. Spock, the great Daniel Ellsberg, but there's no question the black movement was the cutting edge and must be again of any successful anti-war anti-imperialist movement. So it was SNCC that said, hell no, we won't go to Vietnam. It was Dr. King who said, the US is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. It was Malcolm who said, we will not fight in Vietnam. It was Muhammad Ali who said, the Viet Cong never called me the n-word. It was German Carlos and Tommy Smith who raised their hands at an Olympic and basically said, we don't represent the United States. We represent the third world in a black nation. That's, and it was Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers, if you read the book Blacks Against Empire. But that's a great story but we have to see the other side of it. Dr. King was assassinated. Malcolm was assassinated. Fred Hampton was assassinated. SNCC was repressed. Every one of us was repressed. Paul Robeson was repressed. The Rosenbergs were murdered. So when the Rosenberg simply said, we don't wanna give nuclear weapons to the United States but not also to the Soviet Union, they were murdered for being peace organizers. So the reason I say that is because the teach-in cannot simply be an exposure to the Cold War but has to be a challenge to each of us to answer the question, what are we willing to do about it? Which is what my life has always been about. So interestingly, in the real world, in the present, brother, friend, Jenny Martinez from the Labor Community Strategy Center but running independently, he ran for the city council in the 10th district in Los Angeles, not even a majority black district anymore because of the genocide that the United States is carrying out against black people, including the liberal Democrats of Los Angeles such as unfortunately Mayor Garcetti. But he ran on no police in the schools, no police on the MTA buses and trains. 50% of all new jobs must go to black applicants, open borders for all immigrants, free public transportation, no stop attack on black passengers which in itself was phenomenally radical but then he said, US hands off Venezuela, Russia, China, Iran, Iraq. And here's something important. The United States is not simply a ruling class. It's an imperialist country in which the majority of white people in my opinion are directly involved in national oppression. They're not simply confused by about their active participants and the effort of the United States through its armies, through its prisons is trying to organize everyone to be a pro-imperialist block. Now Channing got 5% of the vote. If you know anything about real elections that's phenomenal for a first candidate and he got 10% of the black vote. And what we say and what I teach is set the edge, split the room and then move the room to you. And what we saw is when you're at a candidate's night talking about these issues intelligently and thoughtfully, people who are pro-imperialist start to move because the logic of the argument, the morality of the argument. So one reason they wanted to keep the communists out of the trade unions, keep the communists out of the schools is because even in the midst of all this institutional power they can't win the damn argument. They have to keep us out because if you're good organizers and you know how to work with people not pontificate but communicate and listen, these are very compelling arguments starting of course with black people who have been enslaved and indigenous people and Mexican people. So it's critical that the anti-imperialist movement be an integral part of the social reality of this country and not somewhat on the outside. Now, Michael Murphul did a great job about books deeply moved by the book, The Jakarta Method which is terrifying about what the United States did in Indonesia after the Bandung Conference by the way in Indonesia. Then there's my book, Comrade George, An Investigation into the Life, Political Thought and Assassination of George Jackson. Another one of my books and it's interesting called Katrina's Legacy, The Black Nation and the People of the World Confront. The U.S. imperialist white settler state and its genocidal climate crimes. I think we have to go beyond talking about white supremacy to talk about a white settler state as integral to the country that we're trying to change. And then there's my book, Playbook for Progressives, The 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer because if you're not an organizer as Marcy Winnegrave is, you can't succeed. And I wanna end with a very encouraging story which is difficult. In September of 1969, I organized a demonstration against the Harvard Center for International Affairs. I had already been part of SDS at Columbia, where we took on the Institute for Defense Analysis. This was not a friendly demonstration, this was Henry Kissinger's Center for Death. We went in, we broke windows, we turned over our desks, we sprayed death to U.S. imperialism, the black nation will rise. Ho-ho-ho-chim in the honor of a go and win. And my good friend Howard Zinn said that was a very good nonviolent demonstration because no one was attacked except for us. However, I was sentenced to two years in prison for that demonstration and I served 18 months. Now when I got into prison, four prisoners came up to me. The first day I got there and I said, Eric, we decided to become communists. I said, well, that's terrific, I didn't even get here yet. What led you to that conclusion? He said, well, you know, Charlie Kraft speaking for Jimmy Drummy and the other said, you know, I was in the cell and Joe, the screw, the guard, said to me, hey, Charlie, we hate communists, right? And I said, yeah, we hate communists. He says, good, because there's a guy coming, we gotta hate. His name is Eric Mann and you're not gonna like him at all. First of all, he's for the blacks and Charlie said, oh, is he black? No, I think he's one of those jubies. You know, he's one of them. But he hates white people. Charlie said, wait, he likes black people but he hates white people and he's a communist, right? He says, yeah. So we don't like him, right, Charlie? Charlie said, wait a minute. The person who's locking me up is telling me that I gotta unite with him because we're both anti-communist but if he's locking me up and he's anti-communist then it must be logical that I must become a communist. And I'm gonna tell all the other prisoners that apparently this guy coming in must be a real threat to them because the guards are trying to organize us. So then by saying this, if you're black, if you're Latino, Latinx, if you're Asian Pacific Islander, if you're indigenous and yes, if you're white of conscience and if the people who lock you up are pro-imperialist and anti-communist, wouldn't it be logical that you would become anti-imperialist and pro-communist? Because that's what I think you need to understand is this country is locking us up and at the same time encouraging us to lock up the people all over the world. I believe we have a real chance to win. If you like this point of view, check me out at infoatthestrategycenter.org. It's an honor to be part of this conversation. Thank you so much, Eric. Wonderful testimony. It's going in the record.