Wuhan Lab Leak Theory; US Funding of Terrorist Groups

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman discuss the anniversary and legacy of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality, how the interaction between movement and culture exhibits the pervasiveness of the movement for Black lives despite attempts to suppress it, and the importance of organizing to critically attack systems that create social problems we are faced with.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Will Merrifield, a housing attorney in Washington, DC to discuss the lack of dispersal of rental assistance to help tenants avoid evictions, how this crisis is just the latest example of government prioritizing the profits of wealthy developers over the needs of working and poor people, and how global capital stops housing policy from being about housing people.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Joshua Cho, freelance writer and media critic to discuss corporate media’s employment of the debunked Wuhan lab leak theory to demonize China, the sinophobic and orientalist tropes that have emerged since before the COVID-19 pandemic fit into the rise in anti-Asian violence, and how this narrative obfuscates the deliberately negligent response to COVID-19 in the US.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and author of the book “The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean” and Blows Against the Empire: U.S. Imperialism in Crisis,” to discuss US funding and supporting of terrorist groups and the results of that support in Afghanistan, the potential fallout of Afghanistan's instability for its neighbors and in Africa, and Kamala Harris’ visit to Vietnam.