First Anniversary of Capitol Riot Marked By Inaction

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Nick Stender, a member of the Chicago Teachers Union and an activist with Reds in Ed to discuss the lockout of Chicago public school teachers from virtual teaching as Chicago Public School officials attempt to mandate in-person instruction as the omicron variant runs rampant, the bad faith that CPS and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s bad faith in dealing with the safety of teachers and students, the farce of a testing regimen that CPS is using to justify locking teachers out, and efforts to pit students, families, and teachers against each other.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Alec Karakatsanis, Founder and Executive Director of Civil Rights Corps to discuss the pro-police media coverage of the killing of a 14-year-old Valentina Orellana Peralta and 24-year-old Daniel Elena Lopez by the LAPD, the whitewashing of the officer who shot Peralta and Lopez, the history of the LAPD’s police propaganda campaigns and the use of such campaigns by police departments and other occupation forces, and the insidious focus of the news media on shoplifting and demands for police repression as wage theft and tax evasion by corporations are much larger shares of property crime.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Jenipher Jones, Co-Chair of the National Lawyers Guild Mass Incarceration Committee and lead counsel for the JLS International Law Project to discuss a submission by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues on the expansion and abuses of the mass incarceration system, slavery in the US prison system and the intentional nature of mass incarceration, the role the UN might play in the dismantling of the mass incarceration system,and the role of a movement for liberation in delegitimizing the incarceration system.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Gabriel Rockhill, an organizer, Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University to discuss the first anniversary of the Capitol riot and the political theater being played by the January 6th commission, the shady dealings and remaining questions about law enforcement informants and ignorance involved in the events, the history of astroturfing fascist movements demonstrated in the 1934 Business Plot, a coup plot hatched by capitalist interests, the historical bankrolling of fascist movements and the contemporary involvement of capitalists in advancing right-wing movements today, and the persistent threat of fascism that has been met with inaction one year after the events.