Freedom Dreams, Imperialist Nightmares: Class Struggle in The Time of Capitalist Decline

Earth Day connecting US militarism to climate change, the 2014 attack on Odessa, Ukraine and what it means for the current war

In this edition of By Any Means Necessary hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Tunde Osazua, the Coordinator of the U.S. Out of Africa Network, a project of the Black Alliance for Peace, to discuss the connection between US militarism and climate change, how climate change impacts the Global South and the need for the climate movement to take on an anti-imperialist politic.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Phil Wilayto, Editor of the Virginia Defender newspaper and co-founder of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality to discuss the upcoming anniversary of when a right-wing mob led by neo-Nazis attacked progressives at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, Ukraine and how it’s part of the context of the current crisis in Ukraine, and how you can get involved at www.odessasolidaritycampaign.org.

In a very special segment later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley, activist, historian, Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, and the author of several books including Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination and Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression. We discuss how the Black Radical Tradition can respond to the current political moment with worsening materials conditions inside the US as imperialist war rages abroad, the politics of illusion and symbology as an opiate to principled struggle and how movements must grapple about the character of a system, society and state society beyond capitalism once that system has been decisively defeated.

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