Capitalism, Race and Democracy - Tuesday, June 9, 2026

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1. Explore and picnic in the gardens before the show.
2. Further information available at www.theatricum.com and at kpfk.org.
3. This week on Capitalism, Race and Democracy.
4. I say we're living in Orwell's 1984, but the truth of the matter is we're living in Hitler's 1939.
5. New Orleans independent journalist CeCe Campbell-Rock talks about the blatant attack on black representation in government
6. and what that means for the future of democracy.
7. They have been developing cloud and AI weapons that have been given to the Israeli military to power the occupation, apartheid and genocide.
8. We have seen these cloud and AI being used in enabling the deadly airstrikes happening in Gaza, but also the ethnic cleansing happening in the West Bank.
9. At the annual Microsoft Build Tech Conference in San Francisco,
10. activists speak out against the use of the Azure cloud computing platform and AI for genocide,
11. expansion of war abroad, and spying on people from Palestine to the U.S.
12. From Pacifica Radio, this is Capitalism, Race, and Democracy,
13. a collective effort by producers from Pacifica's stations and affiliates across the U.S.
14. I'm your host, Polina Vasiliev.
15. Last week, the Supreme Court boosted the openly white supremacist campaign
16. to suppress the black vote in the Deep South.
17. It ruled that districts gerrymandered to discriminate against black voters are constitutional.
18. CeCe Campbell-Rock, an independent black journalist from New Orleans,
19. spoke with Pacifica's Steve Zeltzer about what this means to her community.
20. The situation that's happening now, it's a neo-Confederacy 2.0
21. because they want to bring us back to, what, 1850?
22. I mean, if taken out, we had one, Phil Fields was our congressman.
23. He just won. He just won the election in the fall.
24. And he just took his seat.
25. And that seat has now been eradicated
26. because in a lawsuit called Louisiana versus Calais,
27. 11 non-Black people complained that that district was drawn.
28. They're calling them opportunity districts now,
29. but that district was drawn along racial lines.
30. And of course, of course, it's true that the Voting Rights Act
31. said you cannot do that, right?
32. So they were technically in the right.
33. However, the other problem is we have six members in our congressional delegation.
34. Now we had two blacks.
35. Now we have one, thanks to the Supreme Court, correct?
36. But look at this.
37. This state is 52% white, right?
38. Well, they say 57% these days.
39. I don't believe it because that changed over in one year, so I don't believe that.
40. But you can say between 52% and 57% white.
41. the black population is 33% black.
42. And then if you add in the other minorities,
43. all together with the black population,
44. that's 48% of the people.
45. So explain to me why we have six congressional members in Congress and five are more white Republicans Republicans The math is not mathing It the same thing in the state legislature For example
46. in the Senate, 57%, but they own
47. 83% of the seats. The House,
48. 68% of the seats. The math is not mathing.
49. So they're drawing districts the way to favor them. And the fact that
50. the Supreme Court has said partisan gerrymandering is okay,
51. you know what? That's going to backfire, and I'm going to tell you why.
52. It's very partisan what they've done. And both of our Senate
53. seats are held by white males as well.
54. But you can look at the composition and
55. tell that they're doing
56. partisan gerrymandering, but that's just the
57. varnish on top. What it really is, is racial gerrymandering on the part of white people
58. to help keep them in control. This idea of going back to the Confederacy, the good old days.
59. Yes. They think that actually that we need to return to the good old days. They want to bring
60. back the federal monuments or sanitizing the history of slavery. They're saying that if you
61. talk about slavery in the classroom, it's hurting the feelings of people. Yeah, I've heard that
62. controversy. That's really been funny to me because what hurts people is the fact that,
63. you know, all those years they've burned us out, they've killed us, they've hung us,
64. they lynched us. We couldn't vote. And now you want to take away the history altogether.
65. You want to sanitize, you want to whitewash the history books. That's not going to happen.
66. I mean, what was that, in Philadelphia, they took down a collage of different historical
67. things in the park and Trump had him to take that down. He hasn't put it back up yet.
68. And this effort of sanitizing history of the United States, the history of blacks,
69. the history of whites, the real history of the Civil War.
70. Exactly. Well, like I said, this is about the South rising again. The lost cause is really
71. not lost, y'all, because we're here to correct that. We're here to take our country back.
72. And if you notice, I was just looking at Donald Trump and I forget what he was announcing this time, that arch thing he probably wants to do.
73. And every person behind him said we're white males.
74. So this is not about make America great again.
75. This is about make America white again.
76. White controlled, everything controlled by white people.
77. And I don't get that because diversity is the strength of this nation.
78. You know, you're putting all of the Hispanic people out, the jobs that they took that they claimed nobody else wanted.
79. But even so, the jobs that they're losing or they're leaving is going to put pressure on us.
80. That's why, you know, food is going to be, look, you're going to pay a dollar for an orange now?
81. I'm just, it's insane.
82. I mean, the use of ICE to terrorize people, black, brown people.
83. They say that Trump has said that they were successfully used in New Orleans.
84. That ICE took care of the crime in New Orleans.
85. What happened with the introduction of ICE in New Orleans?
86. What was the reality of bringing ICE into New Orleans?
87. The reality of ICE coming to New Orleans was more, they were going to the Home Depots,
88. they were going to Lowe's, where they know that because of Katrina,
89. there's been still a lot of construction needed.
90. and these Hispanic people from wherever they're from,
91. Central America, Mexico, they have the skills
92. and they're standing out there waiting.
93. So they're going to these places and round up,
94. but guess what?
95. They did not come into our city which is a blue city They did not come in here killing people and acting a fool That that was not going to happen in this city This city is a blue city We like an island in Louisiana Louisiana is called the red state but we a blue city
96. And we don't tolerate that.
97. So you really didn't hear anything about, you know, about them doing anything except having two warehouses.
98. I found out they got two warehouses where they're detaining people, ISIS.
99. And then the other day, was it yesterday that I just hear that the Senate has turned down a bill from the Democrats that said that the ICE people had to have body cams?
100. No, they don't have to unmask.
101. What is this?
102. My husband said it's like the Third Reich.
103. I mean, we're living.
104. I say we're living in our wells, 1984.
105. But the truth of the matter is, we're living in Hitler's 1939.
106. We're like the Waffen-SS, that ICE thing.
107. And they're recruiting Nazis.
108. They're recruiting fascists.
109. The Congress just passed a bill for $70 billion for ICE, for these fascist thugs to be hired
110. and more camps to be set up, concentration camps all over the country where they don't
111. have proper care, medical care.
112. People are dying in these camps.
113. these concentration camps. So this, it seems like an escalation to say that not only are we going
114. to have $70 billion for more ICE camps and thugs, but we're actually going to resegregate the South
115. and get rid of any Black representation in the South. Well, that's the goal. That is the goal.
116. And then getting back to ICE, we rarely heard anything here about ICE. Those detention camps
117. that I'm talking about, concentration camps, if you will, they're not even near New Orleans.
118. They're somewhere way out in the middle of Louisiana.
119. You know, we don't even know what's going on there.
120. I have not heard of any negative things coming out of those camps.
121. So I don't know what's going on with those camps, but I know they didn't come in here with the foolishness like they did in Memphis and doing other things, you know.
122. But now—
123. The rise of fascism, I mean, and I agree with you.
124. I think we've got a fascist state.
125. Of course.
126. Doesn't care about the Constitution, doesn't care about the laws, doesn't care about civil rights, is sanitizing history to the good old days when we had segregation in this country, we had slavery in this country.
127. Exactly.
128. It seems, though, that the rest of the labor movement, the unions, there's no national campaign against racism, against segregation, against the attack on black representation in this country.
129. The issue of the fight in the labor movement, the fight for black rights is a fight for union rights.
130. It's a fight for human rights. It's not separate.
131. If they get rid of the rights of black people in this country, black workers, black workers have been the most powerful force for unionization in this country.
132. Exactly. Exactly.
133. And that's why they don't want black workers in many places, because black workers are more likely to support a union.
134. I know in San Francisco, they've kept blacks out of the hotels because black workers stand up for their rights.
135. They fight for unions and they're strong union supporters because they're conscious about discrimination.
136. They're conscious about racism more than others because of the experience they've been through.
137. So it seems that a national campaign, a national movement, a national protest against the attack on black representation is necessary if we're going to fight fascism.
138. I mean, if you can't defend the fight for equality, equal rights for all, what can you
139. defend?
140. You mentioned the word slavery and we not enslaved anymore but I said for decades that what is happening with lesser educated people if you will and the minimum wage that minimum wage
141. That's wage slavery.
142. Who can live off of $7.25
143. an hour? Tell me
144. that. And that happened under
145. Obama. Thanks to Obama, because
146. it was $5.25 before him,
147. right?
148. So that's wage slavery, and they already have us
149. there. And now you have
150. And Donald Trump is the biggest racist ever in this country.
151. Maybe not.
152. Maybe it was Johnson.
153. You know, maybe it was President Johnson after Reconstruction.
154. But this one is just out and out with it.
155. He's just right on point with it.
156. And I was reading some things about Hitler.
157. And what Trump is doing and Miller and all his people, they are following the Hitler playbook.
158. because the first thing Hitler said when he was going about building this racist state, if you will,
159. he was saying the press is the enemy of the people.
160. And how much has Donald Trump been saying fake news, fake news, fake news?
161. You're fake, you're bad, you're this.
162. Because he doesn't want people to hear the truth or believe the truth.
163. And so that's one part of it.
164. then he's gathering this private army ice whatever they are you know and i everybody's saying that i
165. know he's not going to leave office this is why he's gathering these this private army who and
166. i don't care what anybody say all these people with the mask that's january six people he has
167. paid to go out there and be ice so-called ice they're criminals and they're going to be his
168. private army. When it's time for him to leave office, he's not going to leave. Military is
169. going to stage a coup on the right side of things. Or if this is going to happen to us,
170. if we're just going to be ruled by this man. It seems like there's a denialism,
171. or maybe it's American exceptionalism, that fascism can't happen in this country.
172. Because you had just a recent election, Trump is now attacking California, saying it was a
173. rigged election. Well, when they come towards November, he may say, well, California's vote
174. doesn't count because it's a rigged election. They may see a balance in California. So he's
175. setting the stage already in what he's doing, what these fascists are doing to actually prevent an
176. election in November or to rig the election. I'm glad you brought that up because what's
177. happening here is that there was a recent election for the clerk of criminal district court
178. and this young man who had been
179. incarcerated wrongly for 20 years
180. Calvin Duncan, Calvin became a jailhouse lawyer
181. he got himself out of prison through the Innocence Project
182. he went to Tulane and got a law degree
183. he ran for this office, was it last month
184. March
185. and he won the office
186. Bill Quigley, Attorney Quigley
187. They tore him in on the steps of the criminal district court.
188. What did the legislature do?
189. They created this big takeover bill.
190. So they abolished his seat, and they're about to take over.
191. They're going to change our judiciary under the guise of efficiency and saving money.
192. So they're going to take out three criminal court judges because, oh, we're going to do that because, you know,
193. there's no other place in the state that has that many criminal judges.
194. as well, there's no other place in the state
195. that is as big as this city, other than East Baton Rouge,
196. but because this city is a tourist city,
197. that just brings in the opportunity for more crime.
198. Okay, so what do you do?
199. You, Jay Morris,
200. who wrote all these crazy bills and they passed them.
201. It's from Monroe, Louisiana.
202. He don't know a diddly about New Orleans.
203. What are you doing?
204. So now we have a case where they've thrown our votes away.
205. And I know you heard about it.
206. I know you heard that because Cleo Fields' seat was lost thanks to the,
207. you know, the Supreme Court and he abolished his seat.
208. Wow.
209. An election was going on, correct?
210. 40,000 people voted early, early voters.
211. Not only did Landry suspend that election for that seat, for Cleo Fields' seat, not his seat because they abolished his seat, but for Congress, the congressional race primary.
212. He suspended that, but at the same time, people were already voting and 40,000 people voted early.
213. And this man said, I'm not counting those votes.
214. now when was it okay for you to throw my vote away i mean come on now and so but listen this
215. is what they don't know about louise but black people in louisiana specifically new orleans we
216. don't take crap from people they have had hundreds of people to go up to baton rouge two or three
217. times to argue against the takeover bill you know four major lawsuits have been filed by legislators
218. civil rights groups and New Orleans voters pending against the state of Louisiana.
219. All argue that the state's actions, including Act 15 and related maneuvers, violate constitutional protections and disenfranchise New Orleans voters, especially black voters.
220. So the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus has filed.
221. The ACLU has filed.
222. Who else?
223. I think the National Democratic Party has filed.
224. So what they're saying is the state violated Louisiana Constitution by eliminating an office after the election had already occurred.
225. Talking about Calvin Duncan's office, right?
226. The takeover strips New Orleans voters, primarily black voters, of their right to seek the official they chose.
227. So you're just throwing our vote away.
228. And even though we elected this man, as we elected Cleo Fields, our votes no longer count.
229. They've been voided.
230. The legislature cannot retroactively avoid an election because it dislikes the outcome.
231. So why these lawsuits matter?
232. But don't we have a-
233. This is a lawsuit directly asserting that the takeover is an unconstitutional power grab targeting the majority black electric.
234. And that's the one they're talking about, the Louisiana Senate Democratic Caucus lawsuit.
235. But don't we have a racist insurrectionary court at this point?
236. Oh.
237. Oh, I'm so, I'm so, I won't say I'm heartbroken.
238. I'm so disappointed because I always thought that the United States Supreme Court, with its flaws, it's never been perfect.
239. And it's never been totally on the side of people of color.
240. But it has tried to be fair until Donald Trump got in there.
241. And now it's just a tool for Donald Trump.
242. I mean the Republicans in Congress the Republicans on the Supreme Court and Donald Trump office has melded into one and they are taking orders from him as if they not separate branches of government I don understand it That become a fascist state That what I was about to say I do understand because this is this is the Hitler moment
243. That was New Orleans based independent journalist C.C. Campbell Rock talking with Pacifica's Steve Zeltzer about attacks on black voting rights in the Deep South.
244. I got a dream. I got a train. We're gonna work it out.
245. We're gonna work it out. I have a dream. I got a train.
246. We're gonna work it out. We're gonna work it out.
247. We're gonna work it out. I got a dream.
248. I got a dream.
249. I gotta look deeper than myself. I gotta find the way.
250. My dream is to be free
251. My dream is to be
252. My dream is to be
253. My dream is to be free
254. In search of brighter days
255. I ride through the maze of the madness
256. Struggle is my address where pain and crack lives
257. Gunshots coming from sounds of blackness
258. Given this game with no time to practice
259. Born on a black list
260. Told I'm below average, a life with no cabbage
261. That's no money if you from where I'm from
262. Funny, I just want some of your sun
263. Dark clouds seem to follow me
264. Alcohol that my pop swallowed bottled me
265. No apology, I walk with a bow down my shoulder
266. It's a cold war, I'm a colder soldier
267. Hold the same fight that made Martin Luther the king
268. I ain't using it for the right thing
269. In between lean and the fiends, hustle and the schemes
270. I put together pieces of a dream, I still have one
271. I got a dream
272. We gonna work it out
273. We gonna work it out
274. We gonna work it out
275. I got a dream
276. That was Common, I Have a Dream.
277. This is Pacifica's Capitalism, Race and Democracy.
278. I'm Polina Vasiliev.
279. At the Microsoft Build Conference in San Francisco,
280. an annual event for engineers and other tech professionals,
281. a former Microsoft worker and other activists spoke out
282. against profiting from the use of the Azure cloud computing platform,
283. AI, and other tech to commit genocide and war crimes.
284. They called for a boycott of Microsoft products
285. and a fight against massive public subsidy of the tech companies
286. to wage war in the Middle East and around the world.
287. No more blood, no more lies!
288. No more blood, no more lies!
289. Microsoft, cut your ties!
290. Microsoft, cut your ties!
291. I'm Patrick. We're here to oppose the genocide that's happening in Gaza right now,
292. which Microsoft is enabling in big part because they do contracts with the Israeli military, police, prison system, and government.
293. And what should be done about them?
294. So we are here to advocate for Microsoft divesting from Israel completely.
295. Isn't that a part of the U.S. government policy?
296. What do you mean?
297. The United States is supporting Israel, supporting the genocide?
298. Correct.
299. So that's part of the U.S. government, what's happening?
300. It is both It is both Because Israel was formed before the U government was involved over there So it is originally a Zionist issue which now the U government is involved in as well
301. And there are some unions that are at Microsoft.
302. Do they have any viewpoint on what's going on?
303. I'm actually not aware of any unions at Microsoft.
304. CWA, the companies that they bought.
305. Oh, I see, I see. Okay, yes.
306. So, yeah, I'm not familiar with that.
307. What do you think unions should do about what's going on?
308. I think that they should add their voices to ours and call for an end to genocide.
309. Who's organizing this?
310. We're here today. We are No Azure for Apartheid.
311. No what?
312. No Azure for Apartheid. We're a group of current and former Microsoft workers.
313. I myself am a former Microsoft worker. I worked there for seven years and resigned in protest last year.
314. How many people resigned from Microsoft as a result of their policies?
315. many many i don't have an accurate number for you honestly it seems like there's a lot of funding
316. for war for these companies investing in apartheid yes that's true there's always money and that's
317. one of the core issues ultimately billions of dollars yes billions billions yes from all
318. all angles and what do you think about this whole drive for ai using ai and war machine and
319. autonomous war machine and the whole business?
320. I think it's a great way for people to avoid accountability
321. for the harm that their AI is having.
322. For the harm that they're doing in the world,
323. they can say, oh, well, this computer system did it,
324. we didn't do it, it was an accident,
325. and they can try to avoid accountability that way.
326. I am Abdu, an organizer with No Azure for Apartheid,
327. and we are protesting Microsoft complicity
328. in the ongoing genocide that is happening in Gaza
329. right now. They have been developing cloud and AI weapons that have been given to the
330. Israeli military to power the occupation, apartheid and genocide. We have seen these
331. cloud and AI being used in enabling the deadly airstrikes happening in Gaza, but also the
332. ethnic cleansing happening in the West Bank.
333. And are they doing this for profit or do they support the apartheid regime?
334. What we are seeing is that Microsoft is gaining hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars
335. by contracting with the Israeli military and government,
336. and we have seen it that when we are able to put pressure,
337. Microsoft is willing to divest some of their ties.
338. And what we are here saying is that no partial divestment is enough.
339. We are demanding of cutting all ties.
340. And the genocide that's going on in Gaza,
341. by helping that, doesn't that make them complicit in actually crimes, war crimes?
342. Microsoft is indeed.
343. We see that there is blood on Microsoft's executives' hands, that these executives need to be held accountable for being complicit in genocide, for abetting these war crimes, for enabling the violence against the Palestinians in Gaza.
344. And they've been targeting journalists as well, using technology. Are you concerned about the use of AI in the genocide that's going on, how the technology is being used?
345. We have seen, and I've called it multiple times, that cloud and AI have become bombs and bullets in the 21st century.
346. With just a click of a button, you are able to launch tens and tens of airstrikes on Gaza.
347. Just because all the data surveillance that have been collected have been processed by cloud,
348. AI has been able to process and sift through them.
349. So we are very concerned We are seeing it indeed as digital weapons So our campaign No Azure for Apartheid when it calls for cutting all the ties we are calling for a digital arms embargo against the Zionist state
350. And the U.S. and Israel are talking about a military alliance,
351. the integration of U.S. and Israeli military.
352. What do you think about that?
353. What we have seen is that the Israeli military is one of the top customers for Microsoft in terms of cloud and AI.
354. so is the U.S. military.
355. So we are seeing this as a connection on really transforming these tech tools into weapons in the 21st century.
356. What can people do about it?
357. What we are seeing here is that we are workers with no agit for apartheid.
358. We are coming together, reclaiming our labor and rejecting to be complicit in these war crimes.
359. So we are calling on all workers, independent which company they're at,
360. to refuse to be complicit in the genocide
361. and to organize to cut ties with the Israeli military and government.
362. And there's some unions, the CWA, Activision, I think.
363. What are you calling for the unions to do that Microsoft represents?
364. We're calling for every worker who is aware of Microsoft's complicity
365. but also aware of their company's complicity
366. to find a way to wield the worker power, wield the labor power
367. to cut ties with the Israeli military and government.
368. We know every kind of formation will take different tactics,
369. and we are here protesting in front of Microsoft Build,
370. where the cloud and AI inside is the same cloud and AI that gets packaged and shipped to the Israeli military and government.
371. How can people find out about your organization?
372. You can go to noagileforapartheid.com, take action with us.
373. Transcription by CastingWords
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