00:00And now we are going to stay on Washington DC because our correspondent Jorge Gestoso
00:05is at this moment making a contact with us and he is also willing to offer the
00:11latest information that are coming from the state. Hello Jorge, welcome to From the South.
00:19Thank you much and we are basically living a historical day in election terms and also in the
00:26political life of the US. We are waiting slowly the results of what has been this electoral
00:33key moment of the US history and we have the pleasure and the privilege to have with us one
00:41of our other guests. We're talking about Netfa Freeman. He is with the Pan-American Community Action.
00:50Pan-African. I'm sorry? Pan-African. Pan-African. I'm sorry. And Netfa,
00:57thanks very much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
01:00What do you think about the electoral system of the US? So that's a very broad question. There's a lot
01:09to be said about the electoral system of the US, but I think it is basically in one word,
01:16if I can start with that, a farce. It's a farce that obscures and robs the popular, the regular
01:22people from actually having power and being able to dictate or determine policies and things that
01:29are in their best interest. The working people and particularly non-white people and working people
01:35in this country have to be subjected to policies and policies and structures that are really there to
01:44serve the interests of corporations and a ruling class, capitalism.
01:49And how it was implemented? I mean, if there was supposed to be the constitution,
01:56we the people, how we the people ended up with an electoral system that is, according to you,
02:04against the we the people? Well, we have to remember that even in the foundation of the country,
02:11of this country, the United States, the United States is a settler colonial country, settler
02:16state as it will. And so even when the constitution was signed and even when the electoral process was
02:22established, non-particularly Africans who were stolen and brought here and the indigenous people who
02:28were robbed of their land, they were disempowered in the first place. So they were never really
02:32included in that. And then you could even have the establishment of the electoral process where they
02:37established an electoral college that was specifically for the purpose of disenfranchising
02:43working people who didn't own land and who didn't have property, who were not of a rich class.
02:48It was to make sure they didn't have a say in what's happened. And so what we're seeing now is
02:53a
02:53continuation of that, is actually the successor system of that. Now, a lot of things have happened
02:59since then, some amendments and then some people's struggles that gave rise to those amendments and
03:06things like that. But really, the continuation or the track, the trajectory of this has still
03:14maintained the power for those who are basically a capitalist, white supremacist class.
03:20And one of the things that was surprised a lot of people in the world is that there is a
03:27system
03:27where the person who wins the popular vote does not win the presidential election.
03:35Tell us about that. I mean, that can happen. I mean, there's a lot to that. And I'm not an
03:40expert
03:40on the electoral process because the electoral process in the United States is unnecessarily
03:44complicated. But there's a process where you get a certain, your votes, the votes that are cast
03:51in certain states and depending on the drawing of the map of those states and how many each one gets,
03:58then there are certain electors that are given, electors that belong to the electoral college.
04:04So it's not like a one-person, one-vote scenario. It's very complicated and it ensures that people
04:11don't have that. So if there's any time where there's some kind of, I guess, interest or a candidate,
04:19which actually can't even, there's other layers to this that don't even go beyond the electoral
04:24college. But if in some reason, some kind of way, a candidate were to emerge or someone was to vote
04:30for
04:30something that the ruling class didn't want, then they could implement this situation and it would
04:35not have to line up with the popular vote. But I mean, I think there's more to it because that's
04:40actually not even the core issue, the core contradiction with the electoral system.
04:46The electoral system in the U.S. depends or is run by the rich, in other words, just to be
04:50a candidate,
04:51just to be nominated. And you have two parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party,
04:56that are obliged, that are wedded and committed to maintaining imperialism, the domination of U.S.
05:03imperialism, its pursuits around the world to take resources and markets and whatnot into its own
05:09interest. And also the exploitation, a system of capitalism that exploits people who have to sell
05:14their labor to survive. And all of those parties are committed to that system, right? And while they might,
05:20you know, give some lip service or make some tweaks to it in order to pacify the masses,
05:25they'll never do anything outside of that. And because of those two parties dominate the process,
05:30we call it two wings of the same bird, you don't have, you know, other parties that can emerge
05:36that actually can represent the people. To be a candidate in any of the process, you have to have,
05:44you know, billions of, hundreds of millions or whatever dollars in corporations and rich backing you.
05:50Just to be able to run. If you can't demonstrate that you're going to be beholden to those
05:55interests, we will never know, you know, the electorates will never know who you are.
06:01You know, we won't even see that.
06:03And I want to ask you before we finish,
06:05what do you think about today's electoral day in the history of the U.S.?
06:10How do you read this midterm election?
06:14Well, this is interesting because I think one of the things that make it interesting is that
06:19despite the efforts of this, of the country, of the state and the dominating the ruling powers
06:26to malign and malign or, you know, denounce or disparage socialism,
06:35people are embracing socialism. And you can see that through the fact that candidates are emerging
06:39that are running on the banner of democratic socialists and are winning offices and winning seats
06:45and are having, you know, popular backing around them and inspiring young people.
06:52Because that means, what that means, it doesn't mean that these candidates are a hope for the people.
06:58But what it does mean is that the ideas, the ideals and the notion of a socialist society
07:03versus a capitalist one has gained popularity despite the fact that the propaganda machine
07:10and the dominant voice and the dominant narrative and media is on the side of the capitalist.
07:15They own it all. But despite that, the people have been able to find a collective consciousness
07:20to understand and not just because they're learning more about it, but I think the conditions that
07:25people face, the concentration of wealth, austerity measures and people having a hard time making
07:31ends meet and unemployment, all of those things. And then also things like the military, all this
07:37exorbitant amount of money being paid to death and destruction instead of life are making people
07:42wake up and look at things like socialism a little differently. So it's almost like, you know,
07:47you can say something about socialism and people's, you know, in the quote of James Baldwin,
07:52um, I don't care what you say because I see what you do. And so that, that in itself,
07:58I think that is a historical, something historic for, uh, uh, for this time. But I think again,
08:05people still need to, there still needs to be something, uh, much more that's participatory,
08:10participatory democracy, I think, which is something we, there's representative democracy in the U.S.
08:14where people have to depend and advocate whatever their interests are to an individual,
08:18you know, who, that they entrust to, to advocate to implement and work in their interests. But
08:24there is such a thing as participatory democracy, which I think is really needed to safeguard, uh,
08:29and, and the interests of the people and bring, bring the, the country and even the world out of the,
08:35um, out of the degradation that, that imperialism and capitalism has brought us to.
08:40Netfa, freedom. Thank you very much to be with us. Thank you.
08:45We're talking with Netfa Freeman. He is the member of the Pan-African,
08:53that was making them, he said Pan-American, I was saying,
08:56Pan-African Community Action. He was helping us to discuss
09:02what is about the electoral process in the U.S. and his assessment of what this historical day
09:09represents for the life of America. We get back to you now. Thank you. Thank you very much,
09:16Hestoso, for your last minute informations and also for the analysis with Netfa Freeman at this hour.
