The terror of a subverted ‘democracy’
May 6, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Commentary
“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”—Howard Zinn
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”—Frederick Douglass
The United States corporate government today has become what Frantz Fanon, over five decades earlier, accurately described, as a “monster,” permeated with “taints, sickness, and inhumanity.” Its’ much touted ‘democracy’ is in reality the very height of hypocrisy both inside this nation and abroad.
The scandalous Barack Obama and his corporate owned Democrat and Republican conspirators are simply the latest 21st century phase of this deliberately maintained hypocrisy of disinformation, critical omissions, and perpetual deceit sustained by an utterly corrupt system that has subverted the very meaning and intent of so-called democracy; as it legalizes and intensifies political repression at home and bloody Empire abroad. Ordinary, everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in the U.S. and around the world are the cannon fodder and daily victims of this horror that some call ‘democracy,’ which is built upon subterfuge, parasitic economic bloodsucking, endless war mongering, and shameless deceit.
A more accurate name for this alleged democracy is systemic terrorism by the few against the many. Indeed, this is the “terrorism” embodied in the deceit and hypocrisy of the U.S. corporate government, and its propaganda arm, the corporate-stream ‘news’ media which is incorrectly referred to as the ‘mainstream media.’ In fact, the only thing that is ‘mainstream’ about the corporate-stream media is its ability to incessantly and widely disseminate misinformation, disinformation, distractions, and more often than not, no crucially relevant information to the vast majority of everyday people.
This nation sorely needs systemic revolution (not to be confused with reform). And the shape and parameters of this revolution must be determined by everyday people themselves/ourselves, not the system’s gatekeepers. First however, we must understand, in the immortal words of Frederick Douglass, that, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” In other words, we must understand that systemic change is brought about by “agitation” and euphemistically “plowing up the ground,” not by expecting this corrupt system to change itself. It will not.
The corporate power brokers of the symbiotically-joined Democrat and Republican parties have deep vested political and economic interests in perpetuating this rotten, unjust, hypocritical terroristic system in one wily form or another, not eradicating it. Barack Obama, for example, is the most insidiously effective stealth weapon against everyday people of all colors that this corrupt system has yet produced; but whether he is re-installed or not in the upcoming corporate controlled phony elections in this nation, the system remains about perpetuating itself by keeping the people locked, in perpetuity, on the mental and political plantation of subscribing to and believing in the fake left/right (i.e. Democrat and Republican party) paradigm. Thus, subverting any genuine democracy in the United States. Until we the everyday people recognize this systemic reality for what it is and address it, we will continue to be pimped by the elite who control, own, and operate this U.S. political system of hypocrisy, injustice, and insanity.
The very real and deliberately maintained economic, political, judicial, and physical terrorism of the subverted ‘democracy’ in this nation is what keeps us divided and in fear of one another. Economic apartheid, racism, and sexism, etc., are, in fact, the mainstays of this system and will not be eliminated until we eliminate and replace this system with a model that serves the needs and aspirations of the many, not the insatiable and insane greed of the few.
We are the people, and it is time for us to act like it! It is time to creatively and collectively challenge ourselves and one another. That’s an important part of what “struggle” is all about. And in the words of Frederick Douglass, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” This challenge is an ongoing one (long and protracted) and it will not be easy to fulfill. But we can do it. We must do it. We must take back our humanity! For ourselves, each other, and the many peoples of Mother Earth, we must intensify in this struggle. The real terrorists are the bloodsuckers who divide us and terrorize this planet in our name. The terrorists are not the ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of this wondrous planet.
Remember Tecumseh! Remember John Brown! Remember Harriet Tubman! Remember Rosa Luxemburg! Remember ‘Mother’ Jones! Remember Joe Hill! Remember Lucy Parsons! Remember Emiliano Zapata! Remember Malcolm X! Remember Martin Luther King, Jr.! Remember Bobby Sands! Remember Howard Zinn! Remember them and so very, very many others. We are not alone for we walk in their immortal sunshine and we have each other! Let us remember—and take back our own humanity from the bloodsuckers of this nation and planet. It’s time to fulfill our destinies in this long and protracted struggle.
Each one teach one. Each one reach one. As Joe Hill said so many years ago, “Don’t Mourn. ORGANIZE!” We’ve much work to do. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward!
Intrepid Report Associate Editor Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities, Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. Pinkney is a former university instructor of political science and international relations, and his writings have been published in various places, including The Boston Globe, the San Francisco BayView newspaper, the Black Commentator, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.)
The Revolving Door of Insanity – Or From the Frying Pan Into The Fire
May 3, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Commentary
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Are we hamsters running endlessly on a spinning wheel, oblivious to the fact that we are substantively going nowhere but backwards? Or, are we reasoning, critically thinking human beings who have enough sense to comprehend the enormous difference between being on a perpetually spinning wheel, and making real systemic change that serves the needs and aspirations of ordinary people? The time is here and now for everyday, ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people to address and honestly answer this question. We must take responsibility for our collective destinies. The political system of the United States really is one wherein the following words, attributed to Charlie King, so thoroughly apply: “America is a melting pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all the scum floats to the top.” The obvious question is why? Why is this allowed to continue? The answer is not complicated. It is the denial, self delusion, lethargy, and hypocrisy on the part of far too many people in this nation — stoked and perpetuated — by the corporate-owned Democratic and Republican parties, the corporate-stream ‘news’ media, and their concomitant systemic ‘educational’ institutions. The scum does not float to the top by osmosis. It is quite deliberate.
Nevertheless, this grim scenario does not have to remain in place. The revolving door of systemic insanity can be eliminated and discarded, but only by us, ordinary everyday people. It’s not going to happen unless and until everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation become fed up with being endlessly divided, systemically pimped, and treated as if we are caged hamsters, endlessly running on a perpetually spinning wheel. It’s time to call out, for what and who they really are, those so-called ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ who rightfully and vigorously organized and protested against the U.S. wars, internal political repression, and economic emaciation of everyday people by the Republican party Bush/Cheney regime, but whose silence is deafening when it comes to the outrageous abuses (both internally and externally) of the current corporate-owned, predator-drone missile, Democratic party occupant of the White House, who has far surpassed (in less than four years) the scandalous actions of his predecessor. It’s time to understand that these alleged ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ are HYPOCRITES who are showing that they are, in reality, systemic gatekeepers, perpetuating the revolving door of the Democratic and Republican party insanity of this system.
Suddenly, it apparently does not seem to matter to these hypocrites that trillions of dollars of the people’s money was criminally given to the elite Wall Street bloodsuckers, or that the horror of Guantanamo continues, or that ‘extraordinary rendition’ continues, or that U.S. wars are raging in Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., or that the U.S. bombed Libya, North Africa, or that the unconstitutional ‘Patriot Act’ (which in essence codifies into law the U.S. government’s infamous COINTELPRO horrors) has been renewed and still stands, or even that the current White House occupant has signed into law the reality of indefinite detention (NDAA) of U.S. citizens inside this nation, without charge or due process. This is why the “scum” repeatedly “floats to the top” in the rigged political system in the United States. Wake up people! Unchain your minds while there is yet time! Remember well the words of Harriet Tubman when she said, “I freed a thousand slaves – I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” To reiterate: The denial, self delusion, lethargy, and hypocrisy of far too many people (including many so-called ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’) in this nation is precisely why this revolving door of systemic insanity continues unabated, and the people of all colors in this nation stay on the euphemistic and insidious political plantation of powerlessness. We must stop being fooled and sucked in by the bait-and-switch tactics and fake left/right paradigm of the corporate owned Democratic and Republican parties. They are not friends or allies of the everyday people, no matter what lies spew forth from their lips through their corporate-stream media. Organize, agitate, educate! Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Cherish and protect our Mother Earth! Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward!
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney. |
Stuck on Stupid – One party system continues to FAIL
April 20, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Commentary
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity…They realize at last that change does not mean reform, that change does not mean improvement.”
-Frantz Fanon
Albert Einstein correctly noted that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” and yet the masses of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in the United States have been systemically duped into doing precisely this, as it relates to the Democratic and Republican parties. This is insane.
The power brokers of the corporate-owned Democratic and Republican parties have, together, contrived a system wherein they, and only they, control the reigns of political power, which translates into economic power over the lives of everyday people. On the one hand the Democrats co-opt the rhetoric of “change” and “reform,” while on the other hand, the Republicans utilize the rhetoric of restraint and so-called conservatism. Together, these parties keep the people of this nation trapped in a perpetual cycle of control, powerlessness, and concomitant insanity.
Change has incorrectly come to be perceived as somehow automatically a positive or a negative thing, when in fact, it is not necessarily either. But this is a deliberately systemically perpetuated misperception of “change” that keeps the everyday people of this nation swinging back and forth between the symbiotic Democratic and Republican parties – who rely upon each other to maintain the corrupt system – and in so doing, perpetuate their own power at the horrible expense of the ordinary people.
It is not that the people of this nation are stupid. They are not. Rather, they are stuck on stupid because they have been incessantly programmed and are mired deeply in the systemically maintained insane cycle of the back and forth pendulum of supporting Democrats and Republicans in a system that is completely rigged against their own needs and best interests. Notwithstanding, the unceasing misleading rhetoric of both the Democrats and Republicans serve, first and foremost, corporate interests – not the people’s interests. Thus, what Democrats and Republicans fallaciously depict as compromise is nothing of the kind. It is their joint complicity in the maintenance of a corrupt, filthy, unjust, hypocritical political system – plain and simple.
For example: To say the reason that the predator drone missile president Barack Obama, 1)supported the trillion dollar criminal bail out to Wall Street, 2) bombed Libya, North Africa, 3) signed into law the NDAA / indefinite detention law (of 2012) that calls for the disappearing and detaining in the United States of U.S. citizens without charge, trial, judge, jury, legal defense, etc. in an effort to appease and compromise with the Republicans, is akin to an admitted, unrepentant murderer seeking to justify and defend his or her act of murder, by stating that it was done in an effort to appease and compromise with other murderers. Such an argument would be correctly viewed as both absurd and insane. Yet, this is precisely the kind of ridiculous rationalization that supporters of Barack Obama and the Democrats attempt to make. Of course, the Republicans are absolutely no better, albeit they are often more brazen and obvious in their own forms of systemic insanity.
When it comes to the Democrats and Republicans, there is no such thing as the so-called lesser of the evils. That nonsense is nothing more than a long perpetuated systemic myth designed to keep people perpetually enslaved to the systemic, corporate-owned Democrats and Republicans. They are both systemically and treacherously evil.
At this point and time in the year 2012, it is the stealthy Barack Obama and the Democrats who, particularly on the national level, act as the more insidious and thus more effective evil of the systemically and symbiotically-joined Democrat and Republican parties. Nevertheless, the Republicans are always waiting in the wings to carry out their treachery against ordinary everyday people, for that is the way the system is designed. So what must everyday people do? We must unequivocally reject both the Democrats and the Republicans and struggle to collectively bring about real systemic change. We must understand that “change,” in and of itself, is utterly meaningless if it is not serious and real systemic change.
It is time to break free from repeating “over and over again” the insanity of supporting either the Democrats or Republicans. It is time to support the everyday people of this nation and this planet of Mother Earth! Stop expecting the corporate-stream ‘news’ media to honestly inform you and tell you the truth. It will not! It exists to serve the interests of its corporate masters, just as the Democratic and Republican parties do. Stop confusing “reform” with progress. Re-forming a rotten, poisonous systemic pie does nothing whatsoever to improve the pie. It remains a rotten, poisonous systemic pie and it must be discarded, and an entirely different one created.
We don’t have to be stuck on stupid. Systemic change will only be brought about by we, the everyday ordinary people, not by the systemic, corporate-owned, opportunist, blood-sucking, Democratic or Republican parties.
Let us collectively and creatively organize, agitate, educate, and organize some more! No matter what Democrats or Republicans are installed in the upcoming national corporate controlled (s)elections of 2012, our task is to stay focused on bringing about real systemic change, and absolutely nothing less. Nothing less will suffice for the peoples of this nation and world who hunger and thirst for social, economic, and political liberation. Nothing less will do!
Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.
Nazis get their own lobbyist on Capitol Hill
The American Nazi Party has apparently registered its own lobbyist on Capitol Hill, 2008 National Socialist Movement presidential candidateJohn Taylor Bowles.
U.S. News found the PDF document— which shows that Bowles registered with the Clerk of the House as a lobbyist on Tuesday—on LegisStorm.
According to the form filled out by Bowles, he registered as a lobbyist in order to pursue issues relating to, “Political Rights and ballot access laws.” His form also reportedly cites accounting, agriculture, clean air and water, civil rights, health issues, the Constitution, immigration, manufacturing, and retirement as “general lobbying issue areas,” according to U.S. News.
