Perhaps the single most devastating and grotesque horror being inflicted upon Black America, and indeed oppressed people of all colors in this nation and throughout the world, by Barack Obama, his corporate / military puppet masters, and the corporate media - is the inaccurate and despicable notion that things have somehow substantively changed for the better; when in fact daily reality unequivocally demonstrates otherwise.

Barack Obama is the antithesis, not the fulfillment, of the struggles by Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Native chiefs Tecumseh and Crazy Horse, John Brown, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so very many others who gave their all in this ongoing struggle on behalf of the liberties and full human and economic rights of every day, ordinary people. Barack Obama is not the captive of the 21st century corporate / military elite; he is their willing and conscious servant. He is the fabled �Gr�ma Wormtongue� of the U.S. Empire�s corporate exploitation at home, and its military cannon fodder war machine abroad.

As the official observation of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rapidly approaches, it is a certainty that Barack Obama will no doubt continue to opportunistically feign admiration and respect for this man who was brutally assassinated (thanks to the subterfuge of the U.S. Government itself) for daring to demand an end to economic exploitation in this nation while stalwartly opposing U.S. imperialism and wars abroad. As Barack Obama escalates the U.S. war in Afghanistan, continues the war and U.S. occupation in Iraq, and approves and expands the use of deadly U.S. missile drone attacks in Pakistan; it is ridiculous - and the height of both hypocrisy and absurdity - to equate him in any way whatsoever with the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Whereas Dr. King was a man of peace and justice, Obama is a willing corporate / military tool of exploitation, hypocrisy, and unending death & war.

It is extremely noteworthy that Barack Obama is quite aware that his actions to continue and escalate war will assuredly continue and escalate so-called �terrorism.� He knows full well that his actions are tantamount to throwing gasoline on a fire. The question is then, if he is a man of peace and justice, why does he continue these failed policies? The answer is not complicated. He continues these failed policies in service to the corporate / military elite, in order to constantly cower the U.S. populace and thereby control and manipulate this nation�s peoples into submission and the continued surrender of political liberties and constitutional rights. These afore described policies are only �failed� ones if the objective is actually justice and peace. However, that is absolutely not the real objective of Barack Obama or the corporate / military masters whom he willingly serves. Thus, in that sense said policies are failures only as they terribly affect every day, ordinary people whom Obama does not serve.

Think about the following:

Barack Obama seeks to extend the unconstitutional Patriot Act and has extended and broadened the practice (referred to innocuously as �Rendition�) of kidnapping people from other nations around the world - all of which he knows full well virtually guarantees ongoing war and �terrorism on all sides.� Obama is no fool. To the contrary, he is perhaps the most sly of foxes yet produced this century from within the confines of the political party known as the so-called �Democrats.� And of course the Republican Party wolves are absolutely no better.

Obama�s alleged health care �reform� is nothing more than yet another gigantic, veiled, financial gift - of the people�s money - to corporate pharmaceutical giants and other concomitant corporate vultures. Moreover, even as home foreclosures continue unabated on an unprecedented level, the banksters and other Wall Street economic vampire-elites enjoy outrageous profits - living off the life�s blood of every day, ordinary people.

U.S. President Obama�s �change� is that of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. As James Baldwin, knowingly warned, �No more water. The fire next time.�

Barack Obama and his corporate / military confederates have turned �the dream� of Dr. King into a �dream [yet again grotesquely disfigured and] deferred.� And, as Langston Hughes prophetically asked, �What happens to a dream deferred?...�

Onward then 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 NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/LehrerNewsHour. 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.