Sep 9, 2010 - Issue 392
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BlackCommentator.com: Fixating On the Tea Party at the Expense of Organizing the People - Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney

   
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“Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward all research. When you see that you have problems all you have to do is examine the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours , and once you see how they got theirs  straight , then you know how to get yours straight.”

- Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

Countless articles have been written and much energy expended by liberals and alleged progressives in this nation about the goings-on of the so-called Tea Party; as if the Tea Party and its backers are some kind of historically new phenomenon in this nation. It is not. It is in fact an ongoing, repackaged, well financed, astro-turf continuation of centuries of U.S. right wing political chicanery in ‘America.’

The installment of the slippery tongued, corporate-backed, war mongering Barack Obama as head of the U.S. Empire did not give birth to racism, economic disenfranchisement, or the Tea Party. It has simply been used to enhance it primarily because instead of seriously organizing for and around the intensifying bread and butter / survival issues of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples, many liberals and ‘progressives’ have chosen to fixate upon the Tea Party as if said fixation will somehow bring about an end to increasing joblessness, home foreclosures, homelessness, corporate hegemony, the gutting of the U.S. Constitution at home, and imperialistic U.S. wars abroad.

The most fundamental and inherent danger vis-a-vis the Tea Party is the propensity on the part of liberals and ‘progressives’ to pretend that the Obama / Biden / Rahm Emanuel regime is somehow intrinsically different from the regime of its predecessor George W. Bush; while essentially ignoring their duty to organize with everyday people for real systemic change, which must include unabashedly standing up to and rejecting the policies of Barack Obama, the Democratic Party foxes, and the Republican Party wolves.

The Tea Party is doing precisely what the extreme right wing (whatever its guise) has always done, as any serious student of history knows. Our obligation, on the other hand, is to urgently, collectively, and creatively develop and present viable alternatives to, for, and with everyday people of all colors, in opposition to both the Democratic Party foxes and the Republican Party wolves. We should be organizing---not whining about the extreme right wing doing what it has always done. Indeed, we should be out-organizing the right wing—extreme or otherwise.

Notwithstanding those dangerously naïve and foolhardy souls who declared that the installment of Barack Obama as U.S. President meant the beginning of a “new day” or the ushering in of some kind of non-existent “post racial” fairy tale era of enlightenment; the right wing and the extreme right wing quickly grasped the breathing space and opportunity to increase its pernicious activities, even as the Obama / Biden regime itself repeatedly acquiesced to the right wing, bailed out the Wall Street robber barons, made back-room deals with the big insurance companies and pharmaceutical company giants, and placated the corporate military elite’s war machine---all at the expense of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people.

Our duty and responsibility is to organize to serve the collective political, economic, and social interests of everyday people, not those of any regime, be it of the Democratic or Republican Party. All power belongs to the people---everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people!

Always remember that the corporate-stream media is in service to the foxes and the wolves of the Democrat and Republican parties, not the people. The job of the corporate-stream media is to distract, mislead, and obfuscate. Thus, we must network and organize as we have never networked and organized before, disseminating survival information to one another that is relevant to the lives of everyday people.

Be keenly aware of the machinations of the right wing, the extreme right wing, the Republican Party wolves, and the Democratic Party foxes—but do not be fixated upon them. If anything, be fixated upon devising tactics and strategies to serve the needs of the everyday people in this nation and globally. For they / we are in great pain!

Educate, agitate, and organize for the present and the future! Onward 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 NewsHour, formerly known as TheMacNeil/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.

 
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Executive Editor:
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