"Sometimes
people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they
are presented with evidence that works against that belief,
the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a
feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive
dissonance. And because it is so important to protect
the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even
deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
-Frantz
Fanon
"Killing
One Person Is MURDER--Killing 100,000 Is FOREIGN POLICY."
-Anonymous
The
United States of America is, in reality, a one-party
corporatist state whose very existence is, more than ever,
perpetuated by a conscious deliberate denial of reality,
even in the face of the obvious.
This
nation's internal and external political, economic,
and military policies have nothing whatever to do
with "democracy," "justice," or "human
rights;" and everything to do with exploitation,
hegemony, deceit, and control of the many--by the few.
No amount of rationalization can change or ameliorate
this fact.
Everyday
Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this actual
one-party U.S. corporatist state are the de facto
cannon fodder of the corporate / military Democratic
and Republican Party foxes and wolves respectively. Moreover,
it is utterly absurd and delusionary to expect "hope"
to bring about much-needed systemic "change."
The time is here for the people of this nation to dispense
with myths, face reality, and change it.
Corporations
are in constant covert (and often unabashed overt)
control of the White House, the congress, and the judiciary,
even as this nation's infrastructure deteriorates and living
standards plummet--along with decent living wages and opportunities
for everyday people. The two Rs--Rhetoric and
Repression--are what the masses of everyday people are
the daily recipients. Meanwhile, the corporate elite of
corporations including Honeywell, General Electic, Lockheed,
Boeing, and so very many more-- rake in billions
upon billions of dollars in blood money as they develop
and perfect ever more sinister and devastatingly hideous
devices and killing machines--to the scourge of humankind
and the entire planet. There is no war (declared
or undeclared) that the corporate / military elite do not
support--for whether any war itself is won or lost--this
avaricious corporate / military elite wins. They smugly
and arrogantly wrap themselves in apparent political
expediency under the cover of grotesquely distorted
patriotism--sanctimoniously financially enriching
themselves--while bathing in the precious irreplaceable
blood of everyday people of this nation and that of people
around the globe. This is the corporate trough
from which the politicians of this nation drink and to which
they are beholden.
With
over 800 U.S. military bases / installations throughout
this planet--the amoral symbiotic relationship between corporations
and politicains in this nation (including the judiciary
and ever-compliant corporate-stream "news" media)
reeks with the stench of hypocrisy, injustice, subterfuge,
and death. As the present robotic, black-faced, corporate
/ military, nominal head of the U.S. empire shamelessly
wages military wars abroad while facilitating repression
against political dissenters and against any
possibility of having informed, honest, and real dialouge
at home; the hypocrisy of 'America's' so called democracy
is self evident whether or not people choose to see
the obvious.
Then
of course there are the blatant right-wingers who cling
to their own form of blind insanity and denial in search
of yesterday; followed closely by the "liberals"
who stand for absolutely nothing other than lofty rhetoric
and the ultimate continuation of this hypocrisy
which they call democracy. For example, over two years ago,
the rhetoric of "liberals" loudly questioned the
correctness of George W. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
etc.--but quickly turned a blind, complicitous eye to the
widening of these very same bloody wars by Barack
Obama. Once more, the hypocrisy is self evident.
Both the blatant right-wing and the so-called
"liberals" have one very important thing in common:
They both support the maintenance and perpetuation
of the U.S. corporate / military empire, only differing
with one another in how this is to be done.
Neither camp seriously questions or opposes, the
validity of or right to, world hegemony by the U.S.
corporate / military elite. Indeed, this nation continues
to have a 21st century form of the 'Manifest Destiny,'
which led to the brutal genocide of the Indigenous Red peoples
on this continent--all in the distorted name of God, patriotism,
and "civilization." Very little of substance has
changed today. In fact the U.S. corporate / military elite
has actively pushed the people of this nation and world
backwards--once again, in the name of "progress."
There
can be no viable appeal to reason when the obvious is so
studiously ignored. Thus, the need to intensify in
our efforts to educate, agitate, and organize with and among
everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people.
This
'American' democracy is a terrible hypocrisy and a bloody
sham. Only by consciously breaking away from the
imagined comfort zone of mental stupor that many
people find themselves in can we collectively and uncompromisingly
bring about real systemic change. This struggle for human
rights and economic and political justice is a local,
national, and international in scope. It is linked to
the struggle of everyday peoples around the world.
And comfortable people don't make change. The mental-stupor
comfort zone must be shattered in order to step into
reality and collectively change it.
Justice
for the people of Haiti! Justice for the people of Tunisia!
Justice for the people of South Africa! Justice for
the people of France, Germany, Greece, Iceland and Spain!
Justice for the everyday people of the United States of
America! Justice for students and workers! Justice
for the peoples of the world! Visualize a world free
of corporate / military domination! Visualize
it and struggle to make it real.
We
must end this hypocrisy in 'America,' and in the
words of Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again!"
Let it be the 'America' of and for everyday people in harmony
with everyday people of the world--of our Mother
Earth, for she calls to us and we must answer!
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 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.
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