…This
role [of the intellectual] has an edge to it, and cannot be
played without a sense of being someone whose place it is
publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy
and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who
cannot easily be co-opted by government or corporations, and
whose raison d’etre is to represent all those people
that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.
Edward
Said, Representations
of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures
In
fascist Amerikkka, the “patriots” of Empire are readying for the “kill.”
Among the patriots are the King’s armies of functionaries (collaborators),
fine tuning “the trick.” Unity among the Patriots!
“The
trick,” Hannah Arendt writes, was Himmler’s idea - not a new
idea in the world, but one suitable for the occasion, involving
inverting the instinctive reactions of the killers (Eichmann
in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin Classics)).
Don’t think about the hired guns from the 630 corporate capitalist
contractors in Iraq
(Jeremy Scahill) to institutional to political to civic gunners
apt at learning “the trick.” They, in turn, are not to think
about the “horrible things” done to others, but instead, focus
all their energy on mastering their duty and considering the
weight of the task upon their shoulders.
Institutionalizing
the role of the functionary among the oppressed is the business
of an Empire that foresees the possibility of its own demise.
Amerikkka needs its reliable scapegoats in his hour of the sacrificial
crisis.
The
sacrificial crisis, Rene Girard explains in Violence
and the Sacred,
is a crisis of “distinction,” of difference between “impure
violence” and “purifying violence” affecting the political,
social, economic, and cultural order. It is not just a matter
of who speaks Spanish and who speaks English, but a matter of
who dares to unveil the distinction between the “purifying”
violence of the Empire (high incarceration rates, detention
camps, torture, indifference to human suffering and dying, and
pre-emptive war) and the so-called “impure” violence (resistance)
of the oppressed - (terrorists, resisters, extremists, fundamentalists).
It’s important to note that this system of violence oscillates
between one form of violence and another. “Peace” is merely
the prevalence of “purifying” violence. Consequently, violence
is the “box” we live within.
“Language
itself is put in jeopardy,” as the collapse of difference makes
it increasingly difficult to identify “liberators” and recognize
what is and is not “torture,” for example. Girard observes:
“in this situation no one and nothing is spared; coherent thinking
collapses and rational activities are abandoned. All associative
forms are dissolved or become antagonistic; all values, spiritual
or material, perish.”
All
attention is focused on this particular flare up of the crisis
and bringing it to an end. Some of us are capable of recognizing
that the “cure,” like the “enemy,” is within. This is the knowledge
we bare in the face of an effective process that depends of
depriving the public of this knowledge, knowledge, Girard writes,
with which the public “never come to terms.”
So
we have the institutionalization of functionaries (an old tactic
in a new era) for which the dying and suffering masses can’t
be its concern. As collaborators in the business of solving
the problem of the sacrificial crisis, they have situated themselves
within the mighty regime of Pax Americana.
Jockeying
for salvation within the capitalist system, the functionaries
echo “unity” and “denounce” and “reject” - and wagging tail
and licking tongue is perfect harmony with the agenda! The asymmetry
isn’t accidental as the light of the regime shines on the functionaries
and depends on them to carry out their duties for the state.
Under
the banner of “one America,” the task
of the functionaries is to expose the political fringe, the
dissenters, particularly the Black Left. When the time comes,
the functionaries will be all too happy to dispose of the “anti-patriotic.”
But for now, present self and friends as “special cases” and
prepare lists of the “extremists,” the “militants,” the “renegades.”
“The trick” is to teach these functionaries, the ass-lickers,
“the trick” of sniffing and barking at that most “horrible thing”
within on command. This, they are assured, will garner
them the pleasure of sharing power to detention and to witness
the glorious “mushroom cloud” over some “enemy” territory.
Black
Americans have out-maneuvered such functionaries, agent provocateurs,
overseers in the past. That was when we had no-nonsense warriors
who denounced and rejected compromise, not the people. Their
voices and deeds trampled collaborators, and Harriet Tubman
hired herself as a hired gun! Paul Robeson’s voice, rising from
the depths of the Earth, cried out - I will stand! I will be
Black and I will stand, here, among my people and the oppressed
of the world. Malcolm, Huey, Fannie Lou, and King didn’t suffer
from “defective memory” or become absorbed in the “watchwords”
(i.e. slogans, Arendt) of functionaries. De-coding the Master
or any imperialist elected regime was the preferred skill, but
now, deconstructing the words of dissenters within is profitable
for functionaries jostling position between the tasks of gatekeeper
and of spokesperson - for themselves, their interests in maintaining
their connection to the “good society.”
The
most important task of the functionaries, however, is that of
carrying out the dirty deeds for the Empire. After all, this
business of the sacrificial crisis is not about careers and
livelihoods. For the lower-level functionaries, perhaps they
have decided to house and clothe themselves and their family
in the luxury afforded them. But for the groomed, premiere functionaries,
it is a matter of life or death - of the Empire.
Sen.
Barrack Obama and his Joshua Generation trains, carting hundreds
of thousands to “make history,” have, in fact, already done
so. At once a member of the society and outside that society,
he is the empowered, the well groomed, the well versed, and
the primary functionary who recently gave the “Word”: “Thou
shall not resist!” “Resisters will be annihilated!” Where in
the history of the Black struggle in America have we heard
this Word? Obama’s denouncement and rejection of Rev.
Wright’s Word - Amerikkka, you are too arrogant, echoes the
message of our slain leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and
those prophets who came before him. The imperialists have called
for the overseers, the collaborators, the functionaries - chiefs,
politicians, civic leaders, and public intellectuals - to rise,
and once again walk hand in hand and work collectively with
their Masters.
Obama’s
denouncement is a pivotal moment in the Black Left’s struggle
against imperialism. Listen to the distortion of reality within
the language used by the functionaries and the imperialist’s
media mouthpieces. Houston,
we have “generational difference!” We have some afflicted with
“generational difference” syndrome - a problem reparable with
a little tweaking here and there, a little co-opting of the
language of prophetic tradition, a little co-opting of their
minds so as to assure their willingness to kneel before the
altar of “change.” “Generational difference” is code for the
sacrificial crisis within the Black community! We relinquished
the right to nourish our youth with the spirit of their Ancestors
and empower them with the knowledge of struggle. We’ve handed
them over to the institutional functionaries for bragging rights
and trinkets! These youth have aligned themselves with the sons
and daughters of the imperialist so we are unable to recognize
them. This isn’t unity; it is communal suicide!
Every
action has consequences, and we, who know how this system works,
know how the mechanism of violence works, are caving in to the
madness in order to ride the Joshua trains with our youth. The
imperialists have created the idea of a “generational difference,”
as with any sacrificial crisis, however, we, Black Americans,
are being betrayed from within. The Amerikkka’s imperialist
functionaries echo the “watchwords” and followers hysterically
cry “freedom” from the traditions of struggle, angry elders,
and “militants” from back-in-the-day. While the “less prominent”
will disappear from the voting rolls, the city functionaries
are thinning out the Black populations. Obedient functionaries
are rounding up anyone who dares remember yesterday’s political,
economic, and social issues. “Generational difference,” in other
words, is the go-ahead to annihilate the Ancestors, the elders,
the very principles of our Black struggle. Such reckless capitulation
to an equally reckless capitalist regime will bring on the collapse
of Black America with the collapse of Amerikkka to follow.
Think
this is a singular nightmare, if you dare! Think this operation
of state violence and repression is mere myth - that this violence
and repression has never happened or isn’t happening in the
world now. Think Amerikkka is “outside the box” - at your risk!
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Lenore Jean Daniels,
PhD, has been a writer, for over thirty years of commentary,
resistance criticism and cultural theory, and short stories
with a Marxist sensibility to the impact of cultural narrative
violence and its antithesis, resistance narratives. With entrenched
dedication to justice and equality, she has served as a coordinator
of student and community resistance projects that encourage
the Black Feminist idea of an equalitarian community and facilitator
of student-teacher communities behind the walls of academia
for the last twenty years. Dr. Daniels holds a PhD in Modern
American Literatures, with a specialty in Cultural Theory (race,
gender, class narratives) from Loyola
University, Chicago. Click
here to contact Dr. Daniels.