Even as the Wall Street barons received undeserved trillions of dollars of the people’s money, the people themselves are massively losing their jobs & homes nationwide, receiving no universal single payer health care, and continue to be the cannon fodder for the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On the other hand, the U.S. corporate news media is shamelessly urging people to “spend, spend, spend” the relatively miniscule so-called “stimulus” checks that some are receiving in order to supposedly jump start a failing U.S. economy, which economy has already been greedily gutted by the corporate / military elite at the expense of the everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow folks of this nation. Nevertheless, like an ostrich with its head in the sand, the onslaught of the actual nature of the unprecedented impending economic tidal wave is being distorted by the same Republicrat (i.e. Republican and Democrat Party) corporate and political blood suckers who are in fact responsible for this systemic havoc in the first place.

Why has the need for single payer universal health care been virtually removed from the agenda, narrative, and the discussion by this current regime and its cohorts? Why have no substantive actions been taken to bring U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan back to the United States?

It is important not to be fooled by the misleading rhetoric of so-called ‘affordable health care’ since so-called affordability is ultimately determined by the corporate insurance companies, and it is most certainly not single payer universal health care. This tactic is similar to the smoke and mirror ploy of using the term ‘redeploy,’ as if ‘redeploy’ necessarily and automatically means bringing U.S. troops home, when in fact (as is presently being demonstrated with certain U.S. troops being ‘redeployed’ from one combat zone to another in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan) and not being returned home; being ‘redeployed’ certainly does not have to mean returning the troops home to the United States. Misleading rhetoric is already a hall mark of the Obama regime.

The people must have single payer universal health care and not the misleading rhetoric of so-called ‘affordable’ health care. Moreover, and by the same token, the U.S. troops must be brought home to the United States, not merely redeployed to some other area of combat.

It is the duty and responsibility of the government to serve the people - not bail out the corporate criminals - who live off of the people. Had there been systemic change back in November of 2008, both single payer universal health care and removing U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan would be substantively well on their way to being a reality. But there was no systemic change. It’s more of the same in a different garb, and its going to get worse - much worse.

So let’s not miss the forest for the trees. The tell tale signs are all around us and there is something that can be done: Hold the Democrats and Republicans (i.e. the Republicrats) accountable and seriously organize for systemic change, not more of the same. It is after all up to us - the people.

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/Lehrer NewsHour. 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.