It is sad to behold this nation as a whole, and Black America in particular, entering a comatose state of political and cultural consciousness under the mesmerizing, mediocre and hypocritical auspices of the Barack Obama regime / administration. Nevertheless, this is the pitiful current reality for many who remain in a dangerous, unconscious and corporately manipulated stupor.

The U.S. economy is irreparably damaged and in a shambles thanks to the ongoing greed and corruption of the very captains who have yet again been placed in charge of this economic and political mental-asylum-denial referred to as the United States of America. Meanwhile, the war machine of the U.S. Empire rumbles on like some huge berserk beast, intent on crushing and devouring all in its path. Even as the unacceptable and reprehensible U.S. wars rage on in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama regime stubbornly refuses to publicly release the much touted “torture photos” of those captured so-called combatants. Moreover, Barack Obama dares to muse about utilizing “indefinite preventive detention” [i.e. imprisonment] of persons who have been neither charged, tried, nor convicted for an alleged crime. Bluntly stated, this is the stuff of dictators and dictatorships. To even consider engaging in such a practice is patently outrageous.

Much of this nation, including a sizable portion of Black America, has allowed itself to be entangled in a mind-killing web of continuing media and Obama deception, even as millions increasingly lose their jobs, homes, and realistic hopes. As the economic conditions plummet for the masses of all colors in this nation, the economic and social plight of especially Black, Brown, and Red peoples is reaching epidemic proportions, though one would never know this from the reporting, or lack thereof, by the corporate media.

As the politicians in the twin demons of the Democratic and Republican Parties [i.e. the Republicrats] protect their own financial and social interests, the peoples in this nation watch their own meager savings and resources mercilessly swallowed by this juggernaut of systemic corporate deception and greed. The Obama deception continues unabated, spurred on by an overwhelming and insidious corporate media love affair with this wordy emperor.

Young people in general, and Black and Brown youth in particular are murdering each other at an ever increasing rate while the Obama regime either ignores this horrible reality outright or offers superficial and ultimately meaningless rhetoric.

Has Black America fundamentally entered a period of political irrelevance, or more to the point, of unconscionable complicity with corporate greed and U.S. Empire at home and abroad? It would seem that a significant portion of Black America, and the nation as a whole has succumbed to the policies, actions, and rhetoric of Empire. This does not have to be. It is not all is not gloom and doom, for this is not irreversible. The answer to the above question can and will only be determined in the final analysis by we the people; not by the slimy corporate media or the double-speak Obama / Biden regime.

A reader of The Black Commentator recently wrote to me that “we the people have become the enemy of the minority elite.” Indeed, we have and always have been. The difference this time, however, is that we can and must grasp every opportunity to unceasingly, unrepentantly, and uncompromisingly expose what this so-called “minority elite” is grotesquely engaging in, and organize, organize, and organize some more against it for a world that can be, versus one that the avaricious and lying perpetrators of disinformation and war tell us has to be.

Onward sisters and brothers! May we not become irrelevant to our own detriment! 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/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.