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Blowback, Plausible Deniability,and the Myth of American Democracy - Keeping It Real By Larry Pinkney, BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
 
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Notwithstanding the utter hypocrisy, and patently unethical and amoral reality of the United States government’s consistently, aggressively, and covertly involving itself deeply in the internal affairs, destabilization and bloody overthrow of other people’s governments around the world; more often than not the internal and external horrors that “American” civilians suffer are a direct result of this U.S. subterfuge and concomitant blowback in and subsequently from lands / nations which are not even our own.

“Blowback” is correctly and succinctly described in relevant part as “the violent, unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civil population of the aggressor government. To the civilians suffering it, the blowback typically manifests itself as ‘random’ acts of political violence, without a discernable direct cause; because the public - in whose name the intelligence agency acted - are ignorant (i.e. unaware) of the effected secret attacks that provoked revenge (counter-attack) against them.” [Reference the book entitled, Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (American Empire Project) by Chalmers Johnson].

This blowback continues, and in many respects has in fact intensified, under the present Obama / Biden regime. This is certainly not genuine so-called “democracy.” It is the antithesis of it.

The causes of blowback are, upon closer examination, the external manifestations of de facto internal subterfuge and repression within the United States itself. The ultimate expression of the failure of U.S. democracy are the many and continuing covert operations by the U.S. Government itself against the governments of peoples in and of nations across the globe.

Working hand in glove with, and as a part of, the ongoing and reprehensible U.S. covert actions against peoples and governments around the world is the very well tested and used notion of “plausible deniability” on the part of the U.S. Government, from the White House on down. Plausible deniability is defined as “the denial of blame in loose and informal chains of command where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs…In politics and espionage, deniability refers to the ability of a ‘powerful player’ or actor to avoid ‘blowback’ by secretly arranging for an action to be taken on their behalf by a third party - ostensibly unconnected with the major player…”

There has not been and can be no democracy inside the United States itself as long as covert actions and plausible deniability continue to function as a portion of the mainstays of this myth of American democracy. This is the real ‘America,’ and Barack Obama is continuing this despicable myth just as he has expanded and continued what is known as “rendition” (i.e. international kidnapping) by the U.S. Government.

Over at least the past sixty years alone, to the present, numerous peoples and nations throughout the world have been the victims of very bloody, self righteous, self serving and hypocritical U.S. covert actions, and subsequent so-called “plausible deniability” on the part of the U.S. Government, leading ultimately to horrible “blowback” against an uninformed and misinformed U.S. populace. In Cuba, Iran, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Iraq, Congo, Zimbabwe, North & South Korea, Vietnam, and so very many other nations around the world the U.S. Empire has stuck and invariably continues to stick its ugly head of imperialism and nondemocracy, while simultaneously chanting to the world a worn out and broken tune of self serving military, economic, political, hypocrisy. At home, nothing fundamentally has changed - other than “change” the peoples can be deceived in - by the Obama / Biden regime and Republicrat clique.

In the very name of “change” and “hope,” the masses of Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples inside the United States, and throughout the world, are once again the pawns and dupes of U.S. corporate / military greed and madness; this time under the Obama / Biden regime. Meanwhile, the U.S. lap dog corporate media continues to play its fifth column role to its corporate-government masters by doing all it can to continually anesthetize a dumbed-down U.S. public to the precipice of disaster upon which it sits.

U.S. Government covert military and economic actions against the peoples of the world ensure that the horrors of “blowback” against the ‘American’ peoples continue, which in turn strengthens the unending cycle of U.S. wars in the name of protecting the peoples of the U.S. The time has come to expose and break this cycle at home and abroad!

Be creative! Expose these avaricious corporate and media swine for what they really are. Do not be duped by meaningless rhetoric or pigmentation! Our Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow sisters and brothers are literally dying, while PBS, CBS, ABC, CNN, and the like - continue to play in varying degrees - their odorous game of ostrich-head in the sand.

Remember, democracy in this nation is a myth as long as, among other things, covert U.S. military actions, etc., and subsequent plausible deniability, are utilized as the de facto basis of this nation’s nonexistent democracy.

Fight on! Fight for universal single payer health care for all peoples in this nation! Fight for an end to corporate control of this nation! Fight for full economic and judicial justice for all our peoples! Let not this dream be deferred yet again!

Onward then, 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 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.

 

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July 9, 2009
Issue 332

is published every Thursday

Executive Editor:
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Managing Editor:
Nancy Littlefield
Publisher:
Peter Gamble
Est. April 5, 2002
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