The Black Commentator: An independent weekly internet magazine dedicated to the movement for economic justice, social justice and peace - Providing commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans and the African world. www.BlackCommentator.com
 
Jul 29, 2010 - Issue 386
 
 

Obama’s Treachery from Afghanistan to Shirley Sherrod
Keeping it Real
By Larry Pinkney
B
lackCommentator.com Editorial Board

 

 
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

The worsening economic and political plight of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation grows ever more perilous by the day. The hypocrisy, obfuscation, lies and cowardice of Barack Obama and his Democratic Party foxes have, in just under two years, done more to facilitate the impending onslaught by the extreme right-wing Republican Party wolves than the so-called ‘Tea Partiers’ ever could. Sadly, this should come as no surprise.

As Barack Obama parties in the White House, and utters constant and hollow rhetoric for corporate-stream media consumption and dissemination, the people of this nation and planet increasingly suffer the egregious hardships of war, unemployment, home foreclosures, no universal health care, ecological disaster, corporate domination, and intensified political repression [his brazen extension of the ‘Patriot Act’ and ‘Rendition’].

It is becoming ever more apparent that the Obama economic “reforms” are nothing more than big, fat gifts to the corporate / military elite by the Obama regime. Everyday people are seriously hurting, while Barack Obama, notwithstanding his articulate double-speak rhetoric, euphemistically resides on another planet. Barack Obama is not inept. He is the willing robotic clone of the national and global corporate / military elite, and he knows precisely what he is doing.

From Obama’s enormous and criminal bail-out of the bloodsucking corrupt Wall Street corporate elite, to his large and repeated U.S. military escalations [and those of the corporate mercenaries known as ‘contractors’] in Afghanistan, to his well orchestrated bait and switch - ‘I didn’t know the gun was loaded’ disguised antics - which are in de facto support of big oil corporations, he has demonstrated his utter contempt for the legitimate needs, intelligence, and human rights of everyday people of all colors. Indeed, the list of Obama treachery against everyday people has become almost endless and grows daily. It is a litany of implicit and explicit treachery and betrayal.

Then of course, there are those Obama apologists and misleaders (both Black and White, etc.) who attempt to excuse, overlook, and/or rationalize Barack Obama’s treachery and betrayal. These persons did not merely take the euphemistic blue pill of illusion. They are the blue pill of disastrous illusion. Some of them said that they were or are partial or “critical supporters” of this Obama corporate / military clone, which is singularly absurd. It is akin to saying that a person is partially dead - when in fact that person is neither breathing nor conscious and is clearly quite dead. It is nothing more than cynical opportunism in the theater of the absurd.

There were a number of crucial warning signs two years ago, pertaining to who this Barack Obama really was and is. One of the most obvious warning signs was the overwhelming support by the corporate-stream media for then-U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama. The corporate-stream media has never served the interests of everyday people, nor will it ever.

Ironically, another crucial warning sign was the corporate-stream media disinformation and distortion surrounding U.S. military veteran Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and then-candidate Barack Obama’s disgraceful and opportunistic pretense that he was unaware of the social, cultural, and political stance of Reverend Wright (whom Obama had known for many years) - as Obama threw him under the bus of political expediency, hypocrisy, and crass opportunism. All people, regardless of their color, should have been deeply alarmed, not by what Reverend Wright is purported to have said in a sermon, but by what Obama did not say and by his subsequent opportunistic and hypocritical actions thereto. It is ironic that in throwing Reverend Wright under the bus, Obama was in fact demonstrating for all to see that he would sacrifice anyone as long as it was to his personal advantage. And by the way, anyone does mean anyone, irrespective of color. Barack Obama would propagate horse manure if he deemed it to be to his personal advantage; - everyday people be damned! Barack Obama is neither Black nor White. He is an articulate, groomed, and finely tuned clone of the corporate / military elite for whom power (at the economic and political expense of everyday people of all colors) means absolutely everything. This is the ‘Mr. hope and change,’ Barack Obama.

The fairly recent debacle pertaining to Shirley Sherrod of the United States Department of Agriculture is simply another example of Barack Obama’s acquiescence to the extreme right wing. For a certainty, Obama himself is right-wing, but just as importantly, his repeatedly demonstrated propensity for coddling the insanity of the extreme right-wing politicos and its media is indicative of how he and his regime are facilitating the rise of the extreme right-wing in this nation. Once again, Mr. Obama, in the Shirley Sherrod matter, claimed that he, as it were, essentially ‘didn’t know the gun was loaded.’ In other words, he and his regime claimed that they were unaware of the facts - which in themselves are ridiculous. But if indeed, that was the case, it makes matters even worse. The extreme right-wing media is doing what it has always done, i.e. disfiguring the facts to suit its own agenda. Only morons - which Barack Obama and his regime are not - would not have known this. Nevertheless, the Obama regime did not hesitate to publicly politically lynch Ms. Sherrod at the drop of the extreme right-wing’s noxious hat. Since Obama himself has demonstrated that he has no principles or honor, it should come as no surprise that he and his regime were stunned by Ms. Sherrod’s refreshing honesty and candor - for which she was made to pay dearly by the Obama regime. No ‘apology’ in the world can compensate for the ignoble political lynching of Ms. Shirley Sherrod. But of course this does, after all, represent who and what Barack Obama is, and there will be more examples of these kinds of things in the future. Moreover, the deafening silence of much of the U.S. Black intelligentsia misleaders regarding the Sherrod case can only be described as utterly despicable, though not in the least bit surprising.

The ‘liberal’ and the right-wing corporate-stream media engages in a constant barrage of disinformation, misinformation, and hype for the purpose of confusing and manipulating everyday people of all colors. Yet another example of this can be seen in the outlandish, dangerous, and ridiculous corporate-stream media feeding frenzy re the so called ‘New Black Panther Party.’ There is no such thing as a “New” Black Panther Party, just as there is no such thing as a “new” Malcolm X or a “new” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Reference http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm).

The corporate-stream media is well aware of this reality. It is also aware of the fact that the actual Black Panther Party (founded in October, 1966) was physically decimated by the U.S. Government, under the auspices of the infamous and illegal COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), well before the end of the 20th century. Moreover, it is no secret that detailed information on the past numerous national community service programs of the long-physically defunct Black Panther Party [e.g. its free breakfast programs, free clinic programs, free clothing programs, etc., and its Ten-Point Program & Platform can be easily obtained from the web site of the Black Panther Party Legacy & Alumni at www.itsabouttimebpp.com . It knows full well that the Black Panther Party coined and believed in the political slogan “All Power To The People;” not merely power to Black people alone. Nevertheless, the 21st century ‘liberal’ and right-wing corporate-stream media of disinformation indulge in bogus sensationalism and hype, in an effort to confuse, frighten, and manipulate everyday people.

The point is that the corporate government’s objective continues to be to misinform and manipulate, and the Barack Obama regime is no exception in this regard. Indeed, in many ways, it is far worse.

From the bloody war in Vietnam to the bloody wars in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, the U.S. corporate / military elite continues to pillage the planet and everyday people of all colors in this nation and around the world. Barack Obama is serving his corporate / military masters well and without conscience. Be clear about this.

When, for example, you think of political prisoners, you do not have to leave the shores of the United States to find them, for they are languishing in prisons throughout this nation. They are both male and female, and they are Black, Red, Brown, White, and Yellow. Even those of us who are not caged in cells behind physical prison walls are mentally caged by the incessant corporate government’s propaganda disseminated by the corporate-stream media. We must break free of our mental chains once and for all!

The treachery of ‘Mr. hope and change’ Barack Obama is becoming self evident. Our only viable hope for change must emanate from we ourselves - collectively.

Remember: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

It’s time to organize and bring about real systemic change. 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 NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/LehrerNewsHour. 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.