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
 
May 12, 2011 - Issue 426
 
 

What Will it Take To Bring Obama Home?
Bringing Obama 'Home'? Get REAL!
Moving Left – Part 5
By Larry Pinkney
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

 

 

"In America, anyone can become president. That's the problem."

- George Carlin

The very notion of bringing the war mongering, double-talking, blood-drenched Barack Obama 'home' is repugnant. Barack Obama has repeatedly demonstrated that he is already very much at home with his corporate/military backers, with his exercising of endless subterfuge and deceit, his repression of internal political dissent, and with his slick de facto utter contempt for just plain ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and around the world. He is very much at home with the wielding of hypocritical, conscienceless power, as the head of the corporate / military U.S. Empire.  Barack Obama is the antithesis of open government and genuine economic and political democracy, while being the champion of back-room corporate deals,  obfuscation, military adventurism, and the political tactic of bait and switch.

This predator-drone missile war president has extended and broadened both the unconstitutional so-called 'Patriot Act' at home and the illegal U.S. program of international kidnapping and torture known euphemistically as 'Extraordinary Rendition.' He has kept and in fact increased and renamed U.S. troops and corporate gun-toting mercenaries of occupation in Iraq, even as he wages war in Afghanistan, and uses missiles, etc. to bomb the people of Pakistan and north Africa. Not content with his bloody planet-wide military intrigues, Obama has bestowed trillions of dollars (of the everyday people's money) to Wall Street barons and the corporate / military elite. Using his now infamous rhetorical antics of obfuscation and bait and switch, he is launching a premeditated attack on Social Security and Medicare; even as the tiny fraction of the filthy rich in this nation grow ever fatter from the economic blood of dwindling middle classes, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. Meanwhile, Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is doing his utmost to cleverly demonize public school teachers while defunding public school systems with a view towards corporately privatizing this nation's public school systems. Last, but certainly not least, Obama's U.S. Justice Department under Eric Holder, is engaging in a witch-hunt against political dissent by targeting political dissenters nationwide in an effort not only to intimidate and silence them, but just as importantly, to instill in the public psyche the fallacious notion that dissent is somehow disloyal or subversive in this alleged U.S. 'democracy.'    

The urgency now is to rid ourselves of this corporate-created 'Obama brand,' along with his blood-sucking, corporate-feeding,  two-legged political fox and wolf colleagues of the Democrat and Republican parties, and to uncompromisingly struggle for real, fundamental, and complete systemic change that serves the needs and interests of everyday people of all colors.

INVERTED RACISM: An Important Mainstay of the Obama/Biden Regime

In the United States of America, 'People of Color' and Whites alike have for centuries been targeted and so brutalized and manipulated by systemic institutional racism; and the corporate elite saw and grasped the opportunity to use it in a most hideously unique fashion. Undoubtedly, the U.S. corporate elite realized, long before the year 2007, that it had merely to devise a means to effectively use racism yet again, but this time in a different guise, to serve its avaricious interests.  This called for a systemically created, articulate, corporate candidate with a distinct color pigmentation whose job would be to mesmerize, and most importantly manipulate, ordinary people against their/our own political, economic, and social interests.  An 'Obama brand' was created, shaped, supported, and presented to the people of this nation under the guise and rhetoric of what came to be known as "hope and change." This 'Obama brand' was glitzy and articulate;  just light enough in color to not overly threaten Whites and just dark enough for Black and other 'people of color'  to racially identify with. The corporate elite knew that critical thinking would with such a candidate, in a superficially charged and excited political atmosphere, in large measure,  simply be discarded with.    

In other words, a corporately induced inverse kind of racism [i.e. a racism against themselves/ourselves] would be utilized against the people. This means that virtually any White person who dared criticize the policies and actions of [in this instance] Barack Obama (no matter how valid the criticism) would be dismissed as a racist; and any Black, Brown, Red, or Yellow person who did likewise would be essentially ignored or said to be a part of a nebulous so-called political fringe. This corporately induced inverted racism is in fact a mainstay of the Barack Obama regime, and needs to be understood for precisely what it is. Its irony is that this corporately induced inverted racism is in fact a systemic strengthening of racism and manipulation, not the weakening or elimination of them. The insidious roles played by U.S. 'educational' institutions and the corporate-stream "news" media in this manipulation, and in the maintenance of this corporately induced inverted racism cannot be over-emphasized. The corporate-stream media is not limited to ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and the like, but also includes CNN and PBS (the corporate-sponsored so-called Public Broadcast System) et al. The power and effectiveness of these aforementioned institutions and corporate stream media outlets, including print media, etc., is amply demonstrated by how effectively much of the U.S. population has been intellectually dumbed-down to almost the point of intellectual idiocy, incapable of critical thinking. The subliminal message is "Watch Oprah or one of her clones! Watch American Idol! Watch Makeover, etc.! Be Obedient to the corporate/military state! Adore Obama, and his ilk but don't dare analyze and/or critically think!!"     

This is why, for example, otherwise seemingly intelligent people, make such utterly ridiculous statements devoid of all logic, such as, "Don't blame Obama. He's only the Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces." This is a manifestation of pathology, a corporately induced inverted racism at work which renders null and void the very idea of critical thought.  It is a deliberately maintained psychological mainstay  and control mechanism by the corporate-backed Obama/Biden regime, and must be addressed forthrightly for what it is.

Notwithstanding the intensification of the cycle of terror, the negation of international law, and the mockery of justice by recent U.S. military actions in the sovereign nation of Pakistan, etc.; where were the overwhelming howls of outrage at the blatant and institutionally racist code name designation by Obama's military of Osama Bin Laden, as 'Geronimo?' The obscene use by the Obama regime of this Indigenous Native person's historical and time honored name re that bloody U.S. military foray demonstrates an absolute contempt for the Indigenous Native people, the thievery of their lands, and the terrible genocide that they suffered at the hands of 'America.' This is not a small thing. It is however, yet another indication of systemic institutional and corporately induced inverted racism by, and on behalf of, the Obama regime and its cohorts. The cold blooded message of insensitivity and arrogance towards Indigenous Native People has not gone unnoticed by conscious and critically thinking people of all colors in this nation and throughout Mother Earth. Yes, Barack Obama is already very much at home--at home with his hypocrisy, deceit, obfuscation, militarism, and repression at home and abroad.

It is time for the everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of this nation to cease being the political dupes of the wily, corporate-backed Barack Obama and his ilk, be they Democrat or Republican. Politically supporting Barack Obama is not dismantling corporate hegemony, militarism or racism. It is in fact enhancing them.

On Voting

Notwithstanding Barack Obama, the process itself of going to the polls to vote for a Democrat or a Republican in an election cycle is essentially an exercise in ping-pong political futility. Indeed, election cycles are precisely that - cycles. They are a cyclical process in a systemically never-ending circle [i.e. cycle] of spinning back and forth between either the corporate-backed Democratic Party foxes or the corporate-backed Republican Party wolves.  Moreover, voting can be carried out in ways other than at the voting booth. The very definition of the word vote must be expanded into something that is relevant to the bringing about of real and fundamental systemic change. Otherwise merely voting at the polls remains nothing more than a fraudulent, cyclical, systemic trap.

There are a host of ways that people might choose to vote. People can vote in many different ways. People can vote through acts of civil disobedience. People can vote by refusing to buy various corporate products. People can vote by channeling their time and energies into building food collectives and/or liberation schools locally and nationally. People can vote by actually consciously refusing to vote at the polls at all. People can vote with their feet at political demonstrations calling for economic, political, and social justice. People can vote by seizing every viable opportunity to educate ourselves, our friends, and our neighbors to and about the necessity for real systemic change. There are numerous additional ways to vote which call for creativity and innovativeness by you the reader. Find them, create them, but do something NOW!

THE CORPORATE-STREAM MEDIA

Stop believing in or depending upon the corporate-stream media for news, analyses, and information.  The corporate-stream media will never tell the important truths. It's role is to control the political narrative and to form your opinion, not to seriously inform you. And an uninformed people are a controlled and manipulated people doomed to lethargy, infamy, and ultimate oblivion.

There are alternatives to the corporate-stream media but you, the reader, must search for them and network with others who will share these alternatives. For example, do not expect  the powerful, analytical, and inspiring film LIFTING the VEIL: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist 'Democracy' made available to you by the corporate-stream media. This film, and others like it, do not serve the objectives of engendering obedience and conformity to the corporate/military state. [Click here to watch the film LIFTING the VEIL in its entirety] This nation and Mother Earth needs critical thinkers, not compliant clones.

To reiterate: Barack Obama is already very much at home with his trappings of power and prestige. It is we, the everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people who must do the hard, important, and urgent political work of bringing each other home collectively--home to a nation and planet whose inhabitants have thrown off the yoke of cloaked 21st century fascism which is disguised under the auspices of corporate/military hegemony in this fake democracy of the U.S. Empire.

Onward then my sisters and brothers! Onward!

Click here to read any commentary in this BC series.

Click here to send a comment to all the participants in this BC series.

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 News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. 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.