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BlackCommentator.com: Just A Spoonful Of Novocaine Helps The Medicine Go Down - Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney, BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

   
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"It's like when you go to the dentist, and the man's going to take your tooth. You're going to fight him when he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to make you think they're not doing anything to you..."

- Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

It is repugnant yet simultaneously sad and horribly fascinating to observe so many black political pundits either minimizing or outright ignoring the egregious impact of U.S. President Barack Obama's bloody military intervention in Libya, North Africa, etc. and  subsequently his recent signing into law the so-called National  Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which, among other things, provides for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens inside the United States without even the due process of being charged with an offense, having a trial, a jury, or even the right to a legal defense, etc.

Apparently one needs only to a be part of the proportionally small black elite in this nation to be granted immunity from being held accountable for collective outrages against the ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of his country and the world at large. The horribly fascinating thing about this is the utter hypocrisy on the part of so many black 'intellectuals' and political pundits of the U.S. black elite.  Where is their actualized concern and legitimate outrage at this president's demonstrated disregard for the U.S. Constitution and the ordinary people of this land?  Where is their concern about the de facto police-state that Barack Obama's presidential signature of the NDAA has now legalized in the United States? What happened to their ability to critically think and analyze, or did novocaine-Obama simply dull their senses and sensibilities and replace them with hypocrisy?

This president has not once demonstrated the least bit of concern for the political prisoners confined in the prison gulags of this nation, or for that matter, for the burgeoning U.S. prison population in general, and the inhumane and deplorable conditions thereto. This president   sang Al Green to his audience at a recent fund raiser even as the masses of Black and other poor people of all colors sing the daily blues over the ongoing and increasing systemic economic, social, and political  injustices which they/we endure. This president is pimping the emotions and pain of the people - not serving them!  And this is truly no joke.

While this president is overwhelmingly shielded (by the corporate elite whom he serves and by their corporate-stream media) for his actions, reality awaits him and his systemically symbiotic Democrat and Republican cohorts. It is a reality, emboldened by and embodied in,   the growing pain of everyday people.  No amount of lies, omissions, or distractions can forever thwart the dreams of everyday people for genuine systemic change. As the late great Langston Hughes wrote, 'What happens to a dream deferred?' Barack Obama or no Barack Obama, the will and needs of the people collectively cannot forever be deferred. Ultimately, they will, in the words of Langston Hughes, 'explode.' Think about it. Where do you stand?  With the everyday people or with those, in the further words of Malcolm X, "who want to continue the system of exploitation?"

Those, irrespective of color, who support Barack Obama or anyone else, predicated upon color do a horrendous disservice to themselves, this nation, and the world. Moreover, such actions are in direct contravention of the paraphrased words of  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his vision that humans be judged on "the content of their character not the color of their skin." Sadly, in the case of Barack Obama, much of Black America has done and is doing precisely the opposite.  It is also noteworthy that Dr. King opposed war mongering and wars,   and unequivocally referred to the U.S. government as the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world," which it remains today under the 'leadership' and direction of Barack Obama. History will ultimately hold the final accounting as to what we did or did not do in these perilous and extremely challenging times today. Will it be infamy, or shall we fulfill our destinies as politically conscious human beings?

It's time to get rid of the terrible political novocaine injection under which many persons in this nation still lethargically function, thanks to the machinations of the corporate elite and the corporate-stream media.  It is time for fundamental and total systemic change.  This    change can and will be brought about only by the collective actions of everyday ordinary      Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people.

The rallying cry remains: 'All Power To The People!' Not the corporations. Not the corporate elite. Not the politicians of the Democrat and Republican [Republicrat] parties. The everyday people! This is a long and protracted struggle but an absolutely necessary one.

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 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.

 
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Mar 15, 2012 - Issue 463
is published every Thursday
Est. April 5, 2002
Executive Editor:
David A. Love, JD
Managing Editor:
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Publisher:
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