Are
we hamsters running endlessly on a spinning wheel, oblivious
to the fact that we are substantively going nowhere
but backwards? Or, are we reasoning, critically thinking
human beings who have enough sense to comprehend the
enormous difference between being on a perpetually spinning
wheel, and making real systemic change that serves the
needs and aspirations of ordinary people?
The
time is here and now for everyday, ordinary Black, White,
Brown, Red, and Yellow people to address and honestly
answer this question. We must take responsibility for
our collective destinies.
The
political system of the United States really is one wherein the
following words, attributed to Charlie King, so thoroughly
apply: �America is a melting
pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all the
scum floats to the top.� The obvious question is
why? Why is this allowed to continue? The answer
is not complicated. It is the denial, self delusion,
lethargy, and hypocrisy on the part of far too many
people in this nation -- stoked and perpetuated
-- by the corporate-owned Democratic and Republican
parties, the corporate-stream �news� media, and their
concomitant systemic �educational� institutions. The
scum does not float to the top by osmosis. It
is quite deliberate.
Nevertheless,
this grim scenario does not have to remain in place.
The revolving door of systemic insanity can be
eliminated and discarded, but only by us, ordinary everyday
people. It�s not going to happen unless and until everyday
Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this
nation become fed up with being endlessly divided, systemically
pimped, and treated as if we are caged hamsters, endlessly
running on a perpetually spinning wheel.
It�s
time to call out, for what and who they really are,
those so-called �liberals� and �progressives� who rightfully
and vigorously organized and protested against the U.S.
wars, internal political repression, and economic emaciation
of everyday people by the Republican party Bush/Cheney
regime, but whose silence is deafening when it comes
to the outrageous abuses (both internally and externally)
of the current corporate-owned, predator-drone missile,
Democratic party occupant of the White House, who has
far surpassed (in less than four years) the scandalous
actions of his predecessor. It�s time to understand
that these alleged �liberals� and �progressives� are
HYPOCRITES who are showing that they are, in reality,
systemic gatekeepers, perpetuating the revolving door
of the Democratic and Republican party insanity of this
system.
Suddenly,
it apparently does not seem to matter to these hypocrites
that trillions of dollars of the people�s money was
criminally given to the elite Wall Street bloodsuckers,
or that the horror of Guantanamo continues, or that
�extraordinary rendition� continues, or that U.S. wars
are raging in Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., or that the
U.S. bombed Libya, North Africa, or that the unconstitutional
�Patriot Act� (which in essence codifies into law the
U.S. government�s infamous COINTELPRO horrors) has been
renewed and still stands, or even that the current White
House occupant has signed into law the reality of indefinite
detention (NDAA) of U.S. citizens inside this nation,
without charge or due process. This is why the �scum�
repeatedly �floats to the top� in the rigged political
system in the United States. Wake up people!
Unchain your minds while there is yet time!
Remember
well the words of Harriet Tubman when she said, �I freed
a thousand slaves - I could have freed a thousand more
if only they knew they were slaves.�
To
reiterate: The denial, self delusion, lethargy, and
hypocrisy of far too many people (including many so-called
�liberals� and �progressives�) in this nation is precisely
why this revolving door of systemic insanity continues
unabated, and the people of all colors in this
nation stay on the euphemistic and insidious political
plantation of powerlessness.
We
must stop being fooled and sucked in by the bait-and-switch
tactics and fake left/right paradigm of the corporate
owned Democratic and Republican parties. They are not
friends or allies of the everyday people, no matter
what lies spew forth from their lips through their corporate-stream
media.
Organize,
agitate, educate! Each one, reach one. Each one, teach
one. Cherish and protect our Mother Earth! 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.