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.