Table of Contents

There are 15 chapters in this issue

About BlackCommentator.com

Cover Story: Fast Food Workers Are Standing Up And Walking Out - A View from the Battlefield By Jamala Rogers, BC Editorial Board

Corky Gonzales Library - Political Cartoon By Eric Garcia, Chicago IL

Quote to Ponder: "I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion…" - Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales

Migration Is Beautiful / Support Immigration Reform - Art By Favianna Rodriguez

The Well Travelled and Disastrous Road from Kabul to Benghazi - Left Margin - By Carl Bloice - BC Editorial Board

A Question of Who’s Doing the Stealing - Solidarity America - By John Funiciello - BC Columnist

Freedom of Snuggly - Animated Political Cartoon By Mark Fiore, San Francisco CA

Remembering Sakia Gunn: The News Coverage and Homophobic Murder – Inclusion - By The Reverend Irene Monroe - BC Editorial Board

No Thanks For the Motivation - The Other Side of the Tracks - By Perry Redd - BC Columnist

Congressional Repair - BC Political Cartoon By Chuck Siler

Rush Limbaugh . . .President Of White America - Sharp n’ Blunt By Desi Cortez, BC Columnist

The Ideas Of Black Nationalist Thinking - Worrill’s World By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, BC Columnist

The Twisted Paradigm of 'Hope and Change' in the U.S. - Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney, BC Editorial Board

UN Says Eating Insects Could Fight World Hunger! - Political Cartoon By Carlos Latuff, Rio de Janeiro Brazil

This is an eBook version of BlackCommentator.com - An independent weekly internet magazine dedicated to the movement for economic justice, social justice and peace.

BC Provides commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans and the African world.

BC was established April 5, 2002 and is published weekly on Thursday.

Executive Editor: David A. Love, JD - Managing Editor: Nancy Littlefield, MBA - Publisher: Peter Gamble

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

Members of the BC Editorial Board represent African Americans and the African world. They are dedicated activists, thinkers and writers. The BC Editorial Board includes the following in alphabetical order by last name:

Lola Adesioye, Carl Bloice, Julian Bond, Rose Brewer PhD, Horace Campbell PhD, Imani Countess, Lenore Jean Daniels PhD, Bill Fletcher Jr., James Jennings PhD, Badili Jones, Martin Kilson PhD, Sharon Kyle JD, David A. Love JD, Julianne Malveaux PhD, Manning Marable PhD, Syreeta McFadden, The Reverend Irene Monroe, Leith Mullings PhD, Jacqui Patterson, Larry Pinkney, Steven Pitts PhD, Barbara Ransby PhD, Jamala Rogers, Ethel Long-Scott, Amy V. Simmons, William L. (Bill) Strickland, Chuck Turner, Nathaniel Turner, Ron Walters PhD, Emira Woods, Jeanne Woods JD.

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

They are not in a good mood and they certainly aren’t lovin’ it. If workers in the fast food industry really had it their way, they’d get a livable wage and better working conditions freaky fast.

The resistance to inhumane work conditions and low pay of the fast food industry has been bubbling beneath the surface for some time. The first organized walkout of industry workers happened in New York City last month. The walkouts inspired workers in Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit with other cities in the planning stages.

There is still a misperception that teens make up the majority of the nearly 3.5 million workers in the industry. This is simply not true. According to the Bureau of Labor Stats, the average age of these workers is 28 years and for women, it’s 32 years. Women make up two thirds of the workforce. Grown folks struggling to make ends meet while being treated like subhumans at work is a sure formula for rebellion.

The stories coming out of the national protests are revealing the ugly underside of the $200 billion industry and how it treats its employees.

The Fast Food Forward campaign in New York documented the prevalence of wage theft in the local industry. The most common theft practices includes having to work before and after clocking in, working during scheduled meal breaks and working overtime without getting paid extra for it. These despicable practices are not unique to the New York area; they are widespread.

Additionally, most workers don’t have paid sick days or health care. And they have to find their own replacements when they are going to miss work.

Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter and Jimmy John’s founder Jimmy Liautaud have already vowed publicly to reduce their workers hours to avoid paying for health care under the Affordable Health Care Act. These declarations come at a time when fast food companies are making record profits and growing exponentially.

The fast food industry has taken a page from the Wal-Mart Employer Handbook. It pays these workers minimum wage to keep them in poverty and thereby allows them to be eligible for government assistance to supplement their paltry salaries.

In St. Louis, the campaign slogan was We Can’t Survive on $7.35. The hundreds of supporters who joined the protesting workers agree. It was a powerful image to witness teams of community and faith leaders escorting workers back to their jobs after their day of absence. The result was that no workers were hassled upon their return to work and to date, there’s been no retaliation by management.

Americans addiction to fast food fuels this industry so consumers do have a dog in this fight. If this movement is to be successful, it’s going to have to be a community effort and even be supported by those of us who don’t eat at these restaurants. We must add our voices to the workers’ demands for dignity in the workplace, a livable wage and the right to join a union.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Jamala Rogers, founder and Chair Emeritus of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis. She is an organizer, trainer and speaker. She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It – A Chronicle of Struggle. Click here to contact Ms. Rogers.

May 23, 2013 -Issue 518

Read about the Corky Gonzales Library controversy

BlackCommentator.com cartoonist/artist Eric Garcia produces "historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about contemporary issues”. That’s how Garcia describes his artwork. A versatile artist working in an assortment of media, from paintings, to hand-printed posters, to sculpture installations, Garcia’s art has a common goal of educating and challenging. Click here to contact brother Eric. His website is southvalleyart.com. Follow Eric on twitter garciaink@twitter.com or friend Eric J. Garcia on facebook.

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

More about Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales

Read entire I Am Joaquin/Yo soy Joaquin poem

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

America is a land of diversity with a rich history of embracing immigration. Almost any American can trace their family roots to immigrants. Often our ancestors migrated to escape prejudices in their homeland and to find a better life. Current immigration laws do not reflect our shared values, nor do they reflect the realities of our modern world. They all too often separate parents from their children and criminalize those seeking a better way of life. We call upon Congress to put forth an Immigration Reform Bill that leaves no one out and provides a roadmap to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants. Let’s live up to our highest ideals of democracy and freedom. Check out my friend Favianna Rodriguez’s Migration is Beautiful image and please share.

- Shepard Fairey

Help spread these butterflies and make a statement for just and humane immigration reform. Visit MigrationIsBeautiful.com.

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

In his book Blowback, published in 2000, the author and scholar, Chalmers Johnson, wrote: “World politics in the twenty-first century will in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the intended consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision to maintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War world.” In 2003, in a preface to the book’s second edition, he wrote that the attacks of September 11, 2001 “descend in a direct line” from events in 1979, when the CIA launched “its largest ever clandestine operation.” the secret arming of mujahideen to wage a proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, “which involved the recruitment and training of militants from all over the Islamic world.”

“The blowback from the second half of the twentieth century has only just begun,” Johnson concluded.

Johnson died a couple years ago. I bet were he around today he would spot the line – sometimes direct and other times indirect – running from Afghanistan to Libya and on to Syria, and even touching on the April 15 premeditated murder of innocents at the Boston Marathon.

Last week, the Financial Times wrote that Qatar had fallen into second place when it comes to providing arms for the forces out to overthrow the Syrian government. Partly, it said this is because of “concern in the West and among other Arab states that weapons it supplies could fall into the hands of an al-Qaeda-linked group, Jabhat al-Nusrah, which has gained strength over the past year.” The story went on, “Diplomats also say the Qataris have had trouble securing a steady supply of arms, something the Saudis have been able to do via their more developed networks. Those networks are a legacy of past endeavors in places such as Afghanistan, where in the 1980s the Saudis helped bankroll US-led support for Mujahedeen fighting against Soviet occupation.”

The Saudis and the Qataris spent a lot of money recruiting, transporting and arming fighters for the Libya war as well. There, “Al-Qaida played a key role in toppling Gadhafi and remains a potent threat,” UPI reported May 14.

The Cold War is ostensibly over but training and arming the bad guys never stopped.

I have no idea what really went on in official Washington following the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi but the policy makers must have had serious concern about it appearing that once again, forces unleashed by the U.S., Britain and France had bit the hand that fed them.

Outside the devastated consulate after the attack, a young member of a Libyan security team told an interviewer that the group suspected of storming the building had been considered on the side of the good guys.

On May 14, New York Times columnist, David Brooks, made an intriguing statement. “Furthermore, intelligence officers underestimated how dangerous the situation was,” he wrote. “They erred in vetting the Libyan militia that was supposed to provide security.” Maybe one day he will elaborate.

Describing the emails that were turned over by the Obama Administration to Congressional investigators, Eli Lake, the senior national security correspondent for Newsweek, wrote May 14 in the Daily Beast that there was “extensive discussion on the evening of September 14 about whether the talking points should mention Anwar al-Sharia, a jihadist militia member. The original CIA draft stated he was a likely participant in the attacks. Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman at the time, asked whether or not mentioning the group would prejudice the investigation, and the FBI in later emails did not object (to what?). Still, the final version excised the reference to Ansar al-Sharia as well as a reference to Facebook posts the group had created suggesting a link to the attacks.”

And how about the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the bombing in Boston that killed three and wounded more than 260? A short time before the terror attack, the eldest, Tamerlan, was in Manchester, NH having tea with a friend, Musa Khadzhimuratov, a Chechen exile that the New York Times identified as a “former separatist fighter.” He had once been a bodyguard for Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen separatist leader now living in London. On May 14, the FBI searched Khadzhimuratov’s home, inspected his computers and gave him a lie detector test.

Khadzhimuratov told the Voice of America that he and Tsarnaev the elder had met three times, visited a local shooting range together and never talked politics.

Then there is Graham Fuller, a high CIA official whose daughter married Ruslan Tsarnaev, uncle of the Tsarnaev brothers, who, according to numerous accounts, was quite familiar with the project to recruit and train terrorists for use in the former USSR.

Because people in the “intelligence” community don’t usually talk out loud about such things, we may never know the real story behind the Moscow arrest of the U.S. spy with the ugly wig, pocket knife, compass and roll of dollars. But no one has refuted the Russian’s claim that he was trying to recruit a Russian who specializes in the affairs of the North Caucasus. According to the Guardian (UK), “The US has not reacted to the expulsion of Ryan Fogle, who Russia said was caught in a sting operation last week while allegedly attempting to recruit an FSB agent focused on anti-terrorism efforts in Russia’s North Caucasus.”

Throughout the Cold War, the CIA had “assets” in that troubled part of the then Soviet Union that includes Chechnya and it has never ceased to stir that pot.

Last week, CNN reported that “Russian authorities asked U.S. officials to investigate Tamerlan before the trip, saying they believed he was becoming increasingly involved with radical Islam. The FBI investigated, but found no evidence of extremist activity and closed the case.” U.S. officials probably had good reason to be wary about following up on Russian warnings and inquiries about Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

According to the Guardian (UK), “The US has not reacted to the expulsion of Ryan Fogle, who Russia said was caught in a sting operation last week while allegedly attempting to recruit an FSB agent focused on anti-terrorism efforts in Russia’s North Caucasus.”

Last year, with the governments of Britain and France leading the pack and the U.S. “leading from behind,” they launched yet another attempt to use a popular political uprising to overthrow a government they once wooed and then turned against. What has it wrought? According to UPI, “Eighteen months after the downfall of Moammar Gadhafi, Libya remains a powder keg with a government unable to control dozens of armed groups whose lawless marauding has created a security crisis that’s driving off desperately needed foreign investment.”

And, “Security officials say there are about 500 militias and armed groups across Libya, most of them competing with one another. Libya's Warrior Affairs Commission estimates these total around 250,000 men who hold allegiance to warlords, tribal leaders and Salafist groups rather than to the government that's struggling to emerge.”

Writing May 13 in the neoconservative organ Commentary, arch neocon Max Boot described what he considers “the real scandal” around Benghazi - “the shameful failure of the Obama administration to extend state-building assistance to Libya’s pro-Western leaders after having helped them to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. The inability of the Libyan government to control its own territory created the conditions that led to the 2012 attack – and those conditions have not changed since.”

Boot went on to quote a recent Reuters dispatch from Tripoli that said “More than 18 months after the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s new rulers have yet to impose a firm grip on a country awash with weapons. Rebel groups that helped to overthrow him are still refusing to disband, and remain more visible on the streets than the state security forces.”

Ethan Chorin, a former U.S. diplomat in Libya and expert on the Libyan economy, chides the U.S. for having been “unprepared for the ability of terrorist groups to undermine advances toward civil authority there.”

“In short, if the United States and its NATO and Arab allies had learned from the Iraq experience and implemented a full, well-supported plan for Benghazi, covering everything from technical assistance to security and staffing, we might have averted the attack and the momentum it has given to extremists.”

Boot and Chorin are both wise enough to know the history of such endeavors but foolish enough to think the U.S. can or should step in to bring it all under control and sort out the freedom lovers from the reactionary extremists. The lesson they apparently draw from Iraq and Afghanistan is: try it again.

Chorin, however, is clear on where he thinks the trouble began. “Libya’s own ‘Islamist’ problem is itself a product in part of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan– those conflicts attracted militants looking to hone their skills in the war against Gaddafi; they returned to fight in the Libyan Revolution, and many are now back in Syria helping the Islamist factions within Syrian rebel ranks,” he wrote on his blog May 4.

“US, British and French recipes for Syria’s future seem as fraught with potential for disaster as their plans in 1916 or 2003,” wrote Patrick Cockburn in the Independent (UK) May 12. “In saying that [President] Assad can play no role in a future Syrian government, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, speaks of the leader of a government that has still only lost one provincial capital to the rebels. Such terms can only be imposed on the defeated or those near defeat. This will only happen in Syria if Western powers intervene militarily on behalf of the insurgents, as they did in Libya, but the long-term results might be equally dismal.”

“Mr. Obama would not be a decent human being – let alone a leader – if he did not have an urge to try to stop the killing in Syria,” wrote the Financial Times chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman May 14. “He is hanging back because he does not have the answers to some really crucial questions.

“If we supply weapons to the rebels, how do we know that it will not simply lead to worse bloodshed? If western intervention is decisive enough to tip the military balance, do we understand the nature of the forces that will take control in Syria? Is there any way of ensuring that a decent regime will emerge in Syria, short of a decade-long, Afghanistan-style commitment to nation-building? (And, incidentally, even Afghanistan has not worked out too well.)”

Bob Woodward has taken some flak for his view of the situation after he had read the Administration’s internal emails. (“Oh, let’s not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let’s not tell the public that there were warnings.”) Well, I think that’s more likely than Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s explanation (“In the midst of a re-election campaign, Obama aides wanted to promote the mythology that the president who killed Osama was vanquishing terror. So they deemed it problematic to mention any possible Qaeda involvement in the Benghazi attack.”). There were al Qaeda-linked “terrorists” involved. And, there were warnings dating back to 2000 and “Blowback.” When you lay down with dogs you get fleas.

In Syria and elsewhere, the U.S. is funding (with help of the freedom loving Gulf monarchies), arming and training the same terrorists it is said to be fighting in Yemen, Mali and Libya. The consequence would seem to be inevitable. Those aren’t chickens. It’s a whole flock of turkey buzzards coming home to roost.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union. Bloice is one of the moderators of Portside. Other Carl Bloice writing can be found at leftmargin.wordpress.com. Click here to contact Mr. Bloice.

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

In a country where it seems the sole purpose of government is to put on a show of fake combat between the two parties, it’s getting more and more difficult to determine who is stealing what and how the stealing is being accomplished.

During the recent debate over the Farm Bill this week, one courageous representative had the chutzpah to stand up in a committee meeting and declare that Americans who receive food stamps are the beneficiaries of government stealing other people’s money.

The reason that this took some courage is that Rep. Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn., has himself, along with his family, been the beneficiary of millions of dollars in farm subsidies over recent years, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures. Between 1999 and 2012, Fincher collected $3.48 million in farm subsidies, which breaks down to an average of $24,166 per month. That money comes from one source, the American taxpayers.

While he collected his farm subsidies for doing nothing, he lashed out against food stamp recipients for taking their comparative pittance of $100-$300 a month as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Food stamps go to those who have been left out of the social and economic benefits of the nation. They include children, the elderly, those who are disabled, veterans, those who are unable to find jobs that will allow them to support their families. Both versions of the Farm Bill have cut SNAP funding and the result is the cutoff of some 2 million working families from food assistance.

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), Fincher received a government check for $70,000 as a direct payment in 2012. Direct payments, EWG noted, “are issued automatically, regardless of need, and go predominantly to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country.” The group adds: Fincher’s $70,000 farm subsidy haul in 2012 dwarfs the average 2012 SNAP benefit in Tennessee of $1,586.40, and it is nearly double of Tennessee’s median household income. After voting to cut SNAP by more than $20 billion.

Fincher, who quotes the Bible in partially explaining his vote against SNAP benefits, managed to vote in favor of expanding crop insurance subsidies by $9 billion over the next 10 years. This was right after he voted to cut SNAP by more than $20 billion (that effort by the Republicans failed). The actual cut to SNAP was smaller, but tell that to the millions of families who will have many hungry days in the future. Quoting the Bible, he told constituents and others: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

We can be sure that Fincher’s belly will always be full, because if he is not eating on his generous government paycheck and the perks that go with it, he will eat well on the farm subsidies that he receives for doing no work. That has to be the answer for someone who has incomes from a variety of sources, all of them seeming to emanate from one source, the American worker and taxpayer. The history that Fincher has read must be of the let-them-eat-cake school.

According to the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank, the cost of food stamps has doubled under President Obama, and the group claims that 80 percent of the Farm Bill consists of food stamp benefits, with the rest going to subsidies. One thing that Heritage fails to mention in its raising of the alarm about all that money going to poor people is that most of the farm subsidies, including “crop insurance” goes to a “small group of large farm businesses, while the bottom 80 percent of farmers receive roughly $5,000 a year,” according to EWG. SNAP limits aid to income below 130 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $30,000 per year for two adults and two children.

Republicans and others on the right continue their mantra of “providing only for the deserving poor,” and those who cannot fend for themselves. They obviously have not been watching the news about the economy and the dearth of jobs over the past 10 years. They obviously do not know that there is an economic crisis in most regions of the country. The stock market may be to their liking, but most workers do not rise and fall with the stock market. Rather, they are subject to it. The lack of jobs is a crisis in the U.S., but it is not likely that the representatives and senators who are debating the Farm Bill this week have been to the homes of those who are in need of food stamps. If they did, they would understand the depth of the problem.

The food stamp program is just one of the ways that tens of millions of Americans cope with an economy that has failed them. And, it is not of their doing. They just have to put up with it. Politicians have failed the people, in general, and their failure to help develop another way to work and live and survive is weakening the country, day by day.

It’s pretty easy to see who gets something for nothing, when looking at the disparity in wealth between the top 1 percent and the other 99 percent. There is no work and no effort that warrants $30 million for an annual paycheck for CEOs, but that’s where the money is. Food stamps are really a band-aid solution to the problem of the U.S. economy and it would not be too much to ask to see the program’s size double again.

That politicians show their contempt for those who are in need and question whether they really need assistance speaks volumes about their lack of understanding of the crumbling condition of the economy and the poisonous politics they have created.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a long-time former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.

May 23, 2013 -Issue 518

view the animation

Pulitzer Prize-winner, Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal has called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons in San Francisco, where his work has been featured on the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site, SFGate.com, for over ten years. His work also appears on Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com and NPR’s web site. Fiore’s political animation has appeared on CNN, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe.

Click here to contact Mark

May 23, 2013 -Issue 518

This May 11th sadly marked the tenth anniversary of the murder of Sakia Gunn of Newark, N.J. And her murder is mired, at best, by myths and, at worst, malicious intent.

Depending, however, on the LGBTQ circles in which you run and where you get your news, you might know who she was. And for many, Gunn was and still is barely a blip on both the gay and national news radar screen.

While a nation cried out in horror in 1998 over the brutal killing of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old white gay male student at the University of Wyoming, and the murder of Teena Brandon, a 21-year-old white Nebraskan transgender man that culminated in the 1999 hit movie, “Boys Don’t Cry,” untold numbers of hate crimes against LGBTQ people of color not only went unreported in mainstream papers, they also rarely saw the light of day in queer ones as well.

When homophobic bullying, resulting in suicide, was on its way to becoming a national epidemic and newsworthy, both gay and national media captured it. For example, in the month of September 2010, nine teen suicides were tied to sexual orientation or gender expression, highlighting the disproportionate bullying of our LGBTQ kids and those perceived to be LGBTQ.

One of the suicides that September was that of 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi. Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge after finding out that his college roommate and another classmate had secretly used a webcam to broadcast his sexual encounters with another male, highlighting the dangers of “cyberbullying” - teasing, harassing, or intimidating with pictures or words distributed online or via text message.

The story of Clementi’s suicide and the many others that happened that month went viral and saturated the media. However, the suicide of Joseph Jefferson, a 26-year-old African-American activist for LGBT youth, went largely unnoticed.

“I could not bear the burden of living as a gay man of color in a world grown cold and hateful towards those of us who live and love differently than the so-called ‘social mainstream,’” Jefferson posted on his Facebook page the day he killed himself.

Issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation trigger a particular type of news broadcasting on major network channels. With many of these network channels’ objective to provide viewers with “infotainment” rather than fair and balanced reporting, discerning television viewers - straight and gay - are most often incensed and insulted by the news than informed by it.

Case in point: in 2007, The O’Reilly Factor with Bill O’Reilly on FOX News, which is one of today’s highest rated and most viewed talked show, tipped its scales on purportedly delivering fair and balanced reporting. The O’Reilly Factor carelessly brought defamatory news to it viewers about an allegedly nationwide epidemic of black lesbian gang violence terrorizing neighborhoods and schools in large urban enclaves across the country. According to Rod Wheeler, FOX News crime analyst, these black lesbian gangs recruit and force kids into homosexuality. “There is this national underground network, if you will, Bill, of women that’s lesbian and also some men groups that’s actually recruiting kids as young as 10 years old in a lot of the schools in communities across the country,” Wheeler told host Bill O’Reilly on the show.

And the notorious black lesbian gang, “Dykes Taking Over” was purportedly a pedophiliac gang carrying weapons and violently attacking and raping girl victims they recruited. “As a matter of fact, some of the kids have actually reported that they were actually forced into you know, performing sex acts and doing sex acts with some of these people,” Wheeler continued.

Although Bill O’Reilly had to apologize for the egregious errors and lies about a national epidemic of black lesbian gangs coming after female children, the story had nonetheless achieved the desired goal of “infortainiing” its audience by perpetuating both frighteningly racist and homophobic stereotypes.

“We overstated the extent of gay gangs in the Washington Area...Detective Wheeler has apologized,” Bill O’Reilly stated on his show.

However, the story about this purportedly increasing trend of black lesbian gangs terrorizing the neighborhoods and schools across the country derives from a myth affixed to the Sakia Gunn murder.

The real story about Sakia Gunn is that on the morning of May 11, 2003, Sakia Gunn, 15, was stabbed to death when she and her girlfriends rebuffed the sexual overtures of two African-American men by disclosing to them that their disinterest was simply because they were all lesbians.

Around 3:30 a.m., Gunn and a group of her girlfriends, ages 15-17, were taking a train from Greenwich Village, a noted LGBTQ enclave in New York City, to Newark. While waiting for the bus, two African-American men in a white station wagon harassed the girls. “At some point during their interaction, they made their sexual orientation known. They made it clear that they weren’t interested,” Lt. Derek Glenn, a spokesman for the Newark Police Department, told the Associated Press.

Incensed that the girls rebuffed them - and lesbians no less - the two assailants reportedly jumped out of their car and got into a scuffle with the girls.

Stabbed by one of the men, Gunn dropped to the ground and died shortly after arriving at University Hospital in Newark.

Not enough is ever accurately reported about hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people of color, and how issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation trigger the type of violence against them. Nor are the reasons for the silence around such violence often explored.

The first reason is the “politics of silence” in LGBTQ communities of color to openly report these kinds of attacks unless they result in death. With being openly queer and often estranged, if not alienated, from our communities of color, reporting attacks against us by other people of color can make victims viewed as race traitors. And because of the “politics of silence” that run rampantly in our LGBTQ communities of color, we end up colluding in the violence against us.

The second reason has a lot to do with the dearth of LGBTQ reporters of color writing for both straight and queer white media. Those papers and television networks sensitive to race issues but who don’t have LGBTQ people of color working at them, often engage in the “politics of avoidance”and won’t broach the topic for fear that the paper won’t bring the right angle or sensitivity to the topic. With the objective of newspapers and networks to report the news, those media that engage in the “politics of avoidance” when it comes to people of color do a disservice not only to the profession, but also to the entire LGBTQ community.

The third reason has a lot to do with the media view the topic of violence and people of color as synonymous. With such a skewed viewed, for these newspaper and networks, there is no news to report. And if so, it’s both defamatory and sensationalized.

In 2011, Gunn’s story inspired the musical “One Girl’s Story.” I’m hoping future new reporting will inspire better coverage on us girls like Sakia.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC’s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is irenemonroe.com. Click here to contact the Rev. Monroe.

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

Once again, the President is playing the tune of indifference, the tune of disconcern, the tune of white men. He is definitely a president like all others. The previous 43 presidents were white males, and so is this one.

“Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination. And moreover, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured - and they overcame them,” he said to the graduating class of men at historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

His message came off as powerful and necessary for the higher-income Blacks and conservative whites who believe that with hard work, you too, can achieve the American Dream. This is the desired language sought after by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky). They speak often of the “post-racial” America, where there are “no excuses” for not getting your piece of the capitalist pie. These are the very people who kick the ladder down once they get up. This fallacious argument is an affront to all things true and righteous.

It is documented fact that disparities in criminal justice sentencing, health, wealth, housing and income are all deeply indwelled American phenomena that Black men did not cause. It’s hard to sell me the myth that Black men don’t want to be rich like white men, but the fact remains that the wealth gap between blacks and whites has nearly tripled over the past 25 years, due largely to inequality in home ownership, income, education and inheritances, according to a 2013 study by Brandeis University.

The fact is that Black men don’t make excuses. The insinuation is an insult - for anyone with half a brain. Selling this mainstream myth ought to have Black men pissed off and almost ready to work with neo-conservatives to derail the president’s agenda (but that’s even more unimaginable!) It’s no excuse that whites hire whites. It’s no excuse that corporations set barriers before those whom they want to exclude - they’re legal barriers. That’s the basis of wealth disparity.

The difference in wealth between typical households in each racial group ballooned to $236,500 in 2009, up from $85,000 in 1984, according to the study, released in February. By 2009, the median net worth of white families was $265,000, while blacks had only $28,500. In a country where whites started off with a 300-year head start in wealth, it’s not a Black man’s excuse that his earnings fall short of the American Dream.

There is a wide gap in what passes for post-racial America. Home ownership is driving the growing gap. Price appreciation is more limited in non-white neighborhoods, making it harder for blacks to build equity. Also, because whites are more likely to have family financial assistance for down payments (being they had the 300-year head start in wealth resources), they are able to buy homes an average of eight years earlier than black families and to put down larger upfront payments that lower interest rates and mortgage costs. The home ownership rate for whites is 28% higher than that of blacks.

Not to mention some of the largest uncovered residential fair-lending scandals in American history, large banks like Wells Fargo and bank of America elected to settle lawsuits (for pennies on their dollar) when its independent brokers systematically discriminated against Black and Latino borrowers during the housing boom. You’d say what white neo-cons say: “What are you talking about Perry Redd, those people just borrowed beyond their means…they’re making excuses”?

Bullcrap! An investigation by the Department of Justice’s civil rights division found that mortgage brokers working with Wells Fargo had charged higher fees and rates to more than 30,000 minority borrowers across the country than they had to white borrowers who posed the same credit risk. That’s simply fact. That’s what they do. That’s no excuse by Black men, but President Obama will make a speech that whitewashes these facts and maked Black men carry that burden - when 2013 can be the time in history when the shackles of burden can come off!

No Black male sat down and created the concept of “redlining.” It is in effect today as much as it was 50 years ago. For those unfamiliar with the term, redlining is the practice of denying, or charging more for, services such as banking, insurance, access to health care, or even supermarkets, or denying jobs to residents in particular, often racially determined, areas. It refers to the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people (usually Black people) irrespective of geography.

Whenever Obama gets up to speak before Black people, he seems to play white male-in-chief each time at bat…and we’re getting whacked! It’s time we quit playing the role of star-struck girls and tell the President “thanks, but no thanks.” Save that message for people who deserve it - white males. The same ones who want to take their country back and reverse Affirmative Action. Tell them to get off the government’s teat with their cushy defense contracts. Mr. President, tell them to stop making excuses.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, longtime activist & organizer, is the Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the soon-to-be-released on-line book, “As A Condition of Your Freedom”. He is also the host of the internet-based talk radio show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.

May 23, 2013 -Issue 518

BlackCommentator.com artist/cartoonist Charles E. "Chuck" Siler's works feature a variety of themes ranging from New Orleans' lively and unique jazz scene to its lively and equally unique political scene. He uses his art and political cartoons to comment on life's complexities, warts and beauty marks.

His creations include fine watercolors and acrylics and pen and ink cartoons. His cartoons are featured on a regular basis in The Louisiana Weekly.

A Katrina evacuee, Siler has spoken on New Orleans history across the USA at universities and culural events.

Click here to contact Mr. Siler

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

Who Really Speaks for “White America?”

Well wait, before we determine “who” - there’re those White folks who’ll hysterically contend there’s but “one America... indivisible, with liberty and justice for all...

Really?

Please, don’t piss-down my back, then try to tell me it’s raining.

Kiss me baby, before you make love to me... you get the picture.

There’s no question that racially, America’s about as diced n’ sliced today as it was at the advent of the 20th century, as it was during the 1920s, through both world wars and into the turbulent 1960s and on thru the 80s with Ray-Gun, the 90s with Rodney King, and OJ.

Arguably, debatably, the United States is as racially polarized as it was in say 1870, five years beyond the end of the War of Northern Aggression... “Secession” is still, still I say, a popular concept down South. Honestly it’s popular in the Heartland and out West as we speak. What fuels the exodus... racial integration and equality.

Race and economics go hand-in-hand; racism and poverty the workers are of-color, and most of the suits n’ ties, the managers, supervisors, CEO and owners are not. The two groups have polar opposite goals. White Wall Street, White Main Street don’t give a damn about the boulevards of broken American Dreams.

Between the over-the-top hatred exhibited for Obama and the ice-cold indifference shown by the “Right” even to the lynching of a mancub, Trayvon Martin - is there any reluctance to confess this country’s a racial mess? Many will make the point a “lite version” of apartheid still rules the land, despite a Black man sitting in the Oval Office.

Who’s the White man, obviously not a woman of course, but the White man who articulates that enraged, contemptible Conservative mindset: John Boehner, Bill O’Reilly, John McCain?

No, instead I’d say Rush Limbaugh is the lighthouse.

I listen to Rush a couple of times a week, as long as I can stomach it... in an effort to understand the opposition, to develop a feel for what White America thinks. Despite me living in a quasi-gated community where the residents are mostly Republicans (White), there is not a lot of sharing of thoughts beyond the neighborly mundane.

Same thing at work, race, politics, labor issues. who’s God’s breast are bigger... those are fireside chats seldom had between the races.

In the next breath I’d say Conservative Redneck sage Pat Buchanan, Supreme Court head Antonia Scalia, Redneck rocker Ted Nugent, Redneck politician Rand Paul, Redneck Radio host Sean Hannity, and rich Redneck Donald Trump - these are the voices, the heart n’ soul of angry self-righteous White America.

They speak “for” your White neighbors, if you’ve many in a segregated USA, and these spokesmen say what most of your White co-workers believe: we’ve gone too far, let’s turn back the clock to 1952. They’ve adopted patriotism as their camouflage to hide the White sheets, and as we all know - Patriotism is the final refuge of scoundrels... and Rednecks.

I’d offer Rush speaks for your church cohearts who’re White, however, Sunday is still the most segregated day of the week in a nation, dig this, where the White majority is, have them tell it... color-blind.

Let’s make no bones about it, forever branded and shamed Democratic senator John “Ken Doll” Edwards was extremely correct with his Presidential run, focusing on the harsh, unspoken reality there’re at least “two Americas,” the White one - Mainstream USA, and the rest of us the US - the Help, i.e, Black N’ Brown America, the underclass, the undereducated and therefore underemployed, the workers, the wage earners, yes the Help.”

The “haves,” the “have-nots”... n’ the “have every damn thing.” The land lords, and the land-less

If we’re not indentured servants, we’re indebted flunkies at the very least.

In a multi-tiered society I’ve long regarded myself as a Redneck Whisperer, i.e., an American-of-Color, a Black man who could both talk to and understand the White man. I could, based upon my having spent years out of the urban reservation - South-Central LA, Crenshaw, the 213 and out in deep alpine Colorado Suburbia - those contradicting climates diversified me, equipped me with what is a somewhat rare ability to decipher and dissect the plethora of mumbled jumbled words coming out of White folks mouths.

Here’s what I’ve concluded from my observations and unofficial evaluations... Rush Limbaugh speaks for the vast majority of White folks. No, not all, but much more than half. He certainly speaks on behalf-of most of the “Right” - the GOP Elites, those “Real Americans” i.e., most White Americans, and certainly voting age White dudes. Clearly, Rush speaks for the Confederated States below the Mason-Dixon Line, the Land of Cotton, Dixie. The homophobes and other intolerants.

Face it, as bleak as it is, Rush speaks for everybody White, almost.

His nod either anoints or decapitates a Republican player.

Limbaugh’s a Missouri Aristocrat who’s become an global elitist, both in hat size n’ waist, embodying all the characteristics of the All-American White guy. His pronouncements and opines offend the vast majority of Americans of Color, regardless if they’re crafted to be or not. Rush definitely rubs most Women, of all races, the wrong way and he insults and demeans most people who proudly proclaim themselves worker ants n’ bees.

Rush Represents. Were talking 75% to about what, say 80% of White men who see the nation, the world and the little people who populate it as the unwashed, undeserving masses of dumbasses. Don’t take my word on this, don’t declare my charges of racism as outdated, from yesteryear, no, instead just look to Republican think tank, the Heritage Foundation...

The Right is promoting the notion that Latino’s are dummies. Hispanics have lower IQs than non-Latino whites, and their children and grandchildren are destined to lesser intellectual achievements.

And, we all know what the “Right” has been saying about Blacks. Between embracing the Bell Curve conclusions, Tuskegee experiments, the sub-par treatment Blacks receive at the hands of doctors/teachers/loan officers/cops... it’s a no-brainer these Conservatives despise Blacks.

Rush is the extra-wide floor-to-ceiling mirror who reflects the opinions and concerns of most White Americans. Rush wants to call Michelle Obama a fat Black, uppity bitch, her husband a “boy,” simply because most of Limbaugh’s peers, friends, family and neighbors see the First family as just that. Slavery, segregation and discrimination have flourished in America - why?

Rush wanted Obama to spit in the the late Hugo Chavez’s face, and do likewise to the assorted “Sand Niggers” over in the Arabian desert. Rush n’ the boys wanted the Black President to slight and belittle almost all the 3rd world’s population and political leadership as is the Republican TEA Party company-line, as are the wishes of most on the Right, who just happen to be White.

Americans-of-Color don’t tend to see the nation nor the world as most Euro-Americans do. It seems we feel more connected to and a part of the world. How shocking n’ unexpected?

Just as Dan Snyder, the NFL’s Washington Redskins owner, who’s refused, refused to even consider changing the team’s name from “Redskins” to anything else, being disconnected from the genocide waged against the noble Red man... Rush’s White America has refused to accept the manner in which this empire was constructed and maintains it still verges on tyranny.

Rush Limbaugh, on a daily basis articulates and amplifies the ills n’ woes of this nation’s elitist establishment. He is “heir waterboy,” their man, their President.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Desi Cortez, was hatched in the heart of Dixie, circa 1961, at the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the by-product of four dynamic individuals, Raised in South-Central LA, the 213, at age 14 transplanted to the base of the Rockies, Denver. Still a Mile-Hi. Sat at the feet of scholars for many, many moons, emerging with a desire and direction… if not a sheep-skin. "Meandered thru life; gone a-lot places, done a-lot of things, raised a man-cub into a good, strong man, produced a beautiful baby-girl with my lover/woman/soul-mate… aired my mind on the airwaves and wrote some stuff along the way." Click here to contact Mr. Cortez.

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

One of the biggest challenges African people face in America is to rejuvenate Black Nationalist thinking as struggle to determine for ourselves as a people what is in our best collective interests.

There are far too many African people in this country who think what is good for other people should be good for us. Nothing could be further from the truth. We can only determine what is good for us by reestablishing Black Nationalist thinking and developing a Black Nationalist program of action. This is the missing link to the liberation of African people in America. Let us briefly review the development and impact of Black Nationalism in America.

Black Nationalism is a tradition that emerged in the early nineteenth-century among those Black leaders who understood the need for African people in America to develop a national entity as the only solution for Black people in North America, Latin America, or the Caribbean.

These nineteenth-century Black Nationalist leaders such as Denmark Vessey, Nat Turner, David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, James T. Holly, Martin R. Delany, Pap Singleton, Edwin McCabe, and Henry McNeal Turner understood that African people in America were a “nation within a nation” and should organize to collectively struggle for the liberation of Black people in this country and throughout the world.

During this era there were some Black Nationalist leaders, before and after the Civil War, who led movements for people of African ancestry to leave this country and establish a homeland somewhere else. These proposals included Africa, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Other Black Nationalist leaders led movements for Black people to control the towns where they lived and others who led movements to the western region of this country to establish all Black towns in Kansas and Oklahoma.

The core of this Black Nationalist tradition has been to defeat and overthrow the system of white supremacy, seize control of land (somewhere) and to achieve self determination for the oppressed Black masses.

The Black Nationalist tradition has always been opposed to integrations, assimilation, and accommodation as a solution to the problems of people of African ancestry in America. In this regard, Black Nationalist tradition has rejected the strategy and tactics of appealing to the morality of white people and their white supremacy system.

Black Nationalists have been historically clear that people in power don’t teach powerless people how to get power. And they certainly don’t give power away, even though, when challenged, they may give up some concessions.

As Black Nationalism emerged in the twentieth-century, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the establishment of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communicates League (ACL) became the leading spokesman for Black Nationalist ideas and organizing.

Garvey used his varied skills to become on of our true twentieth-century freedom fighters. Garvey arrived in Harlem, New York on March 16, 1916. By 1919, Garvey was well established as the President General of the UNIA/ACL that had membership of over three million people with more than three hundred branches in the United States.

Perhaps Garvey’s greatest contribution to the upliftment of our people, through Black Nationalism, was his ability to find a formula for organizing African people around the African principle: the greatest good for the greatest number.

This was reflected in the First International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, in Madison Square Garden, in 1920. Over twenty thousand Black people from all over the world witnessed the choosing of Red, Black, and Green as the colors of the Provisional Government.

In this context, Garvey and the UNIA/ACL had established an economic arm, the Negro Factories Corporation, with cooperative stores, restaurants, steam laundry ships, tailor shops, dressmaking shops, millinery stores, a doll factory to manufacture Black dolls and a publishing house. Also, Garvey formed a Steamship Corporation.

The Black Nationalist tradition was continued in the twentieth-century through the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who utilized many of the Garvey and UNIA/ACL organizing tactics and strategies.

It was during the 1960s Black Power explosion that the Black Nationalist tradition reemerged through the influence of Malcolm X who adopted Black Nationalism as the political philosophy, economic and social philosophy of the organization of Afro American Unity in 1964 after he left the Nation of Islam.

Finally, the Black Nationalist tradition, today, is spearheaded through the African Centered Education Movement. The mass acceptance of Kwanzaa, African Liberation Day, Buy Black Campaigns, the Reparations Movement, and Controlling Our Own Communities Campaigns are all part of the ongoing Black Nationalist tradition.

Without vigorous Black Nationalist thinking and an aggressive Black Nationalist program of action, we will continue to chase false dreams created by our oppressors. We must put an end to this!

Once Black Nationalism is understood by all Black people, it will be the foundation upon which the true liberation of people of African ancestry in America will take place.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman Emeritus of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.

May 23, 2013 - Issue 518

“...the two parties have combined against us to nullify our power by a 'gentlemen's agreement' of non-recognition, no matter how we vote...May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either Republican or the Democratic parties.”

- W.E.B. Du Bois

“What better way to enslave a man than to give him a vote and tell him he's free.”

- Albert Camus

Many men and women in the U.S. have, in the main, repeatedly allowed themselves to be hoodwinked and bamboozled by a power elite that has consistently been diametrically opposed to the interests, serious needs, and human rights of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people nationally and globally.

The Democrat and Republican parties are the active tools of the callous, calculating, and parasitic national and global corporate / military power elite. Time and time again we everyday people have fallen prey to the distortions, obfuscations, distractions, and outright lies of this power elite. Time and time again we have been relegated to playing the role of being the victims of the vicious systemic game of 'rope-a-dope.' Time and time again we ask ourselves: How did this happen? How were so many of us so thoroughly fooled yet again?

In this year of 2013, the U.S. power elite continues the policies of hypocrisy, systemic terror (both at home and abroad), perpetual wars, incessant disinformation, covert and overt corporate domination, and the economic, political, and social emaciation of everyday ordinary people.

So how did this happen and how are so many so thoroughly fooled yet again? The establishment's power elite, through its corporate-stream media and 'educational' institutions, has force fed and continues to force feed everyday people in this nation (and throughout the world) a steady diet of unmitigated systemic vomit designed to confuse, control, and dis-empower ordinary people. Mr. 'hope and change' Barack Obama has now openly demonstrated the he is none other than drone man, 'Kill List' Barack Obama. But to discerning persons, this comes as no surprise, as the study of history combined with common sense amply warned us that his 'hope and change' was nothing more than a cover for system's ongoing 'ropes and chains.' The systemic murders of our babies and young people, be they Black, White, Brown, Red, or Yellow, continues unabated both here and abroad. This, and so much more, represents the horribly twisted paradigm of 'hope and change' in the U.S. in this year of 2013.

Instead of there being 'transparency' in government, the Barack Obama regime has engaged in, and continues to engage in, a systematic pattern of stripping away the constitutional and human rights of the people of this nation, flagrantly violating the sovereignty of nations and international law around the world, imprisoning people (without due process) at the U.S. gulag torture chamber at Guantanamo, and continuing the ongoing brutal imprisonment of U.S. political prisoners – all in the fallacious name name of 'hope and change' and supposedly fighting 'terrorism' under the guise of unending deceit.

On May 21, 2013, Coleen Rowley, the former FBI special agent and division counsel who was named as one of Time Magazine's “Persons of the Year” in 2002, publicly stated in relevant part, “"Despite long-time warnings that the Obama administration’s 'war on whistleblowers' had become a 'war on journalists,' and the government’s admitting, in the course of the Bradley Manning court martial, that it would treat the New York Times the same as WikiLeaks -- given the fact that WikiLeaks has been secretly indicted for publishing information pertaining to the U.S. government -- the U.S. media has obviously not taken the full First Amendment implications seriously enough. The jarring wake-up call only comes with news of the FBI dragnet investigation targeting several AP reporters' and editors’ communications in connection with a story about a foiled terrorist plot in Yemen and the revelation that FOX News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen was himself considered a co-conspirator for having aided and abetted a leak of information about North Korea...It seems the U.S. has nearly regressed to the Nixon mentality when his Department of Justice sought court orders to stop the printing presses upon 19 different newspapers’ successive attempts to publish the “Pentagon Papers.” In some cases governmental secrecy shields illegal actions and there are numerous examples but in other cases, the drive to 'shape the message' through its own tightly controlled press releases, high-level spokespersons and sometimes even through its own system of 'leaking' to favored reporters, is simply more secrecy for secrecy’s sake. ...For instance, the increasing secrecy being employed by the Obama administration to prevent scholarly and judicial review of the Office of Legal Counsel memos that purport to 'legalize' its “lethal targeting policies” along with his administration’s creation of due process-free 'kill lists' on a global battlefield works in much the same way as the Bush administration’s once hidden series of OLC 'torture memos.' Once those OLC 'torture memos' were finally made public, they were then used as officials’ 'golden shield' to prevent accountability under the notion that officials were just following 'legal advice.'" This too, represents the twisted paradigm of 'hope and change' in the U.S.

The Right/Left Systemic Trap

Notwithstanding their endless staged rhetoric, the fact is that most of the leadership of the so-called right and left in this nation do NOT seriously want everyday people in this nation to substantively unite with one another in order to bring about real systemic change that benefits all ordinary people. In fact, this 'leadership' does not want ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people to communicate directly with each other sharing our common experiences and common needs. It's all about keeping us separated and distrustful of one another within the narrow confines of the power elite's enslaving Democrat and Republican parties and their crony corporate-stream media propagandists. This is how everyday people are bamboozled and kept controlled and ultimately powerless.

Moreover, the Democrat and Republican parties do not, in reality, represent anything other than slightly varying versions of the same blood sucking systemic slime. In this regard there is absolutely no such thing as the 'lesser of the evils,' as they are both systemically evil and need to be consciously relegated to the dustbin of history by everyday people.

The twisted paradigm of 'hope and change' is actually a well-honed systemic model of perpetual deceit and hypocrisy, and it matters not who the power elite's male or female figure-head is. The end game is always the same and will remain so until the system itself is changed by we everyday ordinary people.

The Fake Left and the Reactionary Right

For the most part presently, even the leadership (which is really the misleadership) of both the so-called left and right in this nation, who claim that they are not beholden to the Democrats or the Republican parties, act as systemic tools. Like their counterparts in the Democrat and Republican parties, they fear the potential and power of ordinary everyday people actually uniting in and for their common interests.

While the misleadership of the the reactionary right plays upon the systemically ingrained fears of ordinary people, the misleadership of the left (including many so-called 'progressives' with their endless books) talk down to the people – instead of talking with the people – fearing perhaps that they will somehow lose their self-perceived status of being supposed 'intellectuals' and/or 'leaders' if they dare to communicate in the powerful and plain language of everyday ordinary people.

The misleadership of much of the left is particularly notorious in this regard. They relish their ability to use high-sounding ideological terms which everyday people generally do not use. They write and speak using a vocabulary that is essentially alien to everyday people. The more high-sounding their ideological rhetoric the more many everyday people are alienated from them. While this might be gratifying to their own egos it certainly does not empower or serve the needs of everyday ordinary people. Most of the people of this nation are not graduates of Harvard, Princeton, MIT, or Stanford and the like. We are simply ordinary struggling people – 'the salt of the earth.' And if real systemic change is to be brought about in the U.S. it will overwhelmingly be as a result of the consciousness, collective leadership, and sacrifices of just such ordinary everyday persons – not the other way round!

The fear mongering by the misleadership of the reactionary right and the de facto snobbery and elitism by much of the misleadership of the so-called left, serve to reinforce the perpetuation of this corrupt and vile U.S. political system. Moreover, it virtually goes without saying, that the obscene support by many 'progressives' and much of the so-called left, of drone man, 'Kill List' Barack Obama is an obscenity and serves to perpetuate the power elite's system of the Democrat and Republican party's economic and political stranglehold on everyday people in this nation.

Breaking Free From the Chains of Our Own Systemic Oppression

The bitter irony of being held captive in this perpetual cycle of systemic oppression in this nation is – that it is we everyday ordinary people ourselves who are the only ones who can break free from it.

The politicians of the Democrat and Republican parties, the corporate-stream media, and even much of the so-called 'progressive' alternative media are tools of the U.S. power elite. They do not serve the legitimate needs, hopes, and aspirations of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people. Nor do they want genuine systemic change.

It is time for everyday people to strategically submerge our differences, collectively band together, and struggle to bring about real systemic change that improves the lives and well-being of ordinary people in this nation and throughout our precious Mother Earth. This is, and will be, a long, hard, and protracted struggle – but it is absolutely essential.

Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward...!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, 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 view Larry’s interview of October 26, 2012. Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

May 23, 2013 -Issue 518

Carlos Latuff, a cartoonist, artist and activist based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Latuff has spent the last 15 plus years crafting a style that can best be described as “populist cartooning.” He has touched on issues like Apartheid in South Africa, the plight of Native Americans in the US and the oppression of Tibetans in China.

But perhaps his most controversial series to date is “We are all Palestinians,” in which he compares the actions taken by the Israeli government towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip directly to the Nazi’s treatment of Jews.

Click here to contact Mr. Latuff