As the Blood Gushes the People Die!

Published in Issue 492 of The Black Commentator on November 1, 2012
By Larry Pinkney

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

– Howard Zinn

“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”

– Frederick Douglass

As this, the latter part of the year 2012, slips toward the year 2013, our nation and our planet of Mother Earth moves ever closer to extinction.

So many people in this 21st century United States have allowed themselves to become entrapped in the fallacious paradigm of Democrat and Republican chicanery, subterfuge, hypocrisy and insanity. So many people continue to view the life and death struggle of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people as if it is a my side versus your side spectator sport, or a mechanized video game of winners and losers. It is not. It is a serious, long, hard, and protracted struggle to replace this rotten, filthy, unjust, and corrupt political system.

In the very name of the everyday people of this nation we now have a legalized NDAA (National ‘Defense’ Authorization Act of 2012) de facto police-state that can indefinitely imprison in this country both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens –without charge, trial, jury, or legal defense. In our name, U.S. predator drone missiles are dismembering and murdering women, infants, entire families, and old & young men alike – in Africa, South Asia, and the ‘Middle East.’ In our name! Over 80% of those murdered by these deadly, terroristic U.S. predator drone missiles are noncombatant innocents! Yet, even so-called ‘combatants’ deserve to be charged and tried, and the right to present a legal defense. But not in this de facto corporate ‘American’ police-State! But who gives a damn?! Do you? Do you understand the national and international ramifications of this even as it relates to you, your family, your friends and associates? Do you give a damn?!

In our name, we have an official ‘Kill List’ that allows for the murder of anyone, anywhere in the world (including of U.S. citizens), who are designated by the U.S. corporate-owned president / Commander-In-Chief as being supposed “threats.” The hell with being charged or receiving a trial, a jury or a legal defense! This has been done and is being done in our name! The hell with the U.S. constitution and international law! The hell with justice! The hell with the needs and political & human rights of everyday ordinary people in this nation and throughout Mother Earth. Is this what you really want?!

And some persons have the unmitigated audacity to allegedly wonder why this nation’s corporate-government is increasingly loathed throughout the world?! Get real!!!

So, be sure to run to the voting booths / recruiting chambers – and vote for the Democrat or Republican corporate fascist of your choice!!! After all, you’re just a hamster – right?! Well are you?!

Things really don’t have to be this way.

There is the option of we everyday people regaining our humanity and resisting and reversing the destruction of our civil liberties, corporate hegemony, economic austerity for the masses of people, and perpetual wars and military adventurism. There is another option. But of course that means that you would have to critically think and act accordingly, doesn’t it?

We, none of us, can any longer claim “the mantle of ignorance.” Make your choice! Choose your humanity and that of your / our brothers and sisters nationally and internationally; or choose hypocrisy, servitude and ultimate oblivion. The choice is yours.

The time has come to resist and end economic and political tyranny! The time has come to join collectively together – Black, White, Brown, Red, And Yellow – and to say through word and deed, NO MORE! The time has come to demand and struggle uncompromisingly for real systemic change.

You can, through inaction and illusion, try to ignore the blood on your /our hands – but sooner or later “the chickens will [euphemistically] come home to roost.” Remember: Things do not have to be this way, but they will remain so and will indeed worsen unless and until we, the everyday people, collectively change them. Make your choice the choice for systemic change, the choice for humanity and for a creatively new and more humane model. Oh, yes! The choice really is yours. It’s up to you and all of us.

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

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, Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, and more recently on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones Show. Pinkney is a former university instructor of political science and international relations, and his writings have been published in various places, including The Boston Globe, San Francisco BayView newspaper, Black Commentator, Intrepid Report, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), 107 Cowgate (Ireland and Scotland), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). He is in the archives of Dr. Huey P. Newton (Stanford University, CA), cofounder of the Black Panther Party. 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.)