Published by Occupy Essays (Norway) on October 30, 2011
By Larry Pinkney, USA
“You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
–Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]“What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but “who is sitting in” — and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.” –Howard Zinn
To be sure, hypocrisy is by no means limited to the United States. However, due to the inordinate power of the corporate / military elite inside the United States, and its concomitant debilitating effects upon the entire planet, it is important to recognize how hypocrisy is practiced and perpetuated in ‘America.’
As courageous ‘occupations’ against avaricious corporate hegemony and militarism have spread to hundreds of locations throughout the United States (and around the world), the corporate-controlled Democrat and Republican party politicians [i.e. the Republicrats] in the White House, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and state and city elected officials are busy attempting to co-opt, suppress, and/or otherwise neutralize these legitimate expressions of disapproval on the part of everyday people. In many cases, these officials have overtly or covertly ordered brutal police attacks against the everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow ‘occupiers’ who are demanding an end to corporate economic blood-sucking and perpetual U.S. wars abroad. An example of this naked aggression by government authorities was the recent brutal attack upon Occupy Oakland demonstrators by the police in Oakland, California.
In this context, and notwithstanding their disingenuous political rhetoric, both the Democrat and Republican parties are systemically, hypocritically and covertly united in their aim to quash the legitimate demands of an increasing amount of everyday people in the United States. Fake political skirmishes between Barack Obama of the Democratic Party Republicrats and political candidates of the Republican Party Republicrats are being highlighted by the corporate-stream ‘news’ media in a frenzied attempt to divide, manipulate, and distract everyday people from the very real bread & butter–life & death concerns that we are facing in this nation.
The corporate Democratic Party Republicrats are now fostering the fallacious, undemocratic, and hypocritical notion that any who do not support and/or agree with the policies of Barack Obama and his political cohorts are racists, etc., while the corporate Republican Party Republicrats are smugly making the ridiculous assertion that those who do not agree with them are somehow unpatriotic, etc. The reality of course is that neither of these corporate-controlled political parties have the legitimate needs, aspirations, or interests of everyday people at heart. Both parties are fundamentally about hypocrisy, money, power, and most of all perpetuating the very corporate system that allows these politicians to continually manipulate everyday people in a perpetual political death grip.
The psyches of people in the United States are deluged by hypocrisy, historical mythology, and crucial omitions and disinformation by a corporate-steam media and so-called ‘educational’ institutions. Yet, as the fierce and unforgiving reality of corporate-induced economic austerity at home and perpetual wars abroad takes hold, an increasing amount of ordinary everyday people are beginning to realize that the political system itself is fundamentally flawed in favor of the rich.
It is not in the vested interests of Barack Obama or any other systemic politician in the United States to push for real systemic change. (Reference the film, LIFTING THE VEIL, http://metanoia-films.org/lifting-the-veil/ [1hr 48min]). It is however, very much in the interests of everyday people to break our political and economic bondage and push for genuine systemic change. And therein lies the essence of the protracted people’s struggle in the United States.
The hypocrisy of U.S. so-called ‘democracy’ is exemplified in the myriad of political prisoners unjustly held in its de facto prison-gulag system. Moreover, the United States has the largest documented prison population in the entire world, which population consists overwhelmingly of poor and disenfranchised men, women, and teen-agers. The despicable U.S. program of international kidnapping and torture euphemistically referred to as ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ has been extended and expanded under the Barack Obama regime, as has the utterly unconstitutional ‘Patriot Act’ which makes null and void basic rights and freedoms allegedly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The use of and expansion by, the U.S. government, of private corporate mercenaries in Iraq, and the widening of U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Africa, etc., all point to the utter hypocrisy of U.S. ‘democracy.’ (Reference, The Hypocrisy of ‘America’s’ Democracy http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22881).
Increasingly, the everyday people of the United States are becoming aware of the horrors of both at home and abroad, pertaining to the above-mentioned hypocrisies, but there remains a long way to go in awakening the consciousness and understanding of the masses of people. A major obstacle to the awakening of the people in this nation is the insidious corporate-stream ‘news’ media whose objective is to form people’s opinion by controlling the political narrative rather than inform people.
As the systemic contradictions become clearer in the United States, the corporate/military U.S. government, its corporate-stream media, and its many intelligence and police agencies intensify in their efforts to manipulate, repress, confuse, and intimidate the people of this nation. Nevertheless, people are steadily awakening.
The yearning for economic, political, and social justice by people throughout the world, including inside the United States, is increasing. In the words of the former slave, articulate orator, and activist Frederick Douglass: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
There is much work to be done on behalf of ourselves, our posterity, and our Mother Earth. We must organize and move forward collectively nationally and internationally, with the assurance that ultimately the power of everyday people will succeed in bringing about a fairer, more just world. This will not happen by osmosis. We must make it so.
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.)
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