Will ‘America’ ever change its ways?

Published in Intrepid Report on October 18, 2012
By Larry Pinkney

“What happens to a dream deferred? . . .”—Langston Hughes

Will the United States ever genuinely change its bloody and hypocritical ways at home and abroad?

The answer to this question is NO, not until or unless the masses of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation decide that they have had enough of the corporate-owned dictatorship of the Democrats and Republicans, and act accordingly.

There will continue to be massive social injustice and economic austerity at home, and perpetual corporate-driven wars abroad, for as long as the people in this nation allow it. These horrors will continue for as long as ‘we the people’ shirk our collective responsibility and stay on the psychological plantations/reservations of the U.S. corporate political de facto police-State. This horrid reality will continue for as long as, we the people, accept and buy into the mind-numbing and manipulating novocaine of the U.S. corporate-stream ‘news’ media.

It does not have to be this way. There is hope, but this hope must be actualized, and rests within the mind-set and actions of we common, ordinary, everyday people—and no one else. The longer we wait the more terrible our plight will become.

It is obvious to the discerning observer that the corporate political State intends to reinstall, as U.S. president, this corporate lackey, ‘indefinite detention’-NDAA signing, ‘Kill List,’ Predator Drone, articulate war criminal Barack Obama. He is after all, for the historical moment, the most insidiously effective evil of the corporate-owned Democrat and Republican party’s-evil of the two lessers. He is the 21st century Trojan horse of the U.S. corporate and military elite who, in the very name of his bastardized version of ‘hope and change’ and of supposedly moving this nation ‘forward,’ has in reality, declared war on the everyday people of this nation and of this planet of Mother Earth.

It is especially sad to behold so many Black Americans and other so-called ‘people of color,’ who have struggled so long for equality and justice in this nation, ignore or otherwise support Obama’s intensified bloody Predator Drone murders of children, women, and men in North Africa, East Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, etc. It is sad to witness persons of all colors, who profess to be ‘progressives’ or on the ‘left’ in this nation, excuse, ignore, or otherwise support Obama’s indefinite detention (including U.S. citizens) NDAA law of 2012, and his ‘Kill List’ (which also includes U.S. citizens), etc.

And where are those so-called ‘conservatives’ who claim to love the U.S. Constitution, whose protections, Barack Obama and his Democrat and Republican cohorts have, in real terms, demolished?! Where are they?! This is the height of hypocrisy and insanity, and it must not be forgotten or excused—EVER!

The combined misleadership of much of the so-called ‘left’ and the ‘right’ has betrayed the people of this nation and world! The de facto corporate/military police-State is already here while many are yet snoring in a deep sleep. The ordinary people of this nation are, in essence, a good and decent people, but they must awaken from their deliberately induced slumber!

It is, we the people, of all colors who must understand that by our not vigorously and steadfastly opposing the hypocrisy and machinations of both the Democrats and Republicans, blood is on our hands at home and abroad. There can be no getting around this.

Will the United States ever genuinely change its bloody and hypocritical ways at home and abroad? Only if we everyday people wake the hell up and regain our humanity as a part of this urgent long and protracted political struggle to make it so! It’s really up to you and me—all of us—and nobody else.

Former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his farewell speech to the people of this nation, warned of the then impending and rising “military industrial complex.” And former U.S. president John F. Kennedy subsequently warned us that “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” The present corporate/military police-State in this nation is determined to make “peaceful revolution impossible.” But it is we, the everyday people, who must decide, and quickly, what is to be done—while there is yet time. In the words of the late, great poet, Langston Hughes, “What happens to a dream deferred?. .”

Remember: 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.)