Hypocrisy Is Not Democracy: Time For Change

Published in Issue 414 of The Black Commentator on February 17, 2011
Republished in the Mar/Apr 2011, Vol 11, No. 2 Issue of Socialist Viewpoint magazine under the name ‘Hypocrisy Is Not Democracy.’

By Larry Pinkney

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”
—Rosa Luxemburg

“We recognize then that the greed of bureaucratic capitalism in America, the effectiveness of the police force of the ruling circle, and the swiftness with which their ‘message’ can be sent to these territories has transformed the previous situation. We recognize this when we admit that the United States is no longer a nation but an empire.”
—Dr. Huey P. Newton

Most humans desire only to live their lives with dignity, fulfillment, and human worth, while a parasitic few seek to glorify and unceasingly enrich themselves awash in the blood and manipulated fears of the rest of humanity.

In recent weeks, the world has witnessed heroic uprisings by millions of people in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere on this planet, against horribly repressive U.S.-backed dictators. Yet, the corporate-stream media has disingenuously and hypocritically acted as if the U.S. corporate-government, was and is, nothing more than an innocent bystander vis-à-vis these unfolding events. Of course nothing could be further from reality’s bitter truth.

A classified U.S. diplomatic cable, relatively recently released by Wikileaks, leaves no doubt as to the past and present U.S. government’s covert and bloody role in having supported, in this instance, horrible repression in Egypt. It reads in relevant part: “During the war on terror, [Omar] Suleiman headed Egypt’s foreign intelligence agency and as such he was the key contact for the CIA in a number of activities, particularly including its highly secretive extraordinary renditions program. When American interrogators wanted to use the crudest torture techniques, they did so through proxy arrangements, and their first stop was Egypt. The CIA’s Cairo station chief, who now heads the agency’s Counter Terrorism Center and who routinely briefs President Obama, developed a legendarily tight personal relationship with Suleiman.”

It would be utterly ridiculous to believe that Mr. “Hope and Change” Obama, has been unaware over the past two years of torture and repression in Egypt (and elsewhere), and the U.S. role in aiding, abetting, and perpetuating it. This is, of course, an example of this corporate-government’s notorious, incessant hypocrisy. Doubtless there are many more such examples.

There can be absolutely no doubt that the U.S. government is even more intensely engaged now in subterfuge, in an effort to stifle and suffocate people’s struggles for justice, human rights, and genuine democracy not only in Egypt, but throughout the world. Clearly, it would be devoid of logic and common sense to conclude otherwise.

It is urgently incumbent upon everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation to understand that they/we are not immune to this government’s subterfuge and hypocrisy and its dire consequences at home and abroad. Notwithstanding the constant barrage of government double-speak and the corporate media spin thereto, it must be clearly understood that this government’s corporate/military interests are most definitely not in the best interests of everyday people within this U.S. empire or abroad. The sooner we understand this reality for what it is and stop deluding ourselves, the sooner we can change this reality—and bring about the real systemic change that is so sorely needed.

Think about it. The vicious assaults on Social Security and education in this nation have already begun, even as the U.S. corporate/military government’s bloody perpetual wars abroad rage on unabated. The so-called “Patriot Act” has made a mockery of the freedoms supposedly enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Incarceration and the building of prisons in this nation have replaced any semblance of decent jobs, housing, and education for many millions of people. Police departments have gone stone mad throughout “America,” murdering and beating people with virtual impunity. The U.S. judicial system has become a blatantly sick joke—bought and paid for by avaricious corporations who now outrageously enjoy legal “personhood” status while everyday real people endure foreclosures, joblessness, and increasing despair. Trillions of dollars have been bestowed upon the banks and other blood-sucking executive bandits of Wall Street by the Democrat and Republican Party foxes and wolves. The futures of the everyday people in this nation have been cynically hocked off in the rhetorical name of “hope” and nonexistent “change.” Barack Obama—that articulate conjurer of conjurers in de facto service to the corporate elite—plays his metaphorical fiddle even as the everyday people within the empire are increasingly consumed by the fires of economic, political, and physical pain. The articulate and cynical pimping of the very pain of everyday people has become the mainstay of the Obama/Biden regime and its cronies, including the servile corporate-stream media. These things are the stuff of hypocrisy, but certainly not democracy. Hypocrisy is not democracy; it’s time to change it.

Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people inside this U.S. empire have an unfulfilled obligation to ourselves, our posterity, and to Mother Earth to face and change this reality by, among other things, refusing to be the political, economic, or military cannon fodder of the empire. The time has come to recognize what is in our own best collective interests as ordinary, everyday people. The time has come to stop making excuses for the Obama/Biden regime and this corrupt and politically bankrupt system. It’s time to stop deluding ourselves! This system must be fundamentally changed collectively.

As the Tunisian, Egyptian, Haitian, and Palestinian people continue in their long struggles for real change, we too must do likewise right here in the United States of America! Are not the demands by the Egyptian people (and others) for economic, political, and judicial justice also our own demands right here in this nation?

To reiterate the words of Rosa Luxemburg: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Thus, let us make studious note of our chains and relentlessly break free of them—for ourselves and humankind.

—The Black Commentator, February 17, 2011

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