Is the United States A Nation of Psychological Androids?

Published in Issue 408 of The Black Commentator on January 6, 2011
Republished in thepeoplesvoice.org on January 7, 2011
Republished in Woodstock International (Woodstock, NY), January/February 2011 Issue, Vol. 2 No. 3, Page 24 (cont. on 23)

By Larry Pinkney

“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”
-Lucy Parsons

“If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
-Howard Zinn

Have we allowed ourselves to become psychological androids – putty and/or expendable cannon fodder – in the hands of the corporate / military elite of this nation and its subservient corporate-stream media?

The word android is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “a mobile robot usually with a human form.” Yet, beyond the mere physical aspect of what an android is – is the all powerful psychological component – on the part of who is actually in “control” of the android. When humans cease to be in control of their own ideas and creative processes we are in essence relegated to psychological androids. As the late political organizer Steve Biko noted: “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

Everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation have entered the year 2011, under the yoke of the most hideous and vicious forms of national and global corporate exploitation/ domination [i.e. hegemony] and military madness as yet visited upon humankind. Meanwhile, the nominal black-faced emperor of this insane U.S. empire piously and relentlessly feeds our sons, our daughters, our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters, our aunts, uncles, and our cousins into the flaming, insatiable ovens of corporate greed and military insanity. As we steadily lose our jobs, homes, educational opportunities, futures, and our legal and human rights – we are told that war is actually peace (or at least guarantees peace) and that we must willingly sacrifice ourselves upon the blood-drenched altar of an endless war against “terrorism.” Never mind, as the late historian, Howard Zinn, pointedly and correctly observed: “How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?” Moreover, war enriches the coffers of the already bloated corporate elite while simultaneously increasing – not diminishing – “terrorism.” None of this is lost upon the cunning minds of the corporate / military elite or the diversionary corporate-stream media.

We everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people watch racial and national tensions heighten as economic resources become ever more scarce for common folk, while the rich become even richer. We watch as the most repressive and unjust political and economic laws are passed and enacted against the people of this nation – in the name of so-called “bipartisanship” and then swiftly spun away by a treacherous, complicitous corporate-stream media. We watch as arguably the most articulately draconian president in the history of this nation, adroitly sets the stage for a blatant corporate-fascist state all in the name of “hope and change.” We watch in horror as the political, civil, and human rights of an entire nation are skillfully banished into obscurity, right before our very eyes.

How could political, economic, and social conditions have become so bleak in two years?

Notwithstanding the undeniable fact that the previous Bush/Cheney administration’s policies were clearly and utterly reprehensible, the answer is relatively simple. Many people were simply not paying attention, thus allowing themselves to be euphorically swept up into a frenzy of non-critical thinking in futile anticipation of the fulfillment of the superficial so-called “hope and change” double-speak rhetoric, which was dangled like a poisonous carrot, by those who make up the present Obama / Biden administration. Moreover, instead of heeding the wise words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said to judge people based upon the “content of their character, not the color of their skin ;” so many did precisely the opposite. Thus, with the overwhelming backing and support of the corporate / military elite and corporate-stream media (for which major corporate support should have – but did not – sound deafening mental alarms) Barack Obama became head of the U.S. empire. Another crucial factor as to how and why everyday people could have been so thoroughly bamboozled is the shameful betrayal by much of the Black intelligensia and so-called Left and ‘progressives’ in their support for the double-talking, corporate Barack Obama. They, for a certainty, knew better! However, this betrayal and complicity, on the part of an inordinate amount of them, continues to this very year of 2011. Nevertheless, and despite them, a growing amount of just plain everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people have begun to pay serious attention to that symbolic “man behind the curtain” [i.e. the android-maker], and are legitimately hopping mad.

Many of the people of this nation were insidiously lulled into a slumber – a slumber from which some are now beginning to awaken. The android-like psychological state of so many is beginning to be replaced by the pain of betrayal and the recognition that the Obama / Biden regime (notwithstanding the Obama and corporate-stream media double-speak) has, over the last two years repackaged and accelerated the Bush / Cheney policies of war abroad and economic, legal, and political disenfranchisement at home.

Moving Beyond the Pain of Betrayal

Understanding that the corporate Obama / Biden regime and the scandalous Democrats and Republicans [i.e. the Republicrats] in Congress have, for all practical purposes, established and codified into law, a very real (and often not-so-subtle) police-state in this nation, must serve to strengthen the resolve of everyday people to throw off this unacceptable and intolerable situation. This “peace” prize-toting, constitutional lawyer, and purveyor of war – Barack Obama, has despite himself, done something incredibly valuable: He has demonstrated for all conscious people to see that mere color or gender, etc. must never be the lone deciding factor(s) by which crucial choices and/or political decisions are made. He has demonstrated that superficiality is precisely that – superficial!

Everyday people in this nation must grasp the international nature of the struggle for justice and human rights world wide. The corporate 21st century fascists are attacking everyday people around the world. Indeed, that is the nature of what is often referred to as [corporate] “globalization.” We must understand that globalization means wealth for the tiny rich elite, and austerity and pain for the vast majority of just plain everyday people – in this nation and throughout the world. Just as the corporate elite inside this nation are about the business of economic strangulation as it attempts to pit everyday people against each other – exactly the same objectives are practiced internationally under what is termed “globalization.”

The people of the United States must recognize that our struggle here for political, economic and political justice and human rights is intertwined with those of everyday people in Haiti, in Spain, in Greece, in Germany, in Norway, in Venezuela, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Palestine, in Zambia, in every nation of every corner of Mother Earth! Internationalism must be the answer of everyday people to the blood-sucking bane of globalization. We are not alone – no matter what the corporate-stream media might try and have us believe! This planet belongs to everyday people – not to the vampiric corporate elite. We must be the guardians and sustainers of this planet. We must tell our own stories – present our own narratives – for the present and the future.

As we the people intensify in our struggle here, let us remember our brothers and sisters around the world. No!!! We will not be the psychological androids of the corporate / military elite – in this nation or anywhere else. Let us move beyond betrayal to an actualized and sustained vision of renewal! Organize, Organize, and then Organize some more! What is at stake? Our very existence, that of our offspring, and that of the planet itself!

Onward 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.)