On Keeping the People Divided, Distracted and Controlled

Published in Issue 469 of The Black Commentator on April 26, 2012
By Larry Pinkney

“And in the framework of the collectivity there were the differentiations, the stratification, and the bloodthirsty tensions fed by classes; and finally, on the immense scale of humanity, there were racial hatreds, slavery, exploitation, and above all the bloodless genocide which consisted in the setting aside of fifteen thousand millions of men…For Europe, for ourselves, and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a New Man.”
-Frantz Fanon

“Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.”
-Rosa Luxemburg

The United States government was brought into existence as a direct result of its murderous genocide of the Indigenous Native peoples, the brutal slavery of Black people, and the shameless exploitation and indentured servitude of many poor White people and others. To this very day, the U.S. corporate government continues to be singularly, at home and abroad, the most hypocritical, manipulative, and concomitantly violent one on this precious planet of Mother Earth.

Changing the pigmentation of the presidential occupant in the White House has demonstratively served to strengthen, give cover for, and perpetuate the systemic exploitation and hypocrisy in and of this government, not weaken it. To deny this is to be in denial of reality. Unfortunately, although people in this nation are increasingly beginning to awaken, a considerable amount of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people remain enslaved on the mental and political plantations of the corporate owned and controlled Democratic and Republican parties. This must be systemically addressed for what it actually is.

The role of the U.S. corporate-stream – so-called ‘news’ and information media – is an insidious and debilitating one, particularly as it pertains to crippling and manipulating the masses of everyday ordinary people, and keeping them on the mental and political plantations of the corporate Democratic and Republican party foxes and wolves. The job of the corporate media is to distract, omit, and disinform the people. Thus, ordinary people are mercilessly bombarded with distractions that serve to keep them/us manipulated, divided and controlled. The corporate-stream media is nothing more than the mouth piece of and for the corporate Democratic and Republican politicians who, in turn, are the political servants of the corporate elite. The people in this nation are not stupid, but they are kept ignorant of in-depth pertinent details regarding the pressing national and international issues that directly affect their welfare and best economic and political interests. Like the U.S. corporate elite and their Republicrat [i.e. Democratic and Republican party] stooges, the mission of the U.S. ‘news’ media is to keep the people distracted, divided, and controlled. This cannot be over emphasized.

The U.S. corporate elite, its politicians, and the U.S. ‘news’ and information media all work together to maintain the fake left/right paradigm embodied in the symbiotically-joined Democratic and Republican parties. For example, the Wall Street “crisis” was irrefutably manufactured and created by the insatiable greed of the corporate elite itself. Yet, the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties jointly agreed to the trillion dollar criminal ‘bail out’ of and for that very same Wall Street corporate elite against the wishes of the vast majority of people in this nation. And, of course, the corporate-stream media parroted the insipid nonsense of the Democratic and Republican parties regarding this criminal ‘bail out.’ Moreover, the Republican Party has, in large measure, co-opted and neutralized the ‘Tea Party’ (regardless to what one might think of them), which is precisely what the Democratic Party is feverishly attempting to do in the case of the ‘Occupy Movement’ – co-opt and neutralize. Both of these political parties, which are in actuality  one symbiotically-joined corporate political party with differing rhetoric, are about the business of ensuring that they – and only they – continue as the power brokers over the people of this nation. The game is rigged. Think about it. Both George Soros and the infamous Koch Brothers, et al, are demonstrative of how money and power are effectively used to subvert a people’s ‘democracy’ in the United States, even as the spurious systemic left/right paradigm is perpetuated by the corporate Democratic and Republican parties.

The time has come for an end to corporate hegemony and glut inside this nation and around the world. The time has come for an end to economic austerity against the ordinary people of this nation. The time has come for an end to the U.S. rank and file military being used as the cannon fodder of the U.S. corporate/military elite. The time has come for an end to the missiles, bombings, shootings, and maiming by the U.S. corporate military machine in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Africa, and elsewhere. The time has come for an end to the de facto legalized police state (NDAA-style) inside the United States. The time has come for an end to U.S. international war-mongering. The time of color and ethnic fear and rage that is in fact perpetuated by the politicos of the corporate Democratic and Republican parties must be brought to a resounding close. And yes, the time has come for an end to the sadistic imprisonment of political prisoners throughout this nation itself. Enough already! These outrages do not represent the wishes of the majority of people in this nation. Moreover, these outrages serve to incite internal and external fear and hatred even as the greedy corporate elite becomes even more bloated from the pain, misery, division, and suffering of ordinary everyday people in this nation and around the world. These outrages, carried out in the fallacious name of the people of this nation by the Democratic and Republican parties, must be made to cease. Only we the people – ordinary everyday people – can and will do this through a long, hard, and determined protracted struggle to take back our critical thinking abilities and our humanity from these systemic bloodsuckers.

As challenging as it certainly is and will continue to be, we must learn, and quickly, the art of communicating with one another as we collectively go about the revolutionary task of, in the words of Frantz Fanon, “turn[ing] over a new leaf,” “work[ing] out new concepts,” and “try[ing] to set afoot a New Man [and Woman].”

Let each one, teach one, and each one, reach one. Organize, agitate, educate, and then organize some more. Our humanity belongs to each of us individually and collectively, not to the bloodsuckers of humanity and the despoilers of Mother Earth!

Remember the words of Rosa Luxemburg: “Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.” 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.)