If there is any way you can afford to subscribe to the Black Commentator, you really ought to.   Jan 20, 2011 - Issue 410

Cover Story The Hypocrisy of 'America's' Democracy Keeping it Real -- By Larry Pinkney BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."

-Frantz Fanon
"Killing One Person Is MURDER--Killing 100,000 Is FOREIGN POLICY."
-Anonymous

The United States of America is, in reality, a one-party corporatist state whose very existence is, more than ever, perpetuated by a conscious deliberate denial of reality, even in the face of the obvious.

A major premise. Not an assumption. An irrefutable fact.  Never forget this.

This nation's internal and external political, economic, and military policies have nothing whatever to do with "democracy," "justice," or "human rights;" and everything to do with exploitation, hegemony, deceit, and control of the many--by the few.  No amount of rationalization can change or ameliorate this fact.

These conclusions are self-evident, but cry out to be held to the forefront of our assumptions, and our analyses of who is serving the American People and of who is NOT.

Everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this actual one-party U.S. corporatist state are the de facto cannon fodder of the corporate / military Democratic and Republican Party foxes and wolves respectively. Moreover, it is utterly absurd and delusionary to expect "hope" to bring about much-needed systemic "change." The time is here for the people of this nation to dispense with myths, face reality, and change it.

Yes, my fellow barely scraping byers, that would be something like the lower 98%, socio-economically speaking (based on income) OR based on wealth. We ain't got much of either.

Corporations are in constant covert (and often unabashed overt) control of the White House, the congress, and the judiciary, even as this nation's infrastructure deteriorates and living standards plummet--along with decent living wages and opportunities for everyday people. The two Rs--Rhetoric and Repression--are what the masses of everyday people are the daily recipients.

 Let us go forth from this point on and make our talking point THE TWO Rs -- Rhetoric and Repression--are what the masses of everyday people are the daily recipients.

Meanwhile, the corporate elite of corporations including Honeywell, General Electic, Lockheed, Boeing, and so very many more-- rake in billions upon billions of dollars in blood money as they develop and perfect ever more sinister and devastatingly hideous devices and killing machines--to the scourge of humankind and the entire planet.  There is no war (declared or undeclared) that the corporate / military elite do not support--for whether any war itself is won or lost--this avaricious corporate / military  elite wins. They smugly and arrogantly wrap themselves in apparent political expediency under the cover of grotesquely distortedpatriotism--sanctimoniously financially enriching themselves--while bathing in the precious irreplaceable blood of everyday people of this nation and that of people around the globe. This is the corporate trough from which the politicians of this nation drink and to which they are beholden.

With over 800 U.S. military bases / installations throughout this planet--the amoral symbiotic relationship between corporations and politicains in this nation (including the judiciary and ever-compliant corporate-stream "news" media) reeks with the stench of hypocrisy, injustice, subterfuge, and death. As the present robotic, black-faced, corporate / military, nominal head of the U.S. empire shamelessly wages military wars abroad while facilitating repression against political dissenters and against any possibility of having informed, honest, and real dialouge at home; the hypocrisy of 'America's' so called democracy is self evident whether or not people choose to see the obvious.

Then of course there are the blatant right-wingers who cling to their own form of blind insanity and denial in search of yesterday; followed closely by the "liberals" who stand for absolutely nothing other than lofty rhetoric and the ultimate continuation of this hypocrisy which they call democracy. For example, over two years ago, the rhetoric of "liberals" loudly questioned the correctness of George W. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.--but quickly turned a blind, complicitous eye to the widening of these very same bloody wars by Barack Obama.  Once more, the hypocrisy is self evident.  Both the blatant right-wing and the so-called "liberals" have one very important thing in common: They both support the maintenance and perpetuation of the U.S. corporate / military empire,  only differing with one another in how this is to be done.  Neither camp seriously questions or opposes, the validity of or right to, world world hegemony by the U.S. corporate / military elite. Indeed, this nation continues to have a 21st century form of the 'Manifest Destiny,' which led to the brutal genocide of the Indigenous Red peoples on this continent--all in the distorted name of God, patriotism, and "civilization." Very little of substance has changed today. In fact the U.S. corporate / military elite has actively pushed the people of this nation and world backwards--once again, in the name of "progress."
There can be no viable appeal to reason when the obvious is so studiously ignored. Thus, the need to intensify in our efforts to educate, agitate, and organize with and among everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people.

This 'American' democracy is a terrible hypocrisy and a bloody sham. Only by consciously breaking away from the imagined comfort zone of mental stupor that many people find themselves in can we collectively and uncompromisingly bring about real systemic change. This struggle for human rights and economic and political justice is a local, national, and international in scope. It is linked to the struggle of everyday peoples around the world. And comfortable people don't make change. The mental-stupor comfort zone must be shattered in order to step into reality and collectively change it.

Justice for the people of Haiti! Justice for the people of Tunisia!  Justice for the people of      South Africa! Justice for the people of France, Germany, Greece, Iceland and Spain! Justice for the everyday people of the United States of America! Justice for students and workers!       Justice for the peoples of the world! Visualize a world free of corporate / military domination!   Visualize it and struggle to make it real.
We must end this hypocrisy in 'America,' and in the words of Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again!" Let it be the 'America' of and for everyday people in harmony with everyday people of the world--of our Mother Earth, for she calls to us and we must answer!

Onward my sisters and brothers! Onward!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, 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 in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. 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). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.