“The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs...Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr. “In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh
In human beings, more often than not, violence is externally ingrained. It does not come about by mere osmosis.
Perhaps the most sordid hypocrisy of all is committed by those “leaders” who profess disgust and surprise at the ever-present rampant physical violence in this nation, while simultaneously ordering or supporting targeted assassinations, bombings, and drone missile attacks, etc. upon populations abroad. This disconnect is cognizant dissonance. It is a form of sustained societal insanity which the leadership of this nation utterly refuses to forthrightly and honestly address.
This a society that glorifies violence in video and online games, television, and other forms of media in the name of some kind of distorted patriotism, and yet has the unmitigated gall to feign surprise at the individual acts of violence committed inside its own borders. There are, of course, many forms of violence, not the least of which is economic. Nevertheless, from the terrible physical tragedies at Fort Hood, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona, to the insidious daily economic corporate-government violence of poverty and disenfrancisement committed against struggling, everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people, manipulated violence reigns supreme. Our young people are raised on an endless poisonous diet of corporate-government double-speak, mixed messages, subterfuge, hypocrisy, and violence. This is madness and it is unacceptable.
The corporate-stream “news” media allegedly abhors and yet sensationalizes individual acts of violence while remaining overwhelmingly, conspicuously, and complicitly silent about the enormous and horrendous violence and havoc wreaked upon everyday people at home and abroad by perpetual U.S. wars. These wars are enriching corporations even as they disfigure and/or annihilate families and cultures. Moreover, these wars psychologically and/or physically destroy many of those men and women who find themselves waging them as the cannon-fodder victims of the corporate / military elite’s hideous and very real economic draft of the everyday poor.
The virulent economic violence of disenfranchisement against working people in this nation, in the form of joblessness, cut-backs, and/or lay-offs, is yet another form of corporate-government violence against everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people, and must be understood in this context. It is nothing short of conscious, manipulated violence against everyday people. Additionally, the corporate-government’s bail-out of Wall Street, combined with its economic attacks on education, Social Security, and the denial of single payer, universal health care are all gifts to the avaricious rich of this nation, and represent violent attacks against the masses of everyday people of this nation. This, too, must be understood precisely for what it is.
Meanwhile, much of the academic leadership at so-called “educational” institutions of higher learning have opted to be complicitous in this cycle of violence perpetrated by this U.S. corporate-government, rather than truly educate, speak out, and organize against it. Thus, reinforcing this sorry state of affairs. They too, must be held accountable for what they are doing to young people and society as a whole.
Last but by no means least, the numerous forms of violence being carried out every single day against our political prisoners, and prisoners in general, in the prison gulags of this nation is a reflection upon our own humanity or lack thereof. We must speak truth to power and strive to break the cycle of this nation’s violence and hypocrisy. Remember that, until we at last do this, we ourselves are in reality imprisoned behind the walls of madness.
The violence, in its various forms, being carried out by this corporate / military government in the name of the people of this country, is in fact being directed not only against peoples of other lands but also, quite deliberately, against we ourselves. We must understand this for what it actually is. This violence has nothing whatever to do with patriotism or so-called “national security” and everything to do with greed and domination by the rich at the expense of the many. The internal and external cycles of violence being experienced within, and practiced outside the borders of this nation, can and will only be broken and stopped when everyday people have reached the point of saturation, have had enough, and will stand for no more. No more lies! No more deceit! No more subterfuge! No more corporate / military bloodshed!
This calls for the ongoing development of an actualized collective consciousness and vision (with our own everyday people’s narratives, not that of the corporate-stream media). This will be brought about by the hard work of unrelenting and incessant political organizing locally and nationally. In the words of the late renowned author and activist, Frantz Fanon: “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.” (Reference the book, The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon). The “mission” of we everyday people has yet to be fulfilled, and fulfill it we must.
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. |
