War & Missiles: Obama’s Requiem for the Dead & Dying Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” -Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz] Notwithstanding his endless rhetoric, the policies and actions of Barack Obama, demonstrate the ultimate contradiction of all that justice-loving people have struggled so long and so hard for in this nation, and throughout the world. The increasingly obvious contradictions represented in and by this U.S. corporate plutocracy, must be recognized and understood for what they really are. Thus, even these painful contradictions can serve to sharpen [i.e. clarify] our understanding of who and what we are really dealing with, and what needs to be done in order to bring about much-needed systemic change. Everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and globally yearn for true peace and freedom with dignity - including decent jobs, housing, and education - free of corporate / government manipulation, repression, and subterfuge. Indeed, everyday people do face “terrorism,” but it is the terrorism of the rich and powerful against the vast majority of humankind both here and abroad. It is the terrorism of government repression against political dissent. It is the terrorism of deceit and perpetual war! For everyday people there is absolutely no acceptable explanation for endless bloody wars abroad, and economic stagnation, deprivation, and de facto political repression at home. Only the rich and powerful elite of the corporate / military apparatus financially benefit from this horror, while ordinary folks see their pain cynically pimped and manipulated. The rage of everyday people in the ‘Middle-East,’ North Africa, Haiti, and elsewhere, including right here in this country, is legitimate. It is as a result of being constantly lied to, and manipulated by, the elite of the world-wide U.S. corporate / government apparatus and its servile servant, i.e. the corporate-stream media. It is fanned by an endless stream of deceit steeped in insatiable corporate greed. As the Obama / Biden regime’s drone missiles rain down terror from the skies in Pakistan, and elsewhere, it should be clearly understood that the corporate elite of these manufacturers of missiles and other “shock and awe” terror-machines, are raking in huge financial profits - blood profits. Moreover, rather than protecting everyday people, the use of these terror machines is in fact ensuring a perpetual cycle of outrage, retaliation, and war, with just plain ordinary people in this nation and around the world as the ultimate victims. The late Martin Luther King, Jr. was ever so correct when he pointed out that we live in a nation having “guided missiles and misguided men [and women].” Instead of moving this nation and the world forward, the elite of these corporate / military blood-suckers have moved humankind backwards - all in the fleeting name of some kind of supposed progress and fake ‘national security.’ Instead of ending so-called “terrorism,” they have knowingly assured its continuance! Every weapon of destruction that rips apart the bodies of women, men, and children in other lands, including those of the rank and file men and women U.S. troops - who are in those other lands, is a testament to the horror and the insanity of corporate-government deceit, manipulation, and greed. Let the true patriots of humanity and Mother Earth stand up now and bring an end to this ongoing madness! The best and only real ‘national security’ is for everyday people throughout this planet to band together for international security, and the quest for international security can never be left in the hands of corporate-governments, wily politicians, or top military brass [i.e. generals, admirals, etc.]. The very last thing that the Obama / Biden regime (or indeed any U.S. corporate / military regime for that matter) wants to see is a genuine bottom-up people’s democracy anywhere in the world - and most particularly in the so-called ‘Third World.’ A bottom-up people’s democracy is one that is everyday-people powered versus being corporate-powered and controlled. Contrary to the lies continually spewed forth in the U.S. corporate-stream media, the vast majority of people on this planet are not “anti-American” (whatever the hell that really means); they are however, anti-U.S. corporate / military domination - be that domination overt or carried out covertly through U.S. corporate-government controlled and supported “client” dictators [i.e. puppets]. The recent uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Haiti, Yemen, Jordan, and elsewhere, including in parts of Europe, are a reflection and reminder that U.S. corporate-government domination is no longer tolerable and utterly unacceptable. The people’s struggles in the aforementioned areas for justice, human rights, and self determination will be protracted and long. They will not be over night affairs, nor can or should the U.S. corporate-stream media be relied upon to report the truth and give accurate in-depth analyses. The corporate-stream media is itself a major perpetrator and contributor to this madness. This is not Hollywood - this is real life. So it is that we everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people inside the United States, must, as Malcolm X put it, “face reality.” We must face reality in order to change it. The struggle for justice and human rights in this nation today is (though ignored by the corporate-stream media) an integral part of the everyday people’s struggle around the world. If we ignore this fact then we do so at our own peril. If, on the other hand, we face this reality, we have the opportunity to usher in a different composition for the living and those yet unborn - an actualized song for real systemic change. Make no mistake about it: This too, is, and will be, a long and protracted collective struggle of, for, and by the everyday people in this nation. Educate, organize, agitate! Speak truth to power! It is the corporate / military Democratic and Republican Party foxes and wolves, to whom the wars and missiles and the ‘requiem for the dead’ belong. Ours however, is yet to be penned, and it will be a new kind of composition - one for Mother Earth and for the living and those yet unborn! One done for and by the determined actions of everyday people! Time to wake up and get busy. Venceremos! 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.