“I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president—which means, in our time, a dangerous president—unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”—Howard Zinn
“Beware of the naked man who offers you clothes.”—African Proverb
Contrary to the assertion that Barack Obama fears the ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of the United States and the world; his repeated political betrayals demonstrate contemptfor,nota fear of, everyday people. His high-sounding, obfuscated rhetoric is constantly belied by his egregious actions against ordinary people.
As if it were not bad enough for Obama to have betrayed everyday people by extending andbroadened the unconstitutional so-called ‘Patriot Act,’ which act, in essence, has legalized the U.S. government abuses, frame-ups, wrongful imprisonments, and murders of U.S. citizens carried out under the infamous—and no doubt ongoing—COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program); he has also continued and enhanced the odious U.S. practice of international kidnapping and torture, known as ‘Extraordinary Rendition.’ Moreover, Obama’s continuation of the U.S. debacle of detention at Guantanamo Bay speaks volumes as to his utter contempt for the rule of justice and the wishes of the people of this nation and world.
Yet, the afore mentioned betrayals, as hideous as they are, were merely a dry run by Barack Obama in preparation for his complicit and obscene death blow to the U.S. Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights. This death blow was carried out by Barack Obama on December 31, 2011, when he brazenly signed the misnamed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Be crystal clear about this: The NDAA, as author and award-winning journalist Mike Adams so clearly states, “grants the U.S. military the ‘legal’ right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture, and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legalrepresentation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.” [Reference The Black Commentator, January 5, 2012, ‘Beyond Vietnam’ Into Afghanistan and Indefinite Detentionof U.S. Citizens] The reality inside this nation is that the U.S. government now has the legal right to simply disappear and imprison people with no legal or human rights based upon what they are presumed to be thinking (i.e. ‘thought crimes’).
Barack Obama, cunningly, on the eve of the year 2012, delivered a mortal blow, not to the U.S. corporate/military Empire, but to the everyday people of this nation. No, Obama does notfear we everyday people. He has a demonstrative contempt for us! And yes, Barack Obama, in conjunction with his Democrat and Republican party cohorts, has now actually legalized a 21st century form of de facto state-fascism in this nation. The Constitution be damned!
Obama’s answer to the legitimate demands of everyday people, including the Occupy Movement is, more of the same—only worse—intensified legalized repression in the year 2012.
Where were the right-wing supposed lovers of the Constitution when Obama and his corporate-owned Republicrats (i.e., Democrats and Republicans) committed the NDAA atrocity?! For that matter, where was the unquenchable outrage from the bulk of so-called ‘progressives’ and leftists in this nation? With but a few exceptions, they are hypocrites, one and all! Their silence today is deafening, just as it was back in the year 2009. [Reference The Black Commentator, September 3, 2009, Silence of the Lambs: Liberal Hypocrisy and the Complicity of the Left]
Back in July of 2006, writer and present editor and publisher of Intrepid Report Bev Conover, warned of the onslaught of de facto fascism in the United States in her article entitled, In Fascist America, Thought Crimes Are Prosecutable] Her ominous words were right on point and pertinent back then, and even more relevant and urgent today.
Despite these very real and increasingly obvious horrors, there continues to be those who profit and/or otherwise benefit from maintaining this irretrievably corrupt and politicallybankrupt system even as they cleverly feign concern over its injustices. These persons are, in fact, systemic gatekeepers and Barack Obama, too, has his own national brigade of systemic gatekeepers who disguise themselves as alleged ‘community activists,’ ‘progressives,’ and/or leftists.
Barack Obama’s fifth column of systemic gatekeepers
Obama already has enormous overt and covert continued support from the crow-eating, U.S. corporate-stream media, and of course much of the avaricious corporate elite. However, like Barack Obama himself, his systemic gatekeepers engage in subterfuge and subversion of the will of the everyday people. These are the people, many of whom prattle on endlessly about, for example, the very real racial, economic, and war mongering injustices of the system itself, but who stalwartly support theperpetuation of these injustices by supporting Barack Obama (or some other corporate systemic clone) all in the name of choosing between the lesser of the two systemic evils—or more to the point—the ‘evil of the two systemic lessers.’ In their writings and/or speeches, these persons expropriate the language of the everyday people’s struggle while practicing a steadfast support for the maintenance of the system itself.
One can find among Barack Obama’s systemic gatekeepers those who righteously marched and rallied against GW Bush and continue to call for the criminal indictment of him, but who now hypocriticallyturn a blind eye to Obama’s ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Africa, etc., not to mention Obama’s utter destruction of the U.S. Constitution and the concomitant human rights of people in this nation and abroad. These persons infer that opposing the egregious policies of Barack Obama is tantamount to being a ‘race-traitor’ or a racist. Yet, they themselves are the perpetuators of systemic racism. Their support for Obama—this double-talking, war mongering, Predator drone missile president—is unswerving and their hypocrisy and tunnel vision staggers the imagination.
It is noteworthy that many of Obama’s systemic gatekeepers adorn themselves as ‘progressives’ or leftists and are often placed on political pedestals by so-called liberal, progressive, and/or left publications, etc. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, these persons are about the business of, at best, reforming the same old irretrievably corrupt political system, not utterly discarding and changing it from top to bottom. Much-needed systemic change will never come from this system or from those who support it.
In this year of 2012, there will be a marked increase of these wily systemic gatekeepers, be they supporters of Barack Obama or some other corporate-backed blood-sucking politician. See them for who and what they are, for they are the “naked” ones who “offer (us) clothes.”
Time for an end to silence
The time is upon the people of this nation and the world for an end to silence. Silence is complicity, and we cannot be on the side of the corporate executioners or their minions. We must not be complicit! Our young people have a right to be angry. In fact, we should ALL be angry—angry enough to do something together—about this corrupt system.
This nation, humanity as a whole, and Mother Earth herself are in dire trouble. The time of politicians and corporate hegemony must be brought to an end. The time has come for everyday people of all colors to recognize our potential and seize itcollectively—each one teaching one as we carry on in this protracted struggle. Organize, agitate, educate! In the immortal words of Joe Hill: “Don’t Mourn. ORGANIZE!”
Onward then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!
Intrepid Report Associate Editor 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. 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, the San Francisco BayView newspaper, the Black Commentator,Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). 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.)
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Barack Obama’s answer to the pain of everyday people: Indefinite detention!
Posted on January 12, 2012 by Larry Pinkney
Contrary to the assertion that Barack Obama fears the ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of the United States and the world; his repeated political betrayals demonstrate contempt for, not a fear of, everyday people. His high-sounding, obfuscated rhetoric is constantly belied by his egregious actions against ordinary people.
As if it were not bad enough for Obama to have betrayed everyday people by extending and broadened the unconstitutional so-called ‘Patriot Act,’ which act, in essence, has legalized the U.S. government abuses, frame-ups, wrongful imprisonments, and murders of U.S. citizens carried out under the infamous—and no doubt ongoing—COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program); he has also continued and enhanced the odious U.S. practice of international kidnapping and torture, known as ‘Extraordinary Rendition.’ Moreover, Obama’s continuation of the U.S. debacle of detention at Guantanamo Bay speaks volumes as to his utter contempt for the rule of justice and the wishes of the people of this nation and world.
Yet, the afore mentioned betrayals, as hideous as they are, were merely a dry run by Barack Obama in preparation for his complicit and obscene death blow to the U.S. Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights. This death blow was carried out by Barack Obama on December 31, 2011, when he brazenly signed the misnamed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Be crystal clear about this: The NDAA, as author and award-winning journalist Mike Adams so clearly states, “grants the U.S. military the ‘legal’ right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture, and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.” [Reference The Black Commentator, January 5, 2012, ‘Beyond Vietnam’ Into Afghanistan and Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens] The reality inside this nation is that the U.S. government now has the legal right to simply disappear and imprison people with no legal or human rights based upon what they are presumed to be thinking (i.e. ‘thought crimes’).
Barack Obama, cunningly, on the eve of the year 2012, delivered a mortal blow, not to the U.S. corporate/military Empire, but to the everyday people of this nation. No, Obama does not fear we everyday people. He has a demonstrative contempt for us! And yes, Barack Obama, in conjunction with his Democrat and Republican party cohorts, has now actually legalized a 21st century form of de facto state-fascism in this nation. The Constitution be damned!
Obama’s answer to the legitimate demands of everyday people, including the Occupy Movement is, more of the same—only worse—intensified legalized repression in the year 2012.
Where were the right-wing supposed lovers of the Constitution when Obama and his corporate-owned Republicrats (i.e., Democrats and Republicans) committed the NDAA atrocity?! For that matter, where was the unquenchable outrage from the bulk of so-called ‘progressives’ and leftists in this nation? With but a few exceptions, they are hypocrites, one and all! Their silence today is deafening, just as it was back in the year 2009. [Reference The Black Commentator, September 3, 2009, Silence of the Lambs: Liberal Hypocrisy and the Complicity of the Left]
Back in July of 2006, writer and present editor and publisher of Intrepid Report Bev Conover, warned of the onslaught of de facto fascism in the United States in her article entitled, In Fascist America, Thought Crimes Are Prosecutable] Her ominous words were right on point and pertinent back then, and even more relevant and urgent today.
Despite these very real and increasingly obvious horrors, there continues to be those who profit and/or otherwise benefit from maintaining this irretrievably corrupt and politically bankrupt system even as they cleverly feign concern over its injustices. These persons are, in fact, systemic gatekeepers and Barack Obama, too, has his own national brigade of systemic gatekeepers who disguise themselves as alleged ‘community activists,’ ‘progressives,’ and/or leftists.
Barack Obama’s fifth column of systemic gatekeepers
Obama already has enormous overt and covert continued support from the crow-eating, U.S. corporate-stream media, and of course much of the avaricious corporate elite. However, like Barack Obama himself, his systemic gatekeepers engage in subterfuge and subversion of the will of the everyday people. These are the people, many of whom prattle on endlessly about, for example, the very real racial, economic, and war mongering injustices of the system itself, but who stalwartly support the perpetuation of these injustices by supporting Barack Obama (or some other corporate systemic clone) all in the name of choosing between the lesser of the two systemic evils—or more to the point—the ‘evil of the two systemic lessers.’ In their writings and/or speeches, these persons expropriate the language of the everyday people’s struggle while practicing a steadfast support for the maintenance of the system itself.
One can find among Barack Obama’s systemic gatekeepers those who righteously marched and rallied against GW Bush and continue to call for the criminal indictment of him, but who now hypocritically turn a blind eye to Obama’s ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Africa, etc., not to mention Obama’s utter destruction of the U.S. Constitution and the concomitant human rights of people in this nation and abroad. These persons infer that opposing the egregious policies of Barack Obama is tantamount to being a ‘race-traitor’ or a racist. Yet, they themselves are the perpetuators of systemic racism. Their support for Obama—this double-talking, war mongering, Predator drone missile president—is unswerving and their hypocrisy and tunnel vision staggers the imagination.
It is noteworthy that many of Obama’s systemic gatekeepers adorn themselves as ‘progressives’ or leftists and are often placed on political pedestals by so-called liberal, progressive, and/or left publications, etc. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, these persons are about the business of, at best, reforming the same old irretrievably corrupt political system, not utterly discarding and changing it from top to bottom. Much-needed systemic change will never come from this system or from those who support it.
In this year of 2012, there will be a marked increase of these wily systemic gatekeepers, be they supporters of Barack Obama or some other corporate-backed blood-sucking politician. See them for who and what they are, for they are the “naked” ones who “offer (us) clothes.”
Time for an end to silence
The time is upon the people of this nation and the world for an end to silence. Silence is complicity, and we cannot be on the side of the corporate executioners or their minions. We must not be complicit! Our young people have a right to be angry. In fact, we should ALL be angry—angry enough to do something together—about this corrupt system.
This nation, humanity as a whole, and Mother Earth herself are in dire trouble. The time of politicians and corporate hegemony must be brought to an end. The time has come for everyday people of all colors to recognize our potential and seize it collectively—each one teaching one as we carry on in this protracted struggle. Organize, agitate, educate! In the immortal words of Joe Hill: “Don’t Mourn. ORGANIZE!”
Onward then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!
Intrepid Report Associate Editor 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. 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, the San Francisco BayView newspaper, the Black Commentator, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). 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.)