The ‘election’ farce manipulating the minds of the masses

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”—Steve Biko

“If those in charge of our society—politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television—can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power . . .”—Howard Zinn

Without fundamental systemic change, there is in reality, no change at all.

The people of the United States, like caged hamsters running endlessly on a proverbial spinning wheel are, in this year of 2012, once more being barraged with political double-talk and insanity by the U.S. corporate-stream media, politicians, and the corporate elite as they actively conspire to repeatedly ensnare everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in the quagmire of mediocrity, economic austerity, legalized internal repression and perpetual external wars.

So-called elections, especially those on the national level in the United States, are anything but elections. They are selections—predetermined selections made by the very same Wall Street corporate robber barons to whom the politicians of both the Democrat and Republican parties awarded a trillion dollar criminal ‘bailout’ of the everyday people’s money.

In order to effectively manipulate and control the everyday people of this nation, the corporate-stream media, in unabashed shameless service to their corporate masters, go about the business of misinforming, disinforming, and diverting the people from the source of their misery—which is the corporate run and controlled system itself. In other words, it’s all about controlling the minds of the masses. In the words of Steve Biko, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

Nothing short of fundamental systemic change that is totally devoid of corporate manipulation, will bring about an end to the economic austerity, corporate hegemony, and perpetual wars. The tiny corporate elite is very aware of this fact, as are its surrogate politicians and its corporate-stream media of diversion and disinformation.

It is important that we everyday people stay focused on the root cause of the everyday people’s problems, while remembering that the objective of the spineless U.S. corporate- stream media is to ensure that the people do not know and/or stay focused on what entities are economically and politically pimping them and how it is being carried out.

More than ever before, it is imperative that everyday people refuse to be diverted by the corporate owned and/or sponsored NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, PBS, etc. (i.e., the corporate-stream media). The politicians of this nation, from the president on down, including the judiciary, are, in real terms, also owned by and beholden to their corporate puppet-masters. Thus, in the U.S., legitimate democracy or any serious pretense thereto is nonexistent. Rather, the people of this nation, and of the world, are the targets and victims of the de facto corporate subversion of democracy.

It is in the interests of the everyday people of this nation and planet that we recognize that the forthcoming so-called elections in this nation are a despicable fraud against the people of the United States, perpetrated by, in the words of the late Howard Zinn, the “politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television” who are intent upon dominating the “ideas” of everyday people in order to be “secure in their power.”

The time is now for all politically conscious people of good conscience to intensify in the struggle for systemic change. At stake is the future of humankind collectively.

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.)