Larry Pinkney

“To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave.” -Frederick Douglass

“The [Senate] Committe has not been able to determine with any greater precision the extent to which COINTELPRO may be continuing.”

-Book III, Final Report of the Select Committee, 94th Congress, 2d Session, United States Senate

Terror is carried out in many forms by this nation’s corporate government against everyday people both internally and externally, and its most powerful facilitator is apathy.

As the national economy crumbles for everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people, there is in the White House a corporate / military master-president masquerading as the slave, a Congress insatiably feeding from a bottomless corporate trough, and a judiciary that makes an utter mockery of justice, constitutional rights, and human rights. Meanwhile, bloody overt and covert U.S. wars rage on in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere abroad. As contempt grows for the hypocritical and diabolical de facto policies of this nation’s government, it is everyday people at home and abroad whose lives are being torn assunder and who are quite literally dying, as the banksters and other assorted corporate gangsters grow ever richer and even more vicious.

The corporate-stream so-called “news” media of this nation has sunk to its lowest level since the very inception of the United States of America. It is pathetic as it serves as the propaganda arm, of and for, this actual one-party corporatist / military state. The corporate-stream media serves to keep everyday people misinformed (or not relevantly informed at all), apathetic and lethargic, while being simultaneously terrorized. Its role is to omit, distract, confuse, and discredit: Omit - at all costs - delineating the truth and reality of what is actually occurring and why; distract attention away from how everyday people are being emotionally pimped and economically & politically emaciated by the U.S. corporate / military elite while purposely confusing the issues; and discredit - by any means necessary - those who dare to speak truth to power. Indeed, the function of this corporate-stream media is to keep people mindless, confused, and manipulated. There is no such thing in this nation as consistently serious, honest, and hard-hitting, thought-provoking journalism in the corporate-stream media, for such a thing would be absolutely unacceptable to the corporate elite who financially own the corporate-stream “news” media. Thus, the cycle of terror against everyday people in this nation and around the world is maintained and perpetuated.

It is no mere coincidence that as the horrific economic melt-down worsens for everyday people - political repression increases [i.e. de facto terrorism] in this nation. In other words, everyday people are being simultaneously terrorized both economically and politically right here at home. Moreover, the dangerous, absurd, and hypocritical political & military policies abroad, of this nation’s government, virtually guarantees a continuing cycle of blind physical terror against the people of this nation and around the world. But who cares, as long as the blood-lined financial coffers of the tiny avaricious corporate / military elite continue to be filled to the brim?! It’s time for us, everyday people, to care!

On Terror, COINTELPRO, the Patriot Act & Everyday People

To reiterate: Terror is carried out in many forms, both nationally and internationally.

The most obviously destructive form of terrorism is of course war, and is primarily carried out by governments, most notably our own. Nevertheless, political repression is also a virulent form of terrorism - also, more often than not, carried out by governments.

The United States government has, for many decades, been engaged in a war against its own everyday people. It is a terroristic war of political repression, and presently this form of terrorism is being ratcheted-up to a crescendo level by the U.S. government, under the auspices of the Obama administration.

People are terorized that they will have their doors kicked in by the FBI et al, or placed on a government no-fly list, or set-up and framed on some well orchestrated bogus offense - all for, in actuality, exercising the right to political dissent against this government’s internal and/or external policies. However, this Orwellian reality, though being continued in the year 2011, by no means just began this year. It is in fact part and parcel of a long, sordid, ignored, often glossed-over and/or hidden chapter(s) of the ‘American’ government’s continuing experiment in terror against its own people.

One such continuing chapter of terror against the people of this nation is the U.S. government’s insidious program to “frame, murder, imprison, discredit and/or [otherwise] neutralize” political dissenters; known as COINTELPRO [i.e. the Counter Intelligence Program]. In point of fact, the political repression of COINTELPRO has been insidiously codified in the so-called ‘Patriot Act’ itself. The Obama / Biden administration, with the complicity of the Congress and the courts, has extended and broadened this ‘American’ experiment in terror against everyday people throughout this nation. Today, even the semblance of political transparency in government has been morphed into a disfigured relic of the past, and those who attempt to pull back the heavy curtain of secrecy and subterfuge permeating this corporate-government become targets to be “neutralize[d].” Nevertheless, an increasing amount of everyday people are becoming fed-up with these amoral, unjust, and secretive, corporate-government intrigues and are increasingly insisting upon speaking truth to power. As in the past, so today, the government invokes the nebulous, omnipresent cloak of “national security” (which really means corporate security for the elite rich) in an attempt to rationalize and defend its secrecy, subterfuge, and wars - at home and abroad.

This corporate-government is in fear of its own people and is resorting to every conceivable dirty trick to keep just plain everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people uninformed, in disarray, and under control. This is not government “of, by, and for the people.” It is a farce and a sham, and getting worse every day. It’s time to wake up and turn things around!

What We Must Do

There is no single answer or set of answers for bringing about the real systemic change that the people of this nation and globe need and deserve. There are many answers. However, one thing is certain: Resistance is not futile - it is absolutely essential. In order to develop viable answers for bringing about systemic change, we must be critical thinkers and come up with uncompromising and viable questions. We must stop acting as lethargic corporate drones and regain the human creativity that we have allowed the corporate / military elite to steal from us. We must reconnect with our own humanity and that of peoples globally. We must demand a full accounting from those politicians who allegedly represent us everyday people. We must educate ourselves and each other - in the truest sense of the word; and informed critical thinking and analysis is an integral part of real “education” [not brainwashing]. We must seriously educate our young people. Yes, “educate” ourselves and one another - so that we, all of us women, men, and children, Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow are, in the words of Frederick Douglass, utterly “unfit to be slaves!” Unfit to be drones! We must support, in word and deed, those who stand up for justice and human rights and who speak truth to power - for in so doing we are supporting the very best in ourselves and each other.

No more home foreclosures! No more burgeoning prisons! No more unemployment or under-employment! No more wars abroad or at home! No more corporate greed and domination! No more subterfuge and political repression! No more double-speak rhetoric! It’s time for real change - that is, systemic change.

We must organize locally, nationally, and internationally for justice and human rights. Contrary to the words from the motion picture, The Wizard of Oz; we will and must pay attention to that metaphorical “man behind the curtain.” In fact, we must rip that curtain down! We must educate, organize, and agitate for the good of the planet and the whole of everyday people! Stop looking elsewhere for all the answers when it is you, yourselves, collectively who have them within you. Humanity and Mother Earth call to us. And we must respond. Let’s get busy.

Onward my sisters and brothers! Onward!

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http://www.blackcommentator.com/411/411_kir_experiment_in_terror_share.html

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.)