By Larry Pinkney

“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”—Howard Zinn

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”—Frederick Douglass

The United States corporate government today has become what Frantz Fanon, over five decades earlier, accurately described, as a “monster,” permeated with “taints, sickness, and inhumanity.” Its’ much touted ‘democracy’ is in reality the very height of hypocrisy both inside this nation and abroad.

The scandalous Barack Obama and his corporate owned Democrat and Republican conspirators are simply the latest 21st century phase of this deliberately maintained hypocrisy of disinformation, critical omissions, and perpetual deceit sustained by an utterly corrupt system that has subverted the very meaning and intent of so-called democracy; as it legalizes and intensifies political repression at home and bloody Empire abroad. Ordinary, everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in the U.S. and around the world are the cannon fodder and daily victims of this horror that some call ‘democracy,’ which is built upon subterfuge, parasitic economic bloodsucking, endless war mongering, and shameless deceit.

A more accurate name for this alleged democracy is systemic terrorism by the few against the many. Indeed, this is the “terrorism” embodied in the deceit and hypocrisy of the U.S. corporate government, and its propaganda arm, the corporate-stream ‘news’ media which is incorrectly referred to as the ‘mainstream media.’ In fact, the only thing that is ‘mainstream’ about the corporate-stream media is its ability to incessantly and widely disseminate misinformation, disinformation, distractions, and more often than not, no crucially relevant information to the vast majority of everyday people.

This nation sorely needs systemic revolution (not to be confused with reform). And the shape and parameters of this revolution must be determined by everyday people themselves/ourselves, not the system’s gatekeepers. First however, we must understand, in the immortal words of Frederick Douglass, that, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” In other words, we must understand that systemic change is brought about by “agitation” and euphemistically “plowing up the ground,” not by expecting this corrupt system to change itself. It will not.

The corporate power brokers of the symbiotically-joined Democrat and Republican parties have deep vested political and economic interests in perpetuating this rotten, unjust, hypocritical terroristic system in one wily form or another, not eradicating it. Barack Obama, for example, is the most insidiously effective stealth weapon against everyday people of all colors that this corrupt system has yet produced; but whether he is re-installed or not in the upcoming corporate controlled phony elections in this nation, the system remains about perpetuating itself by keeping the people locked, in perpetuity, on the mental and political plantation of subscribing to and believing in the fake left/right (i.e. Democrat and Republican party) paradigm. Thus, subverting any genuine democracy in the United States. Until we the everyday people recognize this systemic reality for what it is and address it, we will continue to be pimped by the elite who control, own, and operate this U.S. political system of hypocrisy, injustice, and insanity.

The very real and deliberately maintained economic, political, judicial, and physical terrorism of the subverted ‘democracy’ in this nation is what keeps us divided and in fear of one another. Economic apartheid, racism, and sexism, etc., are, in fact, the mainstays of this system and will not be eliminated until we eliminate and replace this system with a model that serves the needs and aspirations of the many, not the insatiable and insane greed of the few.

We are the people, and it is time for us to act like it! It is time to creatively and collectively challenge ourselves and one another. That’s an important part of what “struggle” is all about. And in the words of Frederick Douglass, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” This challenge is an ongoing one (long and protracted) and it will not be easy to fulfill. But we can do it. We must do it. We must take back our humanity! For ourselves, each other, and the many peoples of Mother Earth, we must intensify in this struggle. The real terrorists are the bloodsuckers who divide us and terrorize this planet in our name. The terrorists are not the ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of this wondrous planet.

Remember Tecumseh! Remember John Brown! Remember Harriet Tubman! Remember Rosa Luxemburg! Remember ‘Mother’ Jones! Remember Joe Hill! Remember Lucy Parsons! Remember Emiliano Zapata! Remember Malcolm X! Remember Martin Luther King, Jr.! Remember Bobby Sands! Remember Howard Zinn! Remember them and so very, very many others. We are not alone for we walk in their immortal sunshine and we have each other! Let us remember—and take back our own humanity from the bloodsuckers of this nation and planet. It’s time to fulfill our destinies in this long and protracted struggle.

Each one teach one. Each one reach one. As Joe Hill said so many years ago, “Don’t Mourn. ORGANIZE!” We’ve much work to do. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward!

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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.)