Class Warfare and Victories for the Everyday People

Published in Issue 497 of The Black Commentator on December 6, 2012
By Larry Pinkney

“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.” — Lucy Parsons

In order to genuinely change this corrupt, rotten, political system, one must fight the system, not accommodate or acquiesce to it.

The objective of this U.S. political system and its corporate-stream media is to manipulate, break your spirit, and wear you down. Only this way can those who actually own the system be the successful profiteers that they are.

The plain ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of this nation are never genuinely told or truly heralded for their political, economic, and social victories in the daily struggle to survive in this predatory capitalist system.

The fact is that ordinary people in this nation and throughout the world have made enormous collective strides on behalf of everyday people. The people of this nation are no exception in this regard. We are led to believe that this corrupt system is of, by, for and about us. It is not! It is about maintaining and perpetuating the interests of, for, and by the wealthy elite.

One of the most profound writers who delineated the accomplishments of we, the ordinary people, was Howard Zinn, in his book, A Peoples History of the United States. The relatively tiny national and global wealthy elite will never, in their ‘educational’ institutions, their corporate media, or their corporate-owned government(s), tell the truth about the sacrifices, struggle, and accomplishments made by ordinary people. They cannot afford to do this – for such truths would mentally and politically empower ordinary people – and such empowerment would threaten the status quo — their status quo.

Perpetual wars, ‘racial’ disharmony, economic austerity, and deliberately manipulated ‘terrorism’ serve the interests and objectives of the avaricious wealthy elite – not the teeming ordinary people of all colors.

We must understand that both color and class are being insidiously and effectively used against us ordinary people. And this is being done to the overwhelming majority of people by the elite – and the aspirant elite of all colors. Today, the New Plantation, in the de facto Patriot Act / NDAA / ‘Kill List’ U.S. police-state – Plantation America – is all about pimping the fears, hopes, dreams, and economic and political human rights of the vast majority of people.

Sadly, many Black Americans have, for the moment, bought into the bloody ‘manifest destiny’ myth of this nation – even as their own economic, social, and political rights are being consistently decimated. The war mongering, insipid, and articulate Barack Obama house ‘Negro,’ has served and continues to serve, his corporate Wall Street masters well – at the terrible expense of everyday people of all colors.

Nevertheless, the ordinary people of all colors in this nation have the capacity to rise up against this corporate-owned, rotten, hypocritical, unjust political system. It is a matter of consciousness and time. This struggle is about class warfare, not simply color. It is a struggle based upon the needs and human rights of the many versus the insatiable greed and lust for power of the few.

The corporate-stream media is, of course, essentially nothing more than the propaganda mouth-piece for the slimy elite. Once this fact is understood, recognized, and acted upon, the power of the corporate-stream media (in all its wily forms) will be greatly diminished.

The fact is that throughout this nation, ordinary people, at great costs, are effectively resisting systemic home foreclosures, corporate hegemony, and systemic brutality. The corporate-stream media reports little or nothing of these valiant actions and victories on the part of the people as such information is not in the interests of their corporate masters. The less this corporate-stream media reports, the more the ordinary people should, must, and will organize and resist in this nation and throughout Mother Earth.

Only the persistent, determined, coordinated, and collective actions of everyday people, can and will be an important part of resisting and ultimately changing this corrupt and irretrievably rotten political system. It is time to shove this entire corrupt political system off the so-called ‘fiscal cliff,’ and collectively create one that serves the needs, wants, and hopes of everyday people.

We are winning victories, and every victory – large or small – belongs to the people, all the people! This struggle is a long and protracted one – and it must be intensified! All Power To The People – conscious, determined, and victorious people!

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!

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, and more recently on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones Show. 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, San Francisco BayView newspaper, Black Commentator, Intrepid Report, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), 107 Cowgate (Ireland and Scotland), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). He is in the archives of Dr. Huey P. Newton (Stanford University, CA), cofounder of the Black Panther Party. 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.)