Guantanamo: Obama’s Ongoing Hypocrisy in Cuba

Published in Issue 472 of The Black Commentator on May 17, 2012
By Larry Pinkney

“For him, the oratory of the politicians who sent him off to war – the language of freedom, democracy, and justice – is now seen as the ultimate hypocrisy. A mute, thinking torso on a hospital bed, he finds a way to communicate with a kindly nurse, and when a visiting delegation of military brass comes by to pin a medal on his body, he taps out a message. He says: Take me into the workplaces, into the schools, show me to the little children and to the college students, let them see what war is like.”
-Howard Zinn

“Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.”
-Jose Marti

One of the most gruesome and yet fascinating aspects of the United States government and its current corporate double-talking figure-head, Barack Obama, is the astounding hypocrisy of polices and practices towards everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and throughout the world. The relatively small island nation of Cuba immediately comes to mind in this regard.

It is stunning, almost beyond belief, how the U.S. government demands that the Cuban government practice what it describes as so-called ‘democracy,’ and yet the U.S. itself persistently maintains, on the de facto physical territory of Cuba, what is perhaps the most profoundly hideous and egregious torture chamber of imprisonment and dehumanization that this 21st century world has yet experienced.

The hideousness of this goes beyond mere hypocrisy – deep into the realm of utter insanity. It is reminiscent of how the U.S. government back in the 1960s and 1970s proclaimed that it was waging a bloody war in Vietnam in order to save Vietnam from none other than the Vietnamese people themselves. Finally, after well over a decade of that murderous insanity, the people of the United States realized that they had been had – bamboozled. But the countless lives that had been forever maimed or lost, could never be brought back, notwithstanding the enormous profit the Wall Street war profiteering corporations had made at the horrible expense of the everyday people of the United States and Vietnam.

The same deliberately maintained insane scenario continues today. Then, it was the manufactured bogus threat of so-called communism. Today, it is the systemically manipulated and perpetually fueled threat of “terrorism” – a “terrorism” that is deliberately fueled by the state terrorism of U.S. predator drone missile strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere; and by U.S.-led (NATO) invasions in Libya, North Africa, etc. As the corporate controlled U.S. government is well aware, hate breeds hate and international state terrorism breeds independent and individual terrorism, which in turn, feeds the coffers of the Wall Street war profiteers of the U.S. and global corporate elite.

The same U.S. banks and other multi-national corporations that are profiting by economically pimping everyday people, and foreclosing on the homes millions of people in the United States, even as they demand that young and old former college / university students pay blood sucking “loans,” are also raking in trillions of dollars by sending young men and women to war in foreign lands to defend a so-called ‘democracy’ which we in this nation do not even have or enjoy. It is time to make the connections.

The debacle known as Guantanamo is but a reflection of the hypocrisy and callousness of the U.S. corporate government as a whole, currently led by Barack Obama, and embodied in the horse manure of both the Democratic and Republican parties. This hypocrisy can be seen both at home and abroad, as it is deeply intertwined.

It is time to turn off the lies, distractions, and omissions of the U.S. corporate-stream media. The only media that is worth your/our time is the media of everyday struggling people. Our own media! The rest of it is truly unmitigated horse manure, meant for us to take in, wallow in, and sprout ignorance and concomitant systemic manipulation.

Pay attention to everyday people around the world – not the so-called ‘leaders.’ The Obama/Biden regime, along with the feudalistic ‘Kingdom’ of Saudi Arabia are supporting the brutal repression of everyday ordinary people not only throughout Africa, but also in the nation of Bahrain. Hadn’t heard about that? Of course not! And the U.S. corporate-stream media has no intention of telling you! This is both the hypocrisy and manipulated insanity of the U.S. corporate government and its corporate-stream ‘news’ media.

Remember: every time that you hear of Cuba, remember Obama’s ongoing debacle of Guantanamo, and while you’re at it, remember the indefinite detention law of U.S. citizens (NDAA of 2012) signed by Barack Obama, on (December 31, 2011) New Year’s Eve, when virtually no one in this nation was paying attention.

Dispense with both the Democrats and Republicans, for they both drink from the corporate trough, and engage in constantly manipulating, distorting, and pimping the pain of the people!

We must organize, educate, and agitate for a better nation and world – one which serves everyday people, and does not politically, economically, and socially pimp them! This is OUR Mother Earth, not that of the corporate pimps of ‘America’ and elsewhere.

Each one, teach one. Each one, reach 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. 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), 107Cowgate (Ireland and Scotland), 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.)