{"id":1944,"date":"2013-03-18T11:43:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T17:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/?p=1944"},"modified":"2013-03-27T10:39:52","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T16:39:52","slug":"labeling-people-as-militants-and-then-killing-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/labeling-people-as-militants-and-then-killing-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Labeling people as \u2018militants\u2019 and then killing them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published in Intrepid Report on\u00a0March 18, 2013<\/a>
\nRepublished in 107cowgate.com (Ireland and Scotland) on March 27, 2013<\/a>
\nBy\u00a0Larry Pinkney<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMastery of\u00a0language<\/em>\u00a0affords remarkable power.\u201d
\n\u2014Frantz Fanon<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of\u00a0thinking<\/em>\u00a0people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.\u201d
\n\u2014Howard Zinn<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Language is an incredibly powerful tool. It can be used for great good or enormous evil. It can be wonderfully liberating or hideously demeaning and enslaving.<\/p>\n

The United States government and its de facto propaganda arm\u2014the\u00a0corporate-stream media<\/em>\u2014repeatedly use language as a formidable tool of manipulation, control, and oppression. Those who oppose the policies of the U.S. corporate\/military elite, and who dispute its concomitant\u00a0narrative,<\/em>\u00a0are constantly labeled as \u2018militants,\u2019 \u2018malcontents,\u2019 and\/or \u2018conspiracy theorists,\u2019\u00a0etc.<\/em>\u00a0These labels are fallaciously liberally applied to critically\u00a0thinking<\/em>\u00a0persons inside this nation as well as to those in other lands who dare to question or dispute the right of the corporate-owned U.S. government to control and dominate the lives of everyday ordinary people.<\/p>\n

In order to justify the absolutely unjustifiable abrogation of economic, civil, political, and human rights at home\u2014and perpetual U.S. wars abroad\u2014the United States corporate-owned government constantly and deliberately creates and fosters the perception of both real and imagined enemies being virtually everywhere. What better way to distract people\u2019s attention away from what their own government is doing\u2014keeping them misinformed, uninformed, and docile\u2014than by ensuring that they are in a constant state of fear? The government and corporate \u2018news\u2019 media\u2019s use (or more accurately, misuse) of language plays a key role in shaping the opinions and mind-set of the general populace.<\/p>\n

The U.S. government, in concert with its corporate-stream media, has for many decades,\u00a0inside of this<\/em>\u00a0nation<\/em>,<\/em>\u00a0labeled as\u00a0\u2018militants,\u2019<\/em>\u00a0those who unswervingly struggled for civil, political, and human rights. Being referred to as a\u00a0\u2018militant\u2019<\/em>\u00a0in the U.S. meant (and still) implies that such person, persons, and\/or organizations do not deserve and should not receive constitutional and human rights. Thus, the abuses of the infamous and murderous\u00a0national<\/em>\u00a0U.S. government program known as COINTELPRO (i.e., the Counter Intelligence Program) against political activists\/organizers inside this nation, wherein thousands of persons were viciously framed, discredited, imprisoned, and often murdered. There are myriads of political prisoners who\u00a0remain<\/em>\u00a0in U.S. prison gulags\u00a0to this very day,\u00a0<\/em>who are victims of COINTELPRO. Thus, in a very real sense, COINTELPRO\u00a0continues unabated.<\/em>\u00a0Just being labeled as a\u00a0\u2018militant\u2019<\/em>\u00a0virtually assured being targeted by COINTELPRO. Moreover, Barack Obama\u2019s NDAA (indefinite detention provisions)\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0his obscene \u2018Kill List\u2019 has now, in essence,\u00a0codified<\/em>\u00a0COINTELPRO into law<\/em>\u00a0in this year of 2013.<\/p>\n

On the\u00a0international<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>stage in this 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century, the U.S. corporate-owned government under the \u2018leadership\u2019 of Barack Obama, continues to label as\u00a0\u2018militants\u2019<\/em>\u00a0any and all persons who dare attempt to defend their respective nations against U.S. drone missile attacks, aerial bombings, and\/or U.S. sponsored coups d\u2019\u00e9tat (euphemistically referred to as \u2018regime changes\u2019), etc. Thus, being labeled as being a \u2018militant\u2019 has come to be the\u00a0irrational rationale<\/em>\u00a0for U.S.\u00a0extrajudicial murders.\u00a0<\/em>This is an example of the\u00a0calculated and deliberate misuse of the incredible power of language.\u00a0<\/em>The crux of this warped U.S. government narrative is that the corporate-owned U.S. government (and\/or its puppets) must be accorded total immunity and exclusivity for their own acts of war and of State-sponsored terrorism. This is of course\u00a0in egregious<\/em>\u00a0violation<\/em>\u00a0of the U.S. Constitution, international law, and basic human rights. Those many persons,\u00a0most of whom are civilians,<\/em>\u00a0who are being murdered by Obama\u2019s predator drone missiles in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa, and throughout the Middle East,\u00a0etc.,<\/em>\u00a0be they so-called \u2018militants\u2019 or not, are deserving of the right to enjoy their national sovereignty\u00a0devoid<\/em>\u00a0of the murderous interference from the U.S. and its pawns. Labeling people as \u2018militants\u2019 and then killing them is utterly unacceptable. In the words of the late historian Howard Zinn, \u201cTyranny is Tyranny,\u00a0let it<\/em>\u00a0come from whom it may.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It is time for everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and throughout Mother Earth to regain (as Frantz Fanon suggests) the \u201cmastery of language\u201d\u00a0to serve the interests of we, the ordinary people.<\/em>\u00a0The French philosopher and writer Albert Camus noted, \u201cThe purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.\u201d In a sense, we are all writers of a sort, in that all of us utilize language, either verbally, in written form, or both. Indeed,\u00a0language belongs to the\u00a0<\/em>ordinary people and should be used to their\/our benefit<\/em>\u2014not<\/em>\u00a0that of the national or global elite.<\/p>\n

Language truly is an incredibly powerful tool, and to be labeled a \u2018militant,\u2019 by and in the context of the U.S. corporate-owned government, is more often than not a death warrant. It must not remain this way at home or abroad; and we the people, if only we\u00a0collectively<\/em>\u00a0knew it,\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0have the power to change it. We should all be \u2018militants\u2019\u2014militants in service to the human family and Mother Earth!<\/em><\/p>\n

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward!<\/p>\n

Larry Pinkney<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0is 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,\u00a0Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker<\/a>, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to read excerpts from the book.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published in Intrepid Report on\u00a0March 18, 2013<\/a>
Republished in 107cowgate.com (Ireland and Scotland) on March 27, 2013<\/a>
By\u00a0Larry Pinkney<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMastery of\u00a0language\u00a0affords remarkable power.\u201d
\u2014Frantz Fanon<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in such a world of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1999,"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/1999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}