Mumbai, Media Manipulation, & U.S. Subterfuge

Published in Issue 302 of The Black Commentator on December 4, 2008
Republished in Pragmatic Witness on December 7, 2008
By Larry Pinkney

As usual the corporate news media’s coverage of the recent “terrorist” carnage in Mumbai, India was and is sorely lacking in substance, perspective, detail, and critical analysis.

The corporate media and its proxies have even conveniently referred to those horrific events in Mumbai, as India’s so called “9/11,” which is absurd and grossly misleading. India experienced its corporate so-called 9/11 long before the United States, when on December 3, 1984, a pesticide plant of the U.S. chemical company Union Carbide in Bhopal, India, released the lethal methyl isocyanate gas, killing over three thousand people immediately, and more than eight thousand additional persons within the following two weeks. The corporate media described that enormous corporate horror in Bhopal, India, in such mild terms as being a “tragedy” and/or “incident;” when it was in fact U.S. corporate criminal malfeasance, which resulted in the deaths of well over 11,000 people in that nation. Thus, as terrible as the recent events in Mumbai, India were, they pale in comparison to Union Carbide’s corporate butchery in Bhopal, India. The U.S. corporate media and its minions consistently and deliberately obfuscate and neglect to give much-needed substance, perspective, and critical analysis, treating events as if they merely occurred through osmosis. This is what media manipulation is all about.

It should be understood that just as the terrible horror in Bhopal did not happen by mere osmosis, the recent carnage in Mumbai did not either. Terrorism, whether carried out by individuals, corporations, or national states, is nonetheless terrorism, and what is referred to as war is nothing more than organized terrorism on a huge scale.

Behind all terrorism is some form of subterfuge. We must critically analyze the situation and ask ourselves some important questions:

Beyond the superficial, whose interests did the recent attacks really serve, and what affect will the attacks in Mumbai have on efforts to improve relations between India and Pakistan?

What nation states and/or organizations want to see India and Pakistan at odds and why?

Where does the tactic of divide and conquer fit into this scenario? Remember, coincidences are rarely coincidental.

Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White people who are of good will and have political consciousness must also remember that Barack Obama, the incoming head of the U.S. Empire, made it crystal clear [during his 2008, presidential campaign] that he is in favor of militarily attacking Pakistan. In this vein also, it is extremely important to think and rethink about the above stated questions. Occurrences do not simply occur by osmosis. The groundwork for war between India and Pakistan is constantly being prepared. But by whom? War would weaken both nations and the real victims in any such war would be the everyday peoples in these nations and throughout the entire region. Nevertheless, the groundwork is being prepared. Subterfuge is in full swing.

There has been no systemic change in the U.S., and it is worth remembering that the corporate government of the United States of America, and its apartheid Zionist partners are masters at deception, double speak, and subterfuge nationally (internally) and internationally (externally). Nevertheless and more than ever, our fundamental task remains – to politically organize, raise consciousness, and organize even more. We must analyze, understand and link occurrences throughout the globe in Asia, Africa, South America and elsewhere to what is being perpetrated and perpetuated right here at home. We too are being systemically terrorized in “America,” as capitalism is in reality systemic terrorism against the poor.

In due time the harsh economic, social, political and military realities will awaken many more from their pro apartheid Zionist, corporate Obama Kool-Aid-stupor in which they presently wallow. Meantime, we must develop and present crystal clear analyses with a view toward organizing, building, and nurturing a real peoples’ movement

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