{"id":939,"date":"2008-01-31T17:59:20","date_gmt":"2008-01-31T17:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/?p=939"},"modified":"2013-04-09T11:32:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T17:32:52","slug":"barack-obama-bamboozling-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/barack-obama-bamboozling-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama: Bamboozling America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published in Issue 262 of The Black Commentator on January 31, 2008<\/a>
\nBy Larry Pinkney<\/p>\n

It\u2019s strange sometimes how things occur. Nevertheless, what goes<\/em> around will always, ultimately, come<\/em> around.<\/p>\n

A very short while ago I sat staring at the contents of a package I had just received from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. It was a certificate with the US eagle and concomitant coat of arms emblazoned in gold<\/em> at its top, which read, in relevant part, \u201cThe United States of America honors the memory of\u201d my late father \u201cin recognition\u201d of his \u201cdevoted and selfless consecration to the service of our country in the Armed Forces of the United States.\u201d It was signed by the current President of the United States.<\/p>\n

As I stared blankly down at the awarded certificate and thought of my deceased father, the tears swelled and streamed down my face and I wondered how many thousands of sons and daughters of US armed forces Black<\/em> American veterans had received such certificates honoring their fathers or mothers. I thought of the pain, futility and the utter horror of combat and of war for the masses of people. And then, like a lightning bolt, the thought struck me that some in this nation are actually seriously considering the candidacy of Barack Obama to be President of the United States and concomitantly Commander-In-Chief\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>of its potent Armed Forces.<\/p>\n

This is a man who has enjoyed the fruits of America at the blood and expense of Black Americans and others, but who has paid virtually no dues<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is a man whose father had also<\/em> enjoyed the fruits of university schooling in America<\/em> but subsequently returned to his native Kenya.<\/p>\n

This is a man, who also like his father before him, neither served in a branch of the US military nor<\/em> in any organization in America opposed<\/em> to US military adventurism.<\/p>\n

This is a man who as a deeply corporate military industrial complex US Presidential candidate, has called for \u201cunilateral\u201d US military actions in other nations. [And why not? After-all, his father, himself, or his wife and children were not and will not be the ones killing and being killed.]<\/p>\n

This is a man who, in Chicago, pretended to support the human rights of the Palestinian people<\/em> but who is now known to be a huge supporter of the apartheid Zionists and their powerful and insidious political lobby in America.<\/p>\n

This is a man who dares opportunistically to feign admiration for the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but does not<\/em> share the collective memory, pain and deep concerns of Black America, other people of color, or even of numerous white Americans for that matter – in the ongoing<\/em> struggle for equality and justice in this nation.<\/p>\n

This is a man who has de facto<\/em> contempt for the past supreme sacrifices made by thousands of activists from so-called \u201cmilitant\u201d organizations such the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party (BPP), Students For A Democratic Society (SDS), the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), etc.<\/p>\n

This is a man who is silent about the need for reparations for Black American descendants of slaves and the genocide of the indigenous so-called \u201cIndian\u201d peoples on this continent. He is the consummate opportunist<\/em> who, in reality, cares nothing about the horrors inflicted upon Black, Brown, and Red peoples in this nation, and has repeatedly signaled that he plans to inflict even more<\/em> \u201cunilateral\u201d military horrors upon various nations and peoples of the world.<\/p>\n

This man, Barack Obama, is but a more articulate, younger, and shinier<\/em> version of the current and infamous US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, adorning himself dangerously and abundantly in superficiality and double-speak.<\/p>\n

Times are perilous and how deeply I fear for my Black, Brown, and Red sisters and brothers. Indeed, how I fear for America\u00a0as a whole,<\/em> and the peoples of the world<\/em>. It would seem that the US imperialists of the corporate and military elite<\/em> may have at last found a black <\/em>face. Unfortunately, for the moment at least, some of the American people might<\/em> very well be blinded by the lightness of this black <\/em>face, until such time as the horrors really begin to sink in. But will it be too late then?<\/p>\n

Unlike Barack Obama\u2019s father, we Black Americans did not come to this land by choice, nor do we as a people<\/em> enjoy white skinned color privilege as did Barack Obama\u2019s mother. Thus, it would be the height of insanity to believe, in any way, that Barack Obama himself, by virtue of his ethnic background, genuinely<\/em> relates to, cares about, or even understands the complex social, economic, and political challenges faced by Black or<\/span><\/strong> White <\/em>Americans, much less those faced by Brown and Red peoples in this nation and around the world. He has no collective memory of the whips, chains, and lynching nooses as do we Black Americans. This is why he can so easily call for \u201cunilateral\u201d US military action in other<\/em> people\u2019s nations while simultaneously and hypocritically mimicking and invoking the legacy of the brutally slain Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have been horrified at such a notion. This kind of Obama insanity is immensely dangerous to all <\/em>Americans be we Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, or White; it is a real threat to peoples of the entire planet. It is horrifying to imagine what Barack Obama would do as Commander-In-Chief of the US Armed Forces, with or without Congressional approval, and the support of the elite of the corporate military\/industrial complex.<\/p>\n

Moreover, since Barack Obama has no qualms about \u201cunilaterally\u201d militarily attacking other nations, there is absolutely no reason to believe that he would be self-constrained from ordering that Black, Brown, and Red peoples right here inside <\/em>of the US be viciously attacked via \u201cpolice actions;\u201d and quite frankly, lots of white Americans themselves might not be that far behind from being sacrificed, especially if they dare to try and get in the way of Mr. Corporate – \u201cunilaterally\u201d attack them – Barack Obama. Remember: What goes around comes around. I am reminded of the lyrics to the old song, “Smiling Faces Sometimes” by the group Undisputed Truth, <\/em>and the maddening old song, “Won\u2019t Get Fooled Again” by the group The Who. <\/em>The question still is: Will<\/em> we be \u201cfooled again\u201d in America, this time by a \u201csmiling face\u201d of color<\/em>? The stakes are incredibly high.<\/p>\n

We Black Americans have often and generally been so physically and emotionally brutalized in this nation that we sometimes vicariously tie up our hopes and dreams with others who appear<\/em> to have somehow accomplished that which we ourselves have not, due to systemic economic, social, and political oppression. This is a fact that has not escaped the attention of Barack Obama and his political advisors\/handlers from the corporate military\/industrial complex. Thus, his game is simple: Play on the unfulfilled hopes, dreams, and needs of Black people. Sell the people a pipe dream in order to attain your own personal<\/em> goals. This is what I refer to as political pimping, and this is precisely what Barack Obama and his advisors\/handlers are doing, not only to Black America, but to the nation as a whole<\/em>. Through the use of double-speak<\/em>, Barack Obama keeps the people from seeing who and what he really<\/em> is. No friend of Black and disenfranchised people would have, in any manner whatsoever,<\/em><\/strong> praised Ronald Reagan. Yet, that is precisely what Barack Obama did: He praised – apartheid \u201ctrickle down economics\u201d -Ronald Reagan, who was economically, socially, and politically the enemy of all<\/em> middle class, poor, and disenfranchised people, including (but not limited to) the unemployed, under-employed, single mothers, and youth. Ronald Reagan caused enormous<\/em> pain to the masses of Black people. Yet, through the use of double-speak<\/em> and the consistent support of much of the US corporate \u201cnews\u201d media, <\/em>Barack Obama bamboozled the people and to this day has not<\/em> been made categorically and seriously to answer for this outrage of praising one of the worst enemies of Black people in the 20th century. Instead of stopping and eliminating the actual<\/em> \u201cexcesses\u201d of the infamous US government sponsored (and ongoing) COINTELPRO activities from \u201cthe 1960s and 1970\u2019s\u201d to illegally \u201cframe, discredit, imprison, and murder\u201d Black political activists and others inside the US, Ronald Reagan increased<\/em> such activities nationally and internationally, including the horrendous and bloody \u201cIran Contra\u201d debacle. Nevertheless, this<\/span> <\/em>is the person who Barack Obama cynically chose to praise! What an insult and smack in the face to Black America, and indeed to all<\/em> of America and the rest of the world by<\/em> Barack Obama!<\/p>\n

To Barack Obama I repeat the still very relevant and powerful words of Malcolm X: \u201cYou have to read the history of slavery to understand this. There were two kinds of Negroes. And the house Negro always looked out for his master. When the field Negroes got too much out of line, he held them back in check. He put them back on the plantation. <\/em>The house Negro could afford to do that because he lived better than the field Negro. He ate better, and he lived in a better house. He lived right up next to his master\u2026He ate the same food as his master and wore his same clothes. And he could talk just like his master – good diction. And he loved his master more than his master loved himself\u2026He never wanted his master\u2019s property threatened\u2026That was the house <\/em>Negro.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judging from, among other things, how Barack Obama has already sold out<\/em> the human rights and legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian peoples to corporate Zionism, it stands to reason that he will also sell out Black America,<\/em> our Brown and Red sisters and brothers, and indeed the whole<\/em> of the American people, to the corporate and military elite. It\u2019s really just a matter of time, but sooner or later the people will see, and when they do, may heaven help him. Some folks presently may be imprisoned<\/em> by Barack Obama\u2019s double-speak rhetoric, but as Ho Chi Minh so aptly put it: \u201cWhen the prison doors are opened then shall the real dragon fly out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Times are perilous brothers and sisters. We must use serious and consistent critical thinking<\/em>. Our very survival is what is at stake now and in the future. If we are going to \u201ckeep it real,\u201d and we must<\/em> do this, it cannot be superficial. It must be the \u201creal thing.\u201d \u201cAin\u2019t nothin\u2019 like the real<\/em> thing.\u201d The Democrat and Republican parties are not<\/em> the real thing for the masses of people and neither is Barack Obama.<\/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 Issue 262 of The Black Commentator on January 31, 2008<\/a>
By Larry Pinkney<\/p>\n

It\u2019s strange sometimes how things occur. Nevertheless, what goes around will always, ultimately, come around.<\/p>\n

A very short while ago I sat staring at the contents of a package I had just received […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2056,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions\/2056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}