“…Nothing from nothing leaves nothing…Don’t you remember I told you that I’m a soldier in the war on poverty…Nothing from nothing leaves nothing…”

--Billy Preston—

The United States of America is now in a period of not only deepening economic poverty plaguing the masses of Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow peoples but has plummeted to new lows with respect to another kind of poverty--- the poverty of the mind. Of course this impoverished mental state is constantly fanned, aided and abetted by the government, politicians and their allies in the corporate media who consistently play the nefarious role in and of the dumbing down of the peoples of this nation. The situation has become utterly pathetic and simultaneously extremely dangerous. 

As long as the majority of people are successfully kept in a dumbed down mental state they / we are easily manipulated. As the above mentioned song goes: “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing,” and keeping the masses of people at the very lowest possible intellectual common denominator serves to ensure that “nothing” of critical thought and analysis takes root as there is little or “nothing” of substance for such thought and analysis to take root in. Indeed, “nothing from nothing leaves nothing.” This must be addressed and reversed.

Recently, your writer has had many in-depth conversations with various politically conscious persons throughout differing parts of this nation. The gist of these conversations has been about the critical, unpopular, and absolutely correct stance that just a few of us took in opposition to the dangerous Obama / Biden sham, the lot of Black America, and the precarious precipice on which this nation as a whole is now sitting.

The recurring theme in most of these conversations has been the horrific lack of critical thought and analysis being demonstrated by many so called progressives and those on the left who have consciously chosen to replace critical thought and analysis with a cowardly and absurdly ridiculous version of the herd mentality and Obama fake’s hope, shamelessly abdicating their responsibility to the peoples of this nation and world, and even to themselves. These discussions / conversations have also focused on the sterling example of ongoing commitment and struggle of the 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate of the Green Party, Cynthia McKinney; and what we as committed political activists are, can, and should be doing to ignite (or reignite) critical thinking in this nation in preparation for the inevitable coming conflicts and concomitant government repression that will surely accompany it.

Among the politically conscious in this country it is generally known and understood that, as a political comrade of mine succinctly and correctly put it, Barack Obama is supported by Wall Street and the corporate media precisely because he represents for them a form of “urban uprising insurance” to shield and protect their avaricious corporate interests. Thus, with a supposed brother in the White House the most reprehensible forms of corporate blood sucking and military aggression impacting Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples is expected to be able to be carried out with relative ease. In fact, there is no “change we can believe in” but rather for the Obama / Biden clique it is change they can “deceive in.” “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing…”

Hope and change mean absolutely “nothing” if they are not actualized (i.e. made to be real) on behalf of the interests of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples of this nation and world. “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing…..”

Where is universal single payer health care for the peoples of this nation?!! Notwithstanding the never ending phony rhetoric, and for anyone who might have missed it, the Obama / Biden regime is solidly in the pockets of the vampiric corporate insurance companies. These corporate vampires want to continue to make profit from the health needs and lives of everyday people. Meanwhile people are losing their jobs, homes, etc., and any real possibility of a decent standard of living. Change we can believe in? Hardly!

And what of the widening wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the dangerous ongoing U.S. destabilizing activities against the governments of both Iran and Pakistan?!! What of the insane and unacceptable apartheid Zionist influence and control over the U.S. Government including the White House and the Congress; at the expense of the peoples of the United States and the world?!!

Hope without reason is a fool’s gold. It is a cruel and well manipulated hoax. This is the so called hope of the Obama /Biden clique.

Indeed we do have hope. We always have; long before there was a corporate Barack Obama brand thrust into our faces by the despicable corporate media. Our hope however, is an actualized one, based upon the needs and economic and political interests of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples; not those of the corporate blood sucking corporate / military elite!  It is based upon the process of critical thought and an analysis of reality, not the dismissing of it.

In these perilous times we must hold on tightly to our political principles, stay strong in the knowledge that our protracted political struggle will ultimately prevail, and carry on in networking, organizing, agitating, and educating.

Hold On, Stay Strong, and Carry On. Onward my brothers and sisters! Onward…..!!!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, 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 in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. 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). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

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