theleftflank

To: Blacks of all cultural distinctions

Neoliberalism is the defining political economic paradigm of our time - it refers to the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private interests are permitted to control as much as possible of social life in order to maximize their personal profit.

-  Noam Chomsky, Profit over People 1999

It is difficult to surmise how we, the American populace, might come out on the other side of this financial debacle, quietly being engineered by powerful and cunning elites.  At their disposal, are the very instruments of persuasion: The propagandist machine a.k.a. popular media, the learning institutions of higher education, & even the Religious Centers. While some Americans have already begun to awaken to the startling realities of a contemptuous and willful dysfunction of our political body, many more have yet to do so...almost seeming to prefer ignorance.  The manifold interest of finance-capital, government, and their slavish minions seeks only to subjugate and further suppress the lives of countless people by economic strangulation!  The valiant efforts of those who are fighting now can only yield  a momentary pause at best;  For if  the same framework  of capitalism is allowed to remain, posterity will most assuredly be fighting these very same battles  twenty, maybe fifty years from now in much more dire circumstances to be sure. Capitalism is inherently divisive & with no regard for Earth's ecology, it continues to feed an insatiable thirst for profit - it's only real motive.  Essentially, it’s about the transference of wealth from one class (the middle) to another (the unscrupulous elite) i.e. it is the transference of power; for the pen is mightier than the sword.  You lose your power, you lose your sovereignty, and then you lose your nation.   These are the long-foreseen consequences of the rapacious system of Neoliberalism that have now come to pass. This of course, does not bode well for anybody, most of all...those of us in the African Diaspora.

Aside from being regarded as an undesirable caste in society by virtually all ethnic groups including our own, we blacks have never fared too well in this particular economic model because as a group we’ve always come in last…even behind immigrants. It would seem that our general plight is due mostly to personal responsibility, but the pendulum swings both ways on that issue; blacks have done better here than in any other nation  without a doubt, primarily because this nation has been the most ruthless at exploiting others and spitefully hindering their efforts from truly realizing their own potential.  At the founding of this American nation as in many others around the world, we were beast of burden in our chattel slavery. When that system ended, another system arose to take its place continuing the exploitation of our people with greater subtlety. While we are currently esteemed citizens of the Republic (at least ostensibly), like cogs in a wheel we are still pawns easily leveraged against secondary players who dare to upset the status quo of well entrenched aristocracy.  The topical changes of our nation’s executive branch provide for a clever distraction; because Obama, like the presidents before him, dutifully submits to the whims of financial interest in corporate America while dazzling us with eloquent platitudes and most of all, the novelty of his black persona. However, his popularity is already waning.  Fox & CNN,  would have us believe that this is largely the work of ultra right-wing conservatives or neo-Nazis hell-bent on his political ruin. Theleftflank along with so many others on this side of the political spectrum, easily disprove those assertions. 

Strangely, many of us black folk still choose to irrationally cast our lots in with an Administration that clearly functions under the auspices of various banking institutions.  Is it because we revel in the euphoric sense of hope the Obama Administration so fervently preaches about but seldom matches with measurable deeds!? Why hope beyond reason, when his actions are unmistakably counterintuitive!  You can believe all you want but in the end, no amount of wishful thinking will change reality or contest hard facts!  Only together, can we hope to do such a thing. 

Divide & Conquer

Whites today are at least superficially more hospitable to blacks than fifty years ago and some are even genuine; it's a small matter.  What is significant however is that around the time of the very last presidential election, people were more than ever before willing to find a middle ground for the common good of all.  However, in order to counteract  this new cooperation among the common peoples and maintain its hegemony, the American empire was compelled to strike back by stealthily employing the oldest of tactics:  Prevent the commoners from  ever seeing eye to eye; steadily  repeal whatever rights are afforded them by their precious Constitution like free speech & privacy; favor illegal immigrants over  bona fide citizens; use propaganda to make all opposition  to blacks or Hispanics appear racist; use media blackout on important issues coming up for consideration in both the house & senate; insulate the Federal Reserve  from any audit by the Legislative branch through clever manipulation of campaign funding laws to control elected officials; do whatever it takes to save Wall-street, especially at the cost of Main-Street; Prophesy doom and destruction for the human race and have Hollywood sensationalize it with big Summer blockbusters - eventually the people won't be able to envision a viable future for themselves.  Their destruction will be inevitable, for they'll devour one another in a conflagration of hate and mistrust. With no center, the people white & black will not be able to mount a united front and reclaim their beloved Republic. 

Seems incredible, I know, but reality is sometimes stranger than fiction. If more than just a cursory examination of history is made, however, then you to will soon come to understand that those at the very top have always been scheming to horde vast sums of wealth for themselves and their posterity.  This is the nature of a system based on money instead of shared resources.  It forces us to become opponents dealing in terms of scarcity.  And so I've come to realize that freedom is not free, especially in a Capitalist society because that kind of freedom equates directly to how much money you have e.g. the more money you have, the more freedom and justice you enjoy; UNLESS, the spirit of the Constitution still means anything and that’s highly questionable at this point.

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Fear, Inaction, & What is to be done

Most civilization(s) are based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the Horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breath slowly. You tame. 

- Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune 1981

It is my humble observation that blacks as an ethnic group presently display a severe lack of aptitude and understanding for strategic deception. Too many of us cannot recognize the innumerable lies in the media, in our federal or state governments, and most importantly, in our own local communities, schools, and churches. Utterly confounded or purposely oblivious, we meander through this American experience blithely unaware of the sure catastrophe that awaits us when this economy finally breaks; it’s as if we’re in a daze. Nevertheless, we remain defiantly on the side of the status quo even as it pointedly acts against our collective interest. I am not  surprised, we don't actually cultivate leaders for this sort of thing anymore chiefly because we've been brought to heel by much of the establishment. In the sixties and seventies when the last of the black panther radicals along with other left-leaning organizations, and even a few of the more progressive elements on the conservative side were finally put down by insidious COINTELPRO operatives, the task of edifying & mobilizing the various black communities was left largely in the exploitative hands of local churches some of which, had actually participated in helping to destabilize  these black power movements in return for the inheritance of their massive following. Bereft of meaningful leadership, disaffected by what they perceived as ‘hopeless circumstances’, and thoroughly demoralized, they made their way somberly back into the pews without any other recourse,  save, to wait anxiously for the day some great savior would come down from the heavens and deliver them from their miserable lot; our people have been there ever since. In this present age, some of our own preachers would meanly tell us in a polite voice of course, to reverently accept our low status in life - seeing as how we are supposedly the accursed brood of Ham. I do not accept this!  To remain indifferent in the face of such realities after having come into this knowledge is to be complicit. Is it fear that has paralyzed you so or do you sincerely believe that all of this will just simply go away?

Conspiracy Theory is a label with an unsavory connotation. It is used to cleverly subvert attention away from those who tend to be more informed so that the average Joe (and Jane) never sees the clandestine forces around him that are fiendishly conspiring against him. Such a notion as, ‘A sinister elite’ who is somehow dangling the strings of government to apparently enslave all of humanity and even kill them, in some cases because of highly speculative but widely touted, Malthusian-Overpopulation theories and other extraordinary claims of Climate Change is thought to be ludicrous. Such a person is ostricized and made to feel odd - much like the Christian, when it was unpopular to be a Christian in the 1st Century or when the ICOC had a backbone.  I however, am convinced that there are such cliques; most notably, the builderberg group, the Rothschilds, the Council of Foreign Relations, etc,. These occurrences are inevitable given the inherent nature of our model of private enterprise. I would have you all know that while the beginning of capitalism may have been the free-market competition for all willing and hardy participants, the end result is the gradual shift from an open and fair market to oligarchies, then to duopolies, and eventually to a single monolithic world monopoly; a monopoly much like the monarchies of old. This forebodes very eerie and broad implications of dynastic proportions i.e. it is essentially the return of a feudal system. Delving into the history of geopolitics, we can see the undeniable meddling of foreign powers into the affairs of much smaller sovereign states in order to despoil them of whatever value they have usually by force...

(Conclusion is Forthcoming)

theleftflank@excite.com