(Source: Popular Resistance)
“And I for one will join in with anyone, I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.” - Malcolm X
Malcolm X along with MLK and so many others clearly saw the problem(s) responsible for creating the “miserable condition which exists on this earth” that so many still to this day pretend doesn’t really exist. These people are either blind, ignorant, or living in a cave, because the problem has become more evident and more obvious over the past decade then ever before. The problem has only worsened, the miserable condition of human oppression all across the earth has only been perpetuated, and humanity continues to live for the most part as mindless slaves within a cloud of deep darkness. This darkness is ignorance and greed, tyranny and deception, poverty and injustice, hatred and violence; and this darkness continues to haunt humanity in just the same way that slavery haunted the black man two centuries ago, because in reality this slavery was never eradicated but rather simply changed outward forms.
One need not look very far to see the signs of this “miserable condition,” though we in the western world have been conditioned to ignore it and discount it, but even here in America the visible manifestations of this deeply rooted problem are beginning to show themselves. With the majority, some 75-80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and the quickly growing cost of housing becoming less and less affordable for the average person, the widespread poverty that once only affected the entire Third World is now beginning to show up in the heart of the very same empire which has for decades been responsible for perpetuating global poverty. It is getting so bad now that nearly one in ten Americans are projected to be homeless by this fall. There are also a large number of western-backed Jihadi terrorists now beginning to flow into Europe from Syria as well.
The chickens are coming home to roost, so to speak, and those living in the heart of the empire are no longer able to avoid seeing the misery which has been originating from their homelands for decades. No, one does not need to look far at all to see the problem, and to see just how bad the problem has become.
For example, the US war budget for this year, for 2020, is an unfathomable $738 billion dollars, with this military spending making up over half of the entire government budget! The US spends more on war than on all other spenditures combined, over $2 billion dollars every single day in fact, while at the same time claiming it doesn’t have the means to eradicate hunger, end homelessness, provide free health care to all, or to do anything that would actually help solve the increasingly problematic growing disparity between low wage rates and high cost of housing across the nation.
The US spends so much on war in fact, that its annual military spending is not only more than all the other top military spenders combined, but also three times the estimated cost to end hunger worldwide, and yet there are for some reason still Americans in this country who are going hungry, all while an entire third of American produce is wasted, thrown away and sent to landfills, while a third of the world goes hungry. It would seem only logical, not to mention morally imperative, to spend more on compassionate care for its own people, and less on spreading death and destruction abroad.
It spends another $10.5 million a day in foreign aid to Israel, the largest war machine in the Middle East, daily responsible for the illegal and colonial military occupation of Palestine and the Syrian Golan Heights; which includes continuous illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank through destruction of local Palestinian homes and schools, as well as nearly daily killing of unarmed Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This $10.5 million per day no-strings-attached gift sent to Israel also aids the often daily and always regular bombing of the besieged Gaza Strip, of neighboring Syria and Iraq, sometimes even Lebanon, and so-called Iranian targets all throughout the Middle East, not to mention Mossad espionage all around the world.
Over $2 billion a day spent on our own war machine, over $10 million a day spent on the Israeli Occupation’s, and that doesn’t even account for the trillions of unaccounted dollars the defense department ‘loses’ in black book operations, nor for the CIA black budget. Meanwhile the price of housing and domestic poverty in America continues to steadily rise, as the President at the very same time touts his policies as being responsible for creating a strong and vibrant economy, and calls for even more funding for war and Israel. No doubt the companies in the weapons manufacturing and private military contracting industries, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and so on are indeed thriving; but this has little to no bearing on the common working class American struggling to make ends meet.
This insanely high rate of military spending is ever growing, up $20 billion just from 2019, and has steadily and consistently been on the rise for decades, ever since the birth of the military industrial complex during the so-called “war to end all wars,” followed by General Smedley Butler’s timely warning that “war is a racket,” followed by the bloody Second World War and another dire warning, this time from President Eisenhower, who warned of the grave dangers posed by and the “influence, sought and unsought,” upon the political and economic systems of the country by the “military industrial complex.”
Not enough Americans heeded these timely warnings, and so the awful racket we call war - “the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives” - continues to march on, and the influence by its profiteers which, along with the CIA and the US military itself form this military industrial complex, has become frighteningly powerful indeed.
The always increasing annual military budget and endless wars-for-profit which they fund are a direct testament to this; and the growing domination of the entire US political and economic system by the war machine and Israel lobby has continued unabated through countless presidencies and congresses alternating back and forth between both democrat and republican political control.
Political parties make no difference, the faces and promises for peace made by political leaders before they are elected into office make no difference; the US government has continued to consistently spend more and more money on war efforts each and every year for seven decades straight now, and at the same time has consistently dropped more and more bombs every single year for the past two decades - on foreign nations that have never attacked or even threatened this country no less.
This problem is quite clearly not a political problem at all, although one could argue it reveals a large problem within politics; for indeed politics itself is the problem, but it is not only problem.
Malcolm X was 100% right when he declared that those taking part in the “worldwide revolution going on” were “revolting against...an international western power structure.” Politics is only a small part of that vast imperial power structure, which has only continued to spread its imperial tentacles around the world and further entrenched its global control between then and now.
There are many other obvious signs of the problems plaguing our world wrought by this western colonialist imperial power structure, and one such problem is seen in the massively disproportionate distribution of earth’s resources; an entirely unfair, unnecessary, and unsustainable economic model.
“The UN Development Program reports that the richest 20 percent of the world's population consume 86 percent of the world's resources while the poorest 80 percent consume just 14 percent.” (2015 data via Forbes)
This massively disproportionate resource distribution is directly caused by western colonialist policies enforced by the CIA which is backed by the full military might of the western imperial war machine; and is fueled by the rampant consumerism and materialistic societies of the West, induced by corporate greed and corporate media programming which is in turn funded by incessant corporate advertising campaigns.
One might easily look at this picture and immediately point their finger at the system, laying full blame on the political leaders, the bankers, and the other oligarchs who both fuel and perpetuate this corrupt power structure. But, although these entities are certainly to blame for building and perpetuating such an oppressive system, if you are truly looking for the guilty party, as the character V in V For Vendetta said, “You need only look in the mirror.”
Yes, it is absolutely insane that the US spends $2 billion every single day to fund wars that have no purpose besides corporate profit used to further enrich the rich oligarchs who control the world, in order to maintain both their financial and geopolitical control; all while the masses around the world are suffering because of it. But can people truly expect anything better from their leaders, when this is the very same type of selfish behavior they themselves regularly engage in without a second thought on a much smaller scale?
So very many Americans, even among the struggling working class who are living paycheck to paycheck, habitually jump to spend any money they have on unnecessary and often unhealthy self-indulgences without a second thought; but if given the opportunity or asked to donate even a fraction of that amount on a charitable cause or to help out a struggling neighbor, they immediately become quite cautious and come up with excuse after excuse as to why they should not use their money to help another.
It is not abnormal, even for the average working class member of society struggling to make ends meet, to spend $50-100 on a date for a meal at a nice restaurant, or that much or more on alcohol on a weekend of drinking, or in one purchase of drugs, while some will even gamble practically their entire paycheck away the same Friday they are payed - all this I have witnessed with my own eyes - but suggest to any of these same people to give just five dollars, or even just one dollar, to the homeless beggar on the street as you pass by, and they will immediately jump to the pre-programmed list of excuses and look at you like you are the insane one! In this scenario the response is most often something along the lines of: “No way I’ll ever support a lazy bum,” or “Never, if they don’t want to be on the streets, they can get a job,” or “I’ll never do that, they’ll probably just use the cash on drugs or alcohol.” Many of these same people would again baulk if you ask why they don’t just give them some food instead, so they know the cash doesn’t fuel an addiction, or suggest that they might in fact not be homeless because they are a lazy, no good, drug addict.
The underlying issue with so many westerners causing such a reality is the same issue plaguing the corporate and political world, and it isn’t a lack of money to be spent to help the needy, suffering and oppressed ones; rather it is an unwillingness on the part of those who have the money to spend it on anything but to satisfy their own selfish desires and habits.
The same mentality holds true not only for those fueling bad habits and drug addictions, but also with materialistic indulgences. Whether it is the spending of $40,000-$60,000 on a nice camper which a well off family will use only for luxurious recreational purposes once or maybe a couple times a year while they have homeless neighbors in their very own city, or all those dropping thousands on four wheelers, snowmobiles and a host of other unnecessary expensive ‘toys’; the majority of these people don’t hesitate to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on a new toy just for some temporary fun, the second they can afford it or more often the second they get a loan approved, and yet many if not most of these same people will adamantly refuse to give even a small amount of cash to a person who is far more in need than they are, or donate anything to a charitable cause that alleviates suffering for countless far less fortunate children in the Third World.
Granted there are most certainly a few exceptions to the rule, just as there are a few politicians willing to vote against the war budget or speak out against imperialistic policies. And it is also true that charity alone will likely not end poverty when that charity is not also eventually combined with better education, and also driven by a true selfless sense of love and compassion. But this is the observable reality, that most Americans do have the means to help those who are less fortunate than the rest of those around them, and they refuse to do so. At the end of the day, the problem at the top is much the very same as the problem at the bottom, and the root of that problem is greed and selfishness, not a political party or leader or corporation. The system is indeed the problem, but most of us are in some way still much a part of that very same system.
If we expect the government to use its money to help the people, we ought to also be willing to use our money and resources to help the people in need around us. We can’t expect a government to act contrary to our very own nature, when it is from the ranks of the people which the government is built. If there were no bullies in society, there could be no bad cops, who are but bullies in uniform. The same holds true for all government. The people generally get the government they deserve, and if they are selfish and greedy and apathetic they are not going to get an honest, righteous and compassionate government unfortunately.
A perfect example, apart from the oil industry, of the combination of colonialist western policies, corporate greed, and consumerism working together to contribute to the perpetuation of unjust suffering, can be seen in the diamond industry. The film Blood Diamond released in 2001 I believe brought mass awareness to the reality that a large number of diamonds being sold and purchased in the West were in fact “blood diamonds,” or “conflict diamonds” as they have also come to be called - diamonds originating in Africa, gotten though violence and slavery, and sold to finance bloody wars or other violent conflict.
As so often happens when the American public is made aware of the inherent injustice of such an integrated and accepted economic industry or societal construct, there was a public outrage. There is a reason the powers that be rely so heavily on deception and indoctrination in order to keep the masses ignorant. The darkness of ignorance is one of the only things keeping the corrupt power structures from coming tumbling down.
This public outrage against blood diamonds on the market led to the adoption of what is called the Kimberley process in 2003. However it has not in fact stopped the international trade in blood diamonds. A big problem with it, however, is that it is only aimed at stopping diamond revenues from funding ‘rebel’ groups.
“However, it does nothing to address corrupt governments, state-sponsored militias, or the unethical treatment of people in the mining process,” the Mia Madonna blog writes. “This means someone still could have been enslaved, tortured, raped, beaten, or killed to mine that diamond and it is marketed as a conflict free diamond because it didn’t directly fund a rebel war.”
And so it is estimated that three out of four African-mined diamonds are still unethically sourced, with Africa producing 65% of freshly mined diamonds each year, equating to at least 1 in 13 diamonds that hit the international market each year still being blood diamonds. America has a particularly strong love affair with diamonds, responsible for purchasing 50% of all diamonds on the international market.
Like always, the authorities bring about a so-called ‘solution’ to the public outcry against the inherent injustice discovered within their power structure which mainly serves to appease the masses while continuing to perpetuate the same colonialist policies responsible for the suffering in the first place, just wrapped in a new package.
“Some African officials equate diamond mining and the Kimberley process to slavery,” Mia Donna explains. “They urge people to acknowledge the colonialism and oppression of the African miners by European mine owners.”
Penny Hess, Chairperson of the African People’s Solidarity Committee said, “Kimberley is nothing more than an attempt to conserve the diamond trade, which is unethical at its core. It merely qualifies the operation of a genocidal industry which helps to maintain the specter of European colonialism in Africa.”
Sadly, many Americans will still go right ahead and buy a diamond ring for their fiancé without hesitation, even while being aware that their purchase may be perpetuating slavery, violence, and other forms of suffering in Africa. I personally asked an engaged acquaintance of mine, who I knew was well aware of the nature of blood diamonds making up a large percentage of diamond on the market, whether he was considering getting his fiancé anything other than a diamond ring. His answer was immediate, and without any thought or contemplation. He would be getting a diamond ring despite the potentially unethical origins, he wasn’t concerned with attempting to verify its origins even, but would simply be getting the nicest one he could afford that he thought his fiancé would like.
Even when the veil of ignorance has been torn down, many people insist on clinging to the old ways that contribute to the perpetuation of so much suffering in the world, in order to conveniently live their ‘American Dream’. Indeed, longstanding traditions are not always easily overcome, and it is after all deeply ingrained into the American female psyche that a man who truly loves them should get them an expensive diamond ring as a proof of his love and commitment to marriage. Most men are heavily programmed to believe this is the way romantic love and commitment is demonstrated, through the purchase of an inordinately expensive piece of diamond jewelry, and if this is what she wants, it is what he will do.
And so blood diamonds continue to flow into the international market, particularly into the US, with many consumers thinking this problem was long ago completely solved, and many more simply not caring or still living in complete ignorance of the inherently oppressive and violent nature of the colonial diamond industry.
This is just one small example of how western colonialist policies and in some cases military imperialism, combined with corporate greed and rampant consumerism, working hand in hand with citizen apathy, indifference and ignorance, serve to create and perpetuate miserable conditions experienced by countless impoverished people around the world, cruelly taken advantage of by the international western power structure that is actively enslaving us all.
Corporate greed certainly does fuel worldwide suffering, but without the consumer purchasing the products sustaining that corporation and its policies causing that suffering, the corporation would crumble, and the injustice and oppression caused by it would dissipate. Our corrupt foreign policy is indeed both orchestrated by and profitable for a small minority, the power elite- politicians, oligarchs and corporate executives. But without the willingness of hundreds of thousands of Americans to volunteer to join the service to fight and to kill and to die in these endless wars waged by and for the greedy few, there could be no more endless war abroad.
The system is the problem, but so long as we are a part of that system, then we too are a part of the problem. If we are not a part of the solution, we are inevitably part of the problem.
Voting is not part of the solution; it never worked to bring about real lasting positive change and it never will. Believing that it is up to politicians to solve the problems which they themselves created is not only both unreasonable and insane, but it is a refusal to take personal responsibility for our lives and actions by casting all of that responsibility on those politicians we supposedly elect to office on our behalf. But everyone in their right mind knows that politicians don’t work for the people, but rather for corporate interests, lobbyists, and the political system itself.
The problem is far from being a political problem, but politics sure are a big part of the problem, because politics is the problem. The political parties are corrupt and the politicians are all corrupt because politics itself is corrupt. If voting made a difference, they would have made it illegal by now; the ballot box is nothing more than the slaves ‘choosing’ which slave-master to rule over them, though when 51% of the population can take away the rights of the other 49%, that sure ain’t liberty!
(source)
From the Lowell Sun, September 1976, Robert Borden proclaims this truth in an editorial entitled “Voting is dishonest and fraudulent”:
“Has it ever dawned on the editors that the attitudes of the 70 million projected non-voters may be very consistent with the reality that the concept of voting and electing representatives is basically dishonest and fraudulent. If voting could change anything it would be made illegal! There is no way any politicians can legally represent anyone because he was elected on a secret ballot by a small percentage of voters. He then claims to represent the people who voted against him and even those who wisely chose not to participate in such criminal activity.”
Every politician promises to solve our problems, knowing he is going to do the exact opposite by continuing to perpetuate the problem. At the least, if they don’t promise to solve problems, they sure do make it known how much of a bigger problem their political opponent will create! For this is what politics has now come to, not much more than a giant mudslinging contest to see who can paint their opponent in the worst light, so you vote for them out of disgust for their opponent. Of course the very fact that this is what politics has become illustrates how worthless each candidate truly is, for having nothing positive to offer their constituents they must instead convince the people that their opponent will do more harm than they!
Just look at how much money is spent to fund political campaigns each election cycle. As we enter this cycle once again heading into the 2020 elections, just remember how truly meaningless every single election has ever been, since at the very least the assassination of JFK.
Billions of dollars are flooding into the political races, funding the various actors on the stage of this grand show; billions of dollars that could be used to feed the hungry and care for the the poor and house the homeless are instead being spent on TV ads that nobody cares to listen to and millions of campaign flyers that are in most cases never even looked at before being thrown in the trash can.
Billions of dollars being spent to sell you on the idea that candidate X is worse than candidate Y, and vice versa, each hoping to convince you to vote for the lesser of two evils.
Over $6 billion dollars were spent on just federal elections alone during the past two presidential election cycles; if trends continue as they have over the past two decades, 2020 could easily see $7 billion dumped into this shitshow.
(source)
Half of that money is totally wasted, spent on the losing candidate, spent entirely and totally in vain; the other half is responsible for ensuring the rise to office of those who will continue to perpetuate the global slavery of mankind. It really is quite the elaborate stage show put on for the onlookers.
Indeed, politics has to be one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on the world, its only purpose being to perpetuate and validate in the minds of the masses the international western power structure that is so obviously and blatantly enslaving us all.
There is a worldwide revolution taking place, but it is not just an uprising against a massive power structure and the elite who run it, it is a revolution in the way we think, and act, and relate to one another. It is a revolution that must take place in each and every one of us, a revolution in the minds and hearts of the people, which must revolutionize the way we view the world and everyone and everything around us. As Tupac said, in his song Changes:
“We gotta make a change! It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes. Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live, and let's change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working, so it's on us to do what we gotta do, to survive.”
We’ve been taught all of our lives that the only way to get ahead is at the expense of all those around us, by trampling upon the downtrodden and ignoring the less fortunate. But nobody stops to think that getting ahead explicitly implies leaving everyone else behind, and if that’s the case then maybe the point of life isn’t to get ahead at all, but rather to make sure that wherever we are going, we all get there together.
After all, “We are human beings!” As Marios Savios said in his powerful and deeply inspiring revolutionary speech given over 50 years ago.
Now they are actively dehumanizing us by convincing us to wear masks every time we are in public, as they seek to keep us divided amongst ourselves at the same time, actively programming us to even believe that every other human we come into contact with is a potentially dangerous threat, being a potential carrier of a so-called dangerous virus. By inducing the public into a state of intense perpetual fear, and through years of being programmed to blindly obey the authorities without question, a large majority of Americans are now voluntarily cooperating in the dehumanization and enslavement of humanity by daily dehumanizing themselves through willing cooperate with mask-wearing mandates being dictatorially enacted across states through executive order alone combined with corporate mandates being introduced by a number of large chains in all stores nationwide.
As more and more people wake up to their own humanity and the inherent oneness they share with all humanity, the elite threatened by this growing awakening had to respond with methods seeking to further dehumanize us and measures meant to keep us in constant fear and divided against one another, to stop our united uprising against their power structures. Such a response was inevitable, and their desperation to maintain control over the hearts and minds of the people betrays their true sense of fear and powerlessness against the truth and a united humanity.
We must not so easily give up our humanity now, when we are so close to reaching the tipping point of awakened souls needed to shift the balance of power in humanity’s favor. We must not be so quick to give up our freedom now, at a time when brushfires of freedom have been lit within the hearts of so many, and the fire of resistance was beginning to burn brighter than ever before. If there was ever a time to stand up against the machine, that time is now, before this tyrannical new (ab)normal takes complete hold on the minds and hearts of the people, and begins to be regarded as a totally accepted aspect of normal society.
After beginning to wake up to these truths and beginning to change ourselves into the most loving and compassionate beings we can become, there is only one thing left to do, and that is to stop being a passive observer and become an active force of resistance, until the whole entire power structure of this dreadful machine ceases to be able to function at all.
The problem is complex and multi-faceted, but the solution is simple and singular, for the solution lies with us. There is a time for real revolution, that time has come, the revolution starts within each and every one of us, and the revolution is already well underway. Here’s to “the worldwide revolution” that is still very much underway these many years after Malcolm X was assassinated. May it finally succeed in throwing off the chains that bind humanity where every past revolution has failed, before it is again quenched by the deceptive waters of the powerful forces that hold those chains.
“There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” - Mario Savios
“So what you and I have got to do, is get involved. You and I have to be right there breathing down their throat. Every time they look over their shoulder we want them to see us.” - Malcolm X
Viva Revolution! May it be a peaceful one, and may it ever succeed to finally bring about an age of peace and freedom for the human race.
Malcolm X quotes in this post can all be heard in the intro of the following music video, the entire anti-establishment song being well worth a listen I might add, though less relevant now that the days of Obama when it was first produced have come and gone:
