Political Bait, Hook and Line (Comrade Kelvin Khaysi Canada, NABPP-PC, 2016)

The ruling class elites are excellent at fishing. They know how to bait a hook to get the oppressed masses to bite on their political rhetoric. The masses have been falling for their lures and tricks for centuries. In the U.S., the masses have been swallowing the same hook, line and sinker since 1789. In 2008, the ruling class decided to put a little bit different bait on the same old hook with Barack Obama, the first “Black” President, and the fish went wild. The ruling circle knew Amerika was becoming more ethnically diverse, and racism among the masses was at a low point, and they could see that the masses were fed up with the white aristocratic oligarchy that had brought on the worst economic crisis since the “Great Depression.” So they switched bait on us.

George W. Bush took billions of tax dollars away from social welfare programs and invested it in his phony “War on Terrorism,” (that had nothing to do with fighting terrorism), which triggered deeper crisis in the economy, and created a debt crisis as well as trillions of dollars missing from the Department of Defense that still hasn’t been accounted for. So the masses of voters turned to Obama and his false promise of “Hope.” Obama was supposed to be against the war and everything Bush and the Republicans represented. He was supposed to put a new color on everything, but in reality he was fronting for the same ruling oligarchy as Bush, and Clinton before him, and Bush’s daddy before that. “Hope” turned out to be a cruel joke.

In 2008, the ruling class “se-elected” Obama to continue “business as usual,” the 44^th overseer on the “Amerikkkan Plantation” representing capitalist-imperialism, neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism. Being half “Afrikan” he was an ideal choice for continuing Bush’s AFRICOM strategy and uniting Afrika under U.S. neo-colonial hegemony. In 2008, no Afrikan country would host U.S. troops on its territory, but under Obama, AFRICOM has established military to military relations with 51 Afrikan nations and forced regime changes in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. The “Dark Continent” is now dotted with covert U.S. bases and instillations as well as overt bases in Djibouti, Senegal and Uganda. U.S. killer drones and U.S. special operations teams are deployed at strategic locations. U.S. trainers are “advising” most of the armed forces in Afrika.  A continental military establishment is being created under U.S. control and command.

Because Obama is half “Black,” New Afrikans were deluded into thinking his administration would change their socio-economic, cultural and political status in a positive way. Instead, racist whites have been encouraged by the Obama administration’s evident lack of commitment to these issues to roll back the gains of the Civil Rights Era, and racist police have become even more oppressive and violent. What New Afrikans didn’t realize is the ruling class didn’t select Obama to serve the interests of the oppressed peoples but to serve their class’ imperialist interests. He is their puppet. They don’t mind putting a few “black faces in high places,” but racism serves capitalism and can’t be reformed away.

Neo-liberalism doesn’t mind “talented Negroes” performing needed services so long as they adhere to and advance the kleptocratic plutocracy’s interests. In fact, it absolutely needs such individuals, of which Obama is the archetype. These “House Negroes” have always performed a necessary service to keep the “Field Negroes” in harness to the “Massah’s interests.” The “United Snakes” Constitution, established in 1789, is the same one that Obama took an oath to uphold, on January 20^th, 2008. It is the same one that for years classified Black people as 3/5ths of a human; according to this Constitution: Black, brown, red or yellow pigmentation of the skin disqualified one from being fully human. It stated:

“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states, which may be included within the union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding (Indians) not taxed, (three-fifths) of all other persons. (Article 1, Section #3).

For those who don’t know, during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, where 55 aristocrats, most of them slave owners, debated the proposal of states like Georgia and South Carolina that slaves should be counted as full-human beings for purpose of determining representation, whereas northerners felt they shouldn’t be considered at all. A “Great Compromise” was reached to count the slaves as 3/5^th of a person and thus appease the slave-owners. Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), the three-fifths clause was nullified, as all people were now free (except those convicted of a crime). Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) later superseded Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. It provides that “representatives shall be apportioned … counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.” Today, rural counties count prisoners in determining population for representation, even though we can’t vote.

I’ve said many times, “you cannot change the personnel of an oppressive, racist, and murderous system and expect the system itself to change.” Instead we must end this system and replace it with one based upon socialist people’s power, then it won’t matter what personnel are ethnically, because they will represent us and the interests of all humanity. Elections don’t change systems, revolutions do. To illustrate my point, imagine throwing a white person in a lake. Then ask yourself, “does he get wet?” Then, go jump in the lake yourself. Same result, right? Of course, no matter what color, ethnicity, gender or whatever – people get wet in the lake: Unless you change the characteristics of water.   

Under socialism – real socialism, revolutionary socialism – the wealth and power of the ruling class is expropriated by the people, and those who do the work in society become the actual “ruling class” who use this wealth and power to reconstruct society based upon principles of real equality and social justice for all. This is the only way Black Amerikans are going to escape conditions of wage slavery, oppression, discrimination and super exploitation. If you think voting is going to liberate us, go jump in a lake until you figure it out.

Douglas L. Wilder was elected the first Black state governor in Virginia in 1989. What did he do to make the lives of New Afrikans in Virginia any better? Right, splash! I could go on and on with Black Amerikan firsts. Why should we have expected the first Black Amerikan President would have worked out differently? In fact, he didn’t really help any of the demographics who voted for him, except in the sense we can say a Republican administration might have been even worse, (but not essentially different). That’s because we have a “Two-Headed Snake” political system in the United Snakes of Amerikkka. We have two parties representing the same ruling class. So, no matter who gets elected, the ruling class wins and we lose.

In 2008, we had Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young and John Lewis shown all over the Establishment’s media gushing emotionally about the fulfilment of Martin Luther King’s dream. In 2016, we have masses of Black people trying to get across the message that “Black Lives Matter,” and if MLK was still alive he’d be marching with the youth demanding an end to racist mass incarceration and rampant police brutality and murder in our communities. He’d be telling people to “Wake Up!” In his own words:

“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the west investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries and say: ‘This is not just’.”   – (cited in “Beyond Vietnam, a Speech Given at: Riverside Church on: April 4^th, 1967.)

Dr. King made many more speeches and public comments vilifying the U.S. government and capitalists’ crimes against the poor here and internationally. He is quoted as saying:

“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”- Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.

“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” –Speech to SCLC  Board, March 30, 1967.

“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.

“[W]e are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism…. There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.

And:

“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.” Speech at Bishop Charles Mason Temple of the Church of God in Christ in support of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike on March 18^th, 1968, two weeks before he was assassinated.

By putting these Black puppets on TV, radio, and in the magazines, etc. claiming to represent MLK and his “dream,” the ruling class omits the reasons that they had him killed. We are supposed to forget about that, and what he was saying at that point in his life, and what Malcolm X was talking about before they had him killed, and what Fred Hampton was talking about, and George Jackson, and lots of lesser well-known Panthers and brothers and sisters in the communities who were eliminated for speaking truth to power.

We also do not forget that not one single U.S. President from 1789 up until the present has every stood up for the interests of the poor and working masses, (unless it was to save and preserve the position of the rich and prolong their dictatorship over the people).  Comrade V.I. Lenin explained how this class dictatorship works:

“Russia is an absolute and unlimited monarchy. The [Tsar] alone promulgates laws, appoints officials and controls them. And the [Tsarist] government are independent of all classes and accord equal treatment to all. But in reality, all officials are chosen exclusively from the propertied class and all are subject to the influence of the Big capitalists, who make the ministers dance to their tune and who achieve whatever they want. The Russian working class is burdened by a double yoke; it is robbed and plundered by the capitalists and the landlords, and to prevent it from fighting them, the [Tsarist] police bind it hand and foot, gag it, and every attempt to defend the rights of the people is persecuted. Every strike against a capitalist results in military and police being let loose on the workers.” (From: Introduction to Marx, Engels, Marxism, page 7, by V.I. Lenin).

In every situation the big capitalists “make the ministers ‘dance to their tune’.” Kings and Tsars were expendable. The real power today goes way above the level of Presidents, even of the United States. But unlike Kings, Tsars and Presidents, the ruling class prefers to keep a low profile and avoid the limelight. According to Forbes’ “Billionaires List,” there are 1,826 in the world of whom Bill Gates is the richest with a net worth of $75 billion. The U.S. has the largest concentration of billionaires and multi-billionaires at 536, with China coming in second with 213 and India third with 111. Germany is ahead of Russia with 103 billionaires compared to Russia’s 88. But Forbes ranked Vladimir Putin as the most powerful person in the world over Obama since 2013.

The only reason the poor masses get to vote is to create the illusion of democracy in a class dictatorship. The ruling class grows more desperate and driven to consolidate U.S. global hegemony. This obsession permeates both political parties and each successive administration. As pointed out in Global Research, (6/04/14):

“From 1991 on, the United States relentlessly pursued a strategy of encircling Russia, just as it has with other perceived enemies like China and Iran. It has brought 12 countries in central Europe, all of them formerly allied with Moscow, into the NATO alliance. US military power is now directly on Russia’s borders. The actual Ukraine crisis is in part the result of a zero-sum calculation that has shaped US policy toward Moscow since the Cold War: Any loss for Russia is an American victory, and anything positive that happens to, for, or in Russia is bad for the United States. As much as this reality might be contested by Western rhetoric and subdued by the Western media, as much is it the dominant perception in Russia, China, or Iran. …. The global ruling class feeling that US world hegemony is approaching its end and uncertain about its own fate seems to be obsessed by paranoia, and running amok with only one goal left: to fill as much as possible into its own coffers. It even abstains from the impression of following the rule of law. Belligerent behavior towards other countries goes hand in hand with sharply increasing social tensions and conflict within.”

In the 2016 elections, none of the candidates represents an alternative to this dead-end strategy. The Global Research piece concluded with a quote from Susan George:

“Illegitimate authority is on the rise and democracy is gradually succumbing to the disease of neoliberal ideology so that more and more functions of legitimate government are being assumed by illegitimate, unelected, opaque agents and organisations. This is the case at all levels, national, regional and international…. It is not exactly news that governments have always governed on behalf of certain class interests but this is different from allowing those interests to actually write the legislation and to make policy directly, including budgetary, financial, labour, social and environmental policy in the place of elected legislators and civil servants. It is different from allowing private corporations deliberately to disseminate deception and lies and undermine the public’s right to know. It’s not just their size, their enormous wealth and assets that make the TNCs dangerous to democracy. It’s also their concentration, their capacity to influence, and often infiltrate, governments and their ability to act as a genuine international social class in order to defend their commercial interests against the common good” (George, S. 2014).

The amazing thing is that masses of people still have hope that one of these candidates would turn out to be any different. The bait may change, but the hook is the same, and it is not going to change. If we are to survive, we must get wise to the ways of fishermen. We must stop “biting the bait!”

I will conclude with a quote from the revolutionary perspective of the late, great, Comrade George L. Jackson of the original Black Panther Party Prison Chapter:

“The government buys and trains these running dogs very carefully, and send them scrambling, tails and all, outward to represent the Establishment. Whole kennels are sent to African nations …. On the supposition that the people of these nations will be able to relate better to a [black face].…” (Cited in Soledad Brother, 1970, by George L. Jackson).

Need I say any more about the underhandedness of the ruling class and the extent to which they go – and have gone – to maintain their hegemony over the masses and peoples of the world?

DARE TO STRUGGLE DARE TO WIN…. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!