Until the philosophy
Which hold one race superior and another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned
Everywhere is war
Me say war
That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the color of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the color of his
eyes
Me say war
That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all
Without regard to race
Dis a war
That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be
pursued,
But never attained
Now everywhere is war
War . . .
War in the east
War in the west
War up north
War down south
War war
Rumors of war . . .
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory
Of good over evil
Good over evil, yeah
Good over evil
Good over evil, yeah
Good over evil
June 05, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - Bob Marley, Rest in Power, reduced to lyric, words of
consequence and self determination that have accompanied
our collective journey since it began. At times, its
vanguard has been the spoken word. At others, the pen;
and, yes, more often than not, the rock, the mask, the
gun has led the way. There is no singular correct or
acceptable megaphone of resistance for those
historically who have said enough. Defiance is dictated
not by the aim of those who struggle but by the reach
and tactic of those they fight. At times, sweet words
and chant have triumphed while at others, tears and
smoke and blood. But, rest assured, power concedes
nothing without struggle. It never did and it never
will.
Like a chorus of obedient social referees, pundits of
all pedigree and purpose, the political and the pompous
have tripped over one another the last few days as they
race to be the first and loudest to dictate to hundreds
of thousands in the streets, in this country, what is
and what is not acceptable protest. All that has been
missing from this stew of politically correct is
announcing to the world, from statehouses and zoom
alike, is the mascot… some of my best friends are …
There is nothing sui generis about rebellion. Its
paradigm has generated definition and debate for time
immemorial from those whose names have long outlived
their imprint upon the times in which they lived… and
often led. There is nothing complex about rebellion. It
finds its legitimacy in the natural marrow of those who
agree to step back from complete self determination with
the expectation that this transfer of personal power to
the state will, above all else, be met with full
equality and due process. Simply put, it’s known as the
social compact. It has long been the linchpin of state
power, the legitimacy from which it derives that command
or loses it when, like any contract, its breach outlives
its defined and agreed to purpose.
At its core, the social compact reflects a long
customary willingness of people to cede fundamental
aspects of personal freedom to government in exchange
for institutional concern and support for their health,
safety and equality. This largely unconscious cede is
very much a fragile connection, however, one that
maintains relevance and purpose only so long and so far
as people feel invested in the machinery of state, its
credibility and its integrity. When those institutions
that carry historically fail, people instinctively
reclaim their limited loan of independence. For some, a
legislative voice is the echo of that loss as they
pursue traditional electoral process in an effort to
regain a sense of equity and purpose. Others withdraw to
the safety of their solitude finding comfort in
isolation, hopeful and committed to the folly that
political leadership will gratuitously meet their task
if for no other reason than to hang on to personal
posture and gain. Then stand those who have never found
comfort or security in the notion that a loss of liberty
necessarily means more freedom. It is to them that we
owe much… naysayers of blind political faith who have
earned the scorn of institutional liberals who, with
ease, turn blind eye to the obvious… opting instead for
the witting embrace of surreal political caste.
Long ago compliance to comfort and denial was swept
away by those who welcomed dare to the convenience of
silence. There was, for example, a guy, a man named
Paine, an author and revolutionary with Common Sense
who with ferocious pen rejected any social compact that
vested total, unilateral and endless power to a throne
be it delivered from legacy birth or the voting booth.
To Paine, the social compact’s aim was to protect the
rights of each individual who entered into it:
“A man, by
natural right, has a right to judge in his own
cause; and so far as the right of mind is concerned,
he never surrenders it. He therefore deposits this
right in the common stock of society, and takes the
arm of society, of which he is part, in preference
and in addition to his own.”
Never one to bind each new generation to the straps
of the previous, Paine went further:
“There never did, there never will, and there
never can exist a parliament, or any description of
men, or any generation of men, in any country,
possessed of the right or the power of binding and
controlling posterity to the end of time or of
commanding forever how the world shall be
governed, or who shall govern it. Every age and
generation must be free to act for itself, in all
cases, as the age and generation which preceded it.”
Sage vision and powerful words by a
pamphleteer-philosopher who rejected the Presidency
turning, instead, caution to the wind as he returned to
England and then to France where his words inspired yet
another revolution. Though iconic, Paine’s voice has not
been singular in the historical debate over the social
compact in a country built of repression and rebellion
of theft and talisman of vision and violence. These
expressions speak to an inherent, ever-present, tension
between an individual’s drive to climb a mountain they
chase and the state’s demand it control the nature of
that journey… always, of course, because it’s in their
legislated best interest. Others have tasted the acidic
strain between ideal and fidelity.
To liberated slave Frederick Douglas…
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is
enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any
one class is made to feel that society is an
organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade
them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
To abolitionist John Brown, pursuit of personal
principle was above all else the defining expression of
one’s poise:
“Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty,
confiding with the honest, rough to the ruffian, and
a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be
unmindful of your own dignity.”
Legendary Apache leader Geronimo summed up, like few
others, the interconnect between resistance and outside
stare.
“I know I have to die sometime, but even if the
heavens were to fall on me, I want to do what is
right. I think I am a good man, but in the papers
all over the world they say I am a bad man; but it
is a bad thing to say about me. I never do wrong
without a cause.”
While crowned by some, perhaps many, for his dutiful
obey to non-violence Martin Luther King reminded us that
“…a riot is the language of the unheard.”
Malcolm X opined . . .
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is
wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending
black women and black children and black babies and
black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us,
and make us violent abroad in defense of her.”
These words of resistance are not mere abstract
sentiment of an academic circle podcast for the detached
and unaffected to debate as if their target has not
repeated itself over and over and over and can, by
magical ignore, somehow be reduced to isolated anomaly.
To the contrary, they confront a hardscrabble road of a
history that has demanded silence and obedience from
those against whom it has all too often extracted the
ultimate pain and punishment born of race and little
else.
There is no uniform shout. Nor is its march a
singular one… the product of inherited skin and pain
alone. Today, all over this country, young white women
and men have joined their family of color in announcing
in a clear, unified and unmistakable voice that the
social compact is shattered… a vehicle of power and
promise for but the chosen few. For the cynics who
dispatch the motivation of those who, themselves, have
not felt the sting of racial hate and divide, legendary
anarchist Emma Goldman, spoke long ago of a bond
sculpted not by the individual but the rejoice of the
collective:
“It requires something more than personal
experience to gain a philosophy or point of view
from any specific event. It is the quality of our
response to the event and our capacity to enter into
the lives of others that help us to make their lives
and experiences our own. In my own case my
convictions have derived and developed from events
in the lives of others as well as from my own
experience. What I have seen meted out to others by
authority and repression, economic and political
transcends anything I myself may have endured.”
Long ago the social compact provided hope in the
United States for a better destiny one built of equality
and justice. An essential part of that historical
narrative is the guarantee that a host of fundamental
rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights would be more
than an abstract tease but, rather, constitute a core
warranty of various liberties to be embraced and
protected by the state for generations to come.
In its best of light we have long seen many of these
rights sacrificed to the mantle of political expedience.
Increasingly subtle erosion has become a full-on assault
by the state on the reproductive rights of women, on the
LGBTQ community, on equal protection and due process, on
immigrants, refuges, religious diversity and political
speech and association. In its worst of glare, for time
immemorial lives have been taken by the state for no
reason other than the color of one’s skin.
This past week twenty-eight cities from coast to
coast were shuttered by an unprecedented curfew, one
reasoned to reduce “violence” but in reality designed
to tamp down on mass dissent demanding an end to state
attacks on communities of color and social justice. Just
days ago hundreds of peaceful protestors bearing signs
and song in front of the White House were attacked by a
rampage of federal officers firing tear and pepper gas,
rubber bullets and flash grenades, knocking
demonstrators and reporters alike to the ground. All in
an effort to remove them from ear and eyesight of the
President as he swaggered along to posture in front of a
closed church as so much a cheap prop, with upside down
Bible in hand.
The streets of this country are filled with a cry of
conscience not heard in more than half a century. It is
a powerful united, demanding voice whether arched by
passive resistance or pushed, in the eyes of some, by
unsettling militant response. Yet, to ignore its shout
or to reduce its legitimacy on the basis of its means of
message is to guarantee history will once again repeat
itself, adding to an already unbearable timeless
graveyard of those entombed by race, and race alone.
The social compact is broken. It has become time worn
and tattered; a failed march of madness, one that speaks
yet of lofty ideal, but acts daily with the uncontrolled
darkness of systemic hate and violence, its list of
victims . . . endless.
This is a non-comprehensive list of deaths of people
of color at the hands of police in the U.S. since Eric
Garner’s death in July 2014. LA Johnson/NPR.
See here for background on a few of these victims.
Death by Lynching/Execution
AZARIAH CURTIS-3 UNIDENTIFED BLACK MEN-MANUEL DUNEGAN-RAY
PORTER, EDARD PRATER-ALBERT SLOSS-ALEXANDER HERMAN-5
UNIDENTIFIED BLACK MEN-1 UNIDENTIFIED BLACK MAN- ERNEST
MURPHY-SAMUEL VERGE- ROBERT MOSELEY-HENRY MCKENNY-BUD
BEARD-ROXIE ELLIOT-GRANT RICHARDSON-WILLIAM FOURNAY-JOHN
BROWN-FRANK REEVES,-JESSE MATSON- JOHN CALLOWAY-JACK
PHARR-WES JOHNSON-JONATHAN JONES- N/A PEDIGRIE-JOHN
JONES-RAY ROLSTON-WILLIE BREWSTER-WILLIAM
WALLACE-HOLLAND ENGLISH-MARSAL MCGREGOR-WALTER
CLAYTON-3UNIDENTIFIED BLACK MEN-WILLIAM SMITH-JAMES
JACKSON-4 UNIDENTIFIED BLACK MEN-CO.ATTY. ALXEANDER
BOYD-1UNIDENTIFIED BLACKMAN-
3 UNIDENTIFIED BLACK MEN-CLEVELAND HARDING-WILLIAM
JONES-JOHN STEELE-JAMES BROWN-JERRY JOHNSON-N/A THOMAS-
WILSON GARDNER-1 UNIDENTIFED BLACK MAN- ADDIE MAE
COLLINS-DENISE MCNAIRM (age 11)- CAROL ROBERTSON (age
14)- JOHNNY ROBINSON( age 16)- VIRGIL WARE (age 13)-
JOHN KELLOG-JAMES THOMAS-RICHARD BURTON-MACK SEGARS-CHARLES
HUNT-1 UNIDENTIFIED BLACK MAN-WILLIAM MILLER-GEORGE
HOES-PERRY SMALL- 3 UNIDENTIFIED BLACK WOMEN-N/A
REID-WILLIS PERKINS-N/A STOVER-NEIL GUINN-WILLIAM
WARDLEY-JOSHUA BALAAM-LEWIS BALAAM-HORACE MAPLES-ELIJAH
CLARK-ROBERT MOSELY-2 UNIDENTIFIED BLACK COUPLES-SAM
WRIGHT-4 UNIDENTIFIED BLACK MEN-JOHN HAYDEN-WILLIAM
LEWIS-EPHREIM POPE-CHARLES HUM PHREY-CHARLES BENTLEY-N/A
DAVENPORT-WILLIAM POWEL-JESSIE POWEL-GEORGE HARRIS-RUBEN
SIMS-ISAAC COOK-OLIVER JACKSON-WILLIAM WESTMORLAND-HENRY
ADAMS-JOHN DELL-N/A FOUKAL-M. PHIFER- R. CROSKEY-WILLIE
EDWARDS-BUD DAVIS- ALLEN PARKER- JOHN BROWNLEE-1
UNIDENTIFIED BLACK SECURITY GUARD-TOBE MCGRADY-JAMES
WILLIAMS-JOHN MARRITT-POE HIBBLER-LEMUEL WEEKS-MOSES
DOSSETT-EBEN CALHOUN-THOMAS BROWNE-GEORGE
MEADOWS-RICHARD ROBINSON-EDWARD PLOWLY-WILLIAM PLOWLY-JONATHAN
LIPSEY- HENRY PETERS-JOHN WOMACK
Stanley Cohen is an attorney and political
activist. He has represented members of Hamas and
Hezbollah, a relative of Osama Bin Laden, as well as
other controversial clients. In 2014 he pleaded guilty
to tax charges and was sentenced to 18 months in prison,
resulting in suspension of his law license. - -
"Source"
-
See
also
Solomon Burke - "None Of Us Are Free"
Post your comment here
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
