Boy, I’m glad that’s over.

As amazing as it may have been to watch Barack Obama, his wife, and children become the first black president and first family of the United States; the level of self congratulatory conceit displayed by the media and politicians was enough to make you puke. The perfect juxtaposition of Martin Luther King Day and the coronation inauguration of America’s first black President was more than any PR flack could hope for. And the marketers were out in droves pimping brand Obama, a brand more potent than Air, iPod, or Google combined. Hats, coffee mugs, buttons and T-shirts were on display and on sale reinforcing Obama’s tagline of “hope” and “change”.

Implicit in that tagline is the “hope” that black folks will finally stop talking about racism, and that America has “changed” into the land of freedom and righteousness we’ve been pretending that it was all this time. In fact “hope” and “change” can be milked for another couple of decades. We can still run a woman, asian, homosexual, or jew just to confuse the public. Who cares about policy? POTUS 2.0, now available in multiple shades and lifestyles.

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So after a nice break over the holidays we’re back with our first post of the new year. Seeing as we’re only about a week away from the glorious dawning of Post Racial Americaâ„¢ I thought I’d present this material that reminds us how we’re all getting screwed here in this wilderness called North America and that many times the depth of penetration depends on class rather than race. Because black folk are so heavily represented among the working classes and underclasses, this “classism” effects us disproportionately.

Class War: The Attack on Working People is an audio book of a speech by Noam Chomsky. If you’re not familiar with Chomsky, he is an MIT professor of linguistics, a lecturer, and activist.

From Wikipedia:
His far-reaching criticisms of US foreign policy and the legitimacy of US power have made him a controversial figure: largely shunned by the mainstream media in the United States, he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets worldwide.

You can read more about him here

What I like about Chomsky is that he calmly and deliberately reveals the reality of the political/economic system we live in and what change really entails. He brings into focus the Matrix like facade that has been so cleverly crafted by the media, the school system and the politicians. Here is an excerpt from one of his speeches. The title says it all. This and other speeches by Chomsky can be found online at vendors like Audible and Amazon.

fyi: hit the little speaker icon next to the name to play the track without leaving the page.
Class War: The Attack on Working People