On being patriots of and for Mother Earth

“Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.”—Indigenous Native Proverb

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The true revolutionaries are those women and men who are patriots of and for the entire planet. They (we) struggle to understand and address the inter-connectedness between militarism, perpetual wars, corporate greed and hegemony, social inequities, and economic austerity in this nation and around the world.

Everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people must remember that Mother Earth does not belong to us, we belong to her. We are her stewards and how we treat her will ultimately come back upon us and our posterity. There is no escaping this.

Barack Obama’s predator-drone missiles and other military forays (overt and covert) solve nothing. Rather, they degrade and denigrate the planet while exacerbating fear, animosity, and loathing between the peoples of this earth. No single nation or group of nations has or have a monopoly on so-called ‘moral authority;’ only everyday people, as active stewards of and for Mother Earth collectively, do.

The wily and pathetic corporate-stream media of disinformation, in service to the relatively small and avaricious worldwide corporate/military elite, is primarily responsible for perpetrating the myth that so-called ‘environmentalists’ and ‘peace and social justice activists’ are somehow separate entities advocating separate concerns, when in fact these struggles are deeply intertwined and linked—as well they should be. This tactic, on the part of the corporate-stream media, is a part of that same old systemic divide and conquer paradigm. It must be relegated to the dust bin of history by plain ordinary everyday people.

We must come to understand (and quickly) that those economic, political, and social issues affecting, for example, everyday people in Germany, Britain, Egypt, France, Spain, Libya, Greece, Canada, Nigeria, Haiti, Columbia, Portugal, Mexico, Jamaica, and India etc. have an enormous impact upon everyday people here in the United States. The bloodsucking global corporate elite has no national boundaries, and neither must the legitimate struggles of everyday people. We must recognize that our struggles are intertwined, even as we act locally and think globally.

The struggle of and by everyday people, here and abroad, is an arduous, protracted and dialectical one. It demands a revolutionary consciousness consisting of constant growth and development, and it crosses all color, gender and national boundaries. When, for example, we think of political prisoners, let us keep in mind that there are many political prisoners right here in the United States, in addition to other parts of the world. Let us remember that just as with corporate bloodsucking and perpetual wars; political, economic and social exploitation know no national boundaries.

Be patriots, but be patriots of and for Mother Earth collectively! We must begin this revolutionary/evolutionary journey at wherever we find ourselves mentally and/or geographically. But by all means, while there is yet time, we must begin it! Be creative. . . . .

Onward then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!

Intrepid Reporter Associate Editor, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities, Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. Pinkney is a former university instructor of political science and international relations, and his writings have been published in various places, including The Boston Globe, the San Francisco BayView newspaper, the Black Commentator, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.)

Comments are closed.