Divided We Stand, Together We Fall; the most Dis-United and racist States of America
Divisions in the US are now more rampant than ever, the differences, oppositions and views of the two political parties have become more radical with Patience and tolerance of the beliefs of the opposing side becoming threadbare and wearing thin.
Donald Trump’s campaign is dependent on divide, radical opposition, racism, violence, guns, lies, closing borders and expelling immigrants.
Recent polls show him to be ahead of both Biden and Harris if he were to run for re-election as US President in 2024.
Could Trump spell the end of the union of the United States, or would the Republicans seriously try to secede from the union should Biden be re-elected?
What would happen if Trump is re-elected to office. Are Americans becoming increasingly intolerable of each other and opposing beliefs? Will there be more turmoil and possibly another civil war?
A recent poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies revealed that Donald Trump has taken a large lead over President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential race.
Of those responding to the poll, 44 percent said they would vote for Trump should he become a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, while only 39 percent said they would vote for Biden.
And if the choice were to be between Trump and Harris, 45 percent of respondents said they’d vote for Trump and a measly 36 percent for Harris.
These results show Trump’s advance since early November when Trump and Biden were tied at 42 percent.
Armed militias are reportedly on the rise, not only driven just by xenophobia and racism, but also by fear of the government itself.
Some are adamant in their belief that “what the government gives the government can take away”.
And even for those not driven to pick up arms the anger seems palpable in America, and the Republicans are taking advantage of this national rage.
How many of you would say that you're mad as hell about all the stuff that's going on? It's almost all of you!
Frank Lunz, Republican Strategist
The examples of regular citizens lashing out at each other fill news feeds every day.
“… that’s not how we drive in America, Trump's deporting your illegal cousins today”
Racist Man in the street
Real examples of violence motivated by hate
Last year, a couple of secession books published from both sides of the political spectrum.
From the right, George Mason University's F.H. Buckley published “American Secession”, arguing that “the United States is ripe for secession” and “there’s much to be said for an American breakup”.
From the left, The Nation’s Richard Kreitner wrote “Break it Up”, contending that “we must finally finish the work of Reconstruction or give up on the Union entirely.”
What are the root causes of such a divide in the country?
Well, I mean, historically, you know, we have quite a bit, we have north and south obviously, these are different economies. But I think now that split you see as between urban areas being taken over by a liberal professional class, you have a lot more white collar educated workers, middle class children moving into the cities, and outside of those cities are, say, people in manufacturing or in dead zones, Like I am around Detroit, which is, you know, formerly a manufacturing hub, but there's not much here there's an Amazon fulfillment centre, of course.
But the division now is between these [sic] sort of professional class people who live in the city and who can afford to live in these increasingly expensive cities and are willing, you know, they're the very, diehard liberals, they are the people who support all the mandates and, you know, they support every Democratic politician.
They always have a Democrat mayor, but outside of the cities, it's basically, there is no solution for the people left outside of them, because the Democratic Party is aiming at those people in the cities and then outside of the cities that you have the GOP, the Republicans, who are, again, leading them down a path that doesn't actually get anywhere.
James Carey, Activist and Commentator
The divide in the country has been accumulated by secession efforts in schools that have reintroduced segregation. Black students in the South are less likely to attend a majority-white school today than 50 years ago, while black and Latino students are attending schools that are more likely to be predominately non-white and low-income.
What are the reasons for these segregations?
What happened was when they desegregated schools in 1954, which were legally segregated a lot of white people just pull [sic] their kids out and put them in private schools and in religious schools. Absolutely!
A lot of people teach their student at home, which is legal in the United States in most states, you can teach them, you have homeschooling, and you can teach them at home. There is a tremendous fear and we are running away from modernity in this country. And to going back to a time that doesn't really exist and I don't think ever existed; MAGA, Make America Great (Again).
Paul DeRienzo, News Director, WBAI Radio, New York
Largely white and wealthy communities are breaking away from more integrated school districts to establish their own, often justifying the move as a way to maintain local control over education.
Since the year 2000 more than 120 communities nationwide have attempted to secede from their school districts. Reports indicate that at least 47 of these communities did secede, taking with them millions of dollars in property taxes.
Those secessions took place in 13 counties across the US, seven of which are in the South.
The schools that are actually breaking away from their districts are typically [sic] higher income neighborhoods and they are genuinely, they're trying to re-segregate schools.
They're trying to go back to before the Civil Rights Act and they're trying to make sure that their school and their children are well taken care of but they do not want to carry the burden of anyone else who lives around them.
There's not really a sense of community in this country, besides maybe around churches, so people try to make sure that the public services they get don't go to anyone they don't want them to, they think people who get them that aren't like them or aren't worthy of them and they shouldn't have the same quality, schools, now It's just, it's a matter of if I don't want my child learning something, or if I don't want my child to think a certain way, or I don't want him around certain people; I'm going to separate into a new school district.
James Carey, Activist and Commentator
Now according to an analysis recently updated and released by the Brennan Center for Justice, Nineteen states have passed 33 new laws this year that make it harder to vote.
At the same time, lawmakers in many states made it easier for eligible voters to cast their ballots. But these legislations do not balance the scales. The states that have enacted restrictive laws tend to be ones in which voting is already relatively difficult, while the states that have enacted expansive laws tend to have relatively more accessible voting processes.
In light of this would it be correct to assume that Americans are, all in all, becoming increasingly intolerable of each other and other beliefs?
Absolutely, I was just talking about that. It's a dangerous time and the conservative[s] the right wing people, the fascist, the fascist leaning people, and I mean that, are the ones who have the vast majority of the weapons in this country, in a country where ... the liberal side of the country has been good at controlling the governmental operations.
And in many ways, despite all you hear, they have a lot of control over the police, the courts, the laws, on the liberal side. So the right wingers, who have the money and have the guns, are more legalizing and advocating vigilantism as the answer to that.
Paul DeRienzo, News Director, WBAI Radio, New York
Based on the Brennan Center report, the 33 laws enacted so far in 2021 have various impacts, including but not limited to making mail voting and early voting more difficult, imposing harsher voter ID requirements, and making faulty voter purges more likely.
In other words, access to the right to vote increasingly depends on the state in which a voter happens to reside.
How do you evaluate the political intolerance among the people and politicians?
There's not really any middle ground anymore, I don't know that there ever was, but there's not too much middle ground between either party and it seems those of us on the outside trying to make any sensible argument has basically been left in the cold.
Yeah, there isn't anything anyone can agree on because none of us share any idea what's actually wrong with the country.
Everyone's reality is so fractured, everyone believes in different things, whether it's you know, if you think Hillary is eating children, or if you think Donald Trump is going to prison, there's these two extremes of the spectrum and they just constantly yell at each other and among the majority of Americans who don't vote are stuck in the middle of these two crowds of people.
And it's their irreconcilable differences that just leave us all in a deadlock.
James Carey, Activist and Commentator
On the 6th of January the Confederate battle flag was flown inside the Capitol of the United States and that forbidden word, secession, which went viral prior to the Civil War, is now floating around, as part of the agenda for both conservatives and liberals, with 52% of Trump supporters and 41% of Biden’s supporters in favor of disunion.
What was the US Civil War about and why does it still affect American politics?
The United States was born in a twin revolution; the American Revolution of the 18th century that we may know about, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the rest, that freed the country from colonial domination of England, but it did not eliminate the basic stain on the character of the country and that was the slave trade. ...the slave trade was not just limited to the United States; all the countries that were bordering the Atlantic Ocean were involved in it.
And it's often I say that the United States is a bad offender, but it actually had one of the smaller numbers of slaves compared to Brazil and other countries. But I think it's a root of its constitution and its belief that we are better than that has led to a conflict for many, many years over the economy of slavery versus the ideals that the country was founded on, the conflict of both those values and those views have really been a big part of the problem.
And the second revolution party, the American Civil War 1861 1865, in which the northern part of the United States basically invaded the formerly part of the United States and very, very culturally different from the United States, It's bordering southern states and conquered them and forced them to renounce their slave population of four or 5 million people held in bondage that brought a vast, vast wealth to the country not only a vast wealth, but maybe the slave population in the United States South, in the southern states, the Confederacy as it was called back then, was possibly greater than any wealth accumulation in the history of humanity.
An army of northerners went down there and, at gunpoint, at bayonet point, stripped them of their property and there's never been peace in the country since.
Paul DeRienzo, News Director, WBAI Radio, New York
The Unforgiven
Early November this year, an anonymous caller told a Republican congressman who voted with Democrats in favor of the infrastructure bill that he and his staff should die.
On the following Monday, Twitter added a warning label to a cartoon video shared by a different Republican congressman in which he assassinated a colleague from across the aisle.
Later, a Black Lives Matter organizer threatened “bloodshed” if New York’s mayor-elect reinstated a controversial anti-crime police unit. And also, an interview was released in which former President Donald Trump defended rioters calling for the hanging of his vice president.
The United States is divided in it's in pretty bad shape, obviously. Clearly, the election of Trump showed that there's not a consensus on a shared project or anything like that anymore. But it is the disconnection of the politicians that makes this, basically, irreconcilable. There are two types of politicians now; there are the ones who are trying to convince us that the end of history Reaganomics model still works. And then there's the other end of the spectrum, which is someone like Trump or that ilk, who are constantly punching at problems that don't exist, blaming countries for things they don't do, instead of tackling the real problems.
James Carey, Activist and Commentator
From 1861 to 1865 Americans from the south or the confederates fought a war with the union or the north. The American civil war was about slavery. Now more than ever the population and politicians of the United States are divided.
Their views on each other have become more radical, and tolerance of the other side’s opinions and views have thinned down. Even issues such as mask and vaccine mandates from the federal government are prompting some States to call for secession.
There are definitely people who feel that way and they're growing in power. A lot of it is I'm not kidding. I wish I was joking with plenty. I can show you the rhetoric.
The other view, maybe the more moderate view that's out there is that it should be more like South Africa, where the whites just have control of the army and all the other people are, you know, live in terror of their lives and have no rights.
And you see that with a lot of the white people in the conservative parts of the country which are a lot of parts of the country, moving into gated communities, no blacks allowed.
Paul DeRienzo, News Director, WBAI Radio, New York
A Trump re-election could make the “empire’s” worst nightmares come true. Deep divisions could push the United States in becoming more of a police state and this could all result in a civil war.
With Biden’s approval rating falling to its lowest since his election, difficult laws being passed to dissuade voters from voting in most republican states, the never ending deaths from Covid-19, violence against minorities and the dire economic situation, you should expect more unrest, division and political uncertainty in the United States of America.
Neocolonialism paved the way for Barack Obama's presidency
The following segment is from ‘Power to the People” by Abbas Muntaqi, Political activist and co-founder of the People’s Programs (formerly People’s Breakfast Oakland), a decolonization program that provides meals, a mobile health clinic, and various other resources to the houseless community in Oakland. Muntaqim is also the co-creator of Hella Black Podcast, a resource for political education. Today we’re sharing his reflections on Black August and the role of cultural strategy in the larger movement for Black liberation.
Today on Power to the people we will talk about integration in neocolonialism how it paved the way for Barack Obama's presidency. Before we dive into Neo colonialism, let's first establish what colonialism is. Colonialism entails gaining control of a territory and subjecting it to the interests of the foreign power, aka the colonizers. It is an economic and political form of subjugation.
Neo colonialism is an evolution of colonialism and is evinced when a colonized nation achieves "independence" yet, this newly independent nation, is still subjected to the political, social, economic and cultural order of the former colonial system.
As Kwame Nkrumah said the essence of Neo colonialism is that the state which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty, but in reality, its economic system and thus its political policy, is directed from the outside.
In the context of America, Neo colonialism was birthed post Jim Crow as America moved towards integration.
Integration itself was a containment strategy used by the United States to stop the rebellion of black revolutionary movements, to give the illusion of inclusion as some type of liberation.
But what type of sense does it make to integrate of people into the master's house as a means of gaining freedom?
Integrating and joining this side of the corner only creates more oppressors and we have to eradicate the colonial system for us to truly be free.
The Holy Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, says if you imitate a people, then you are of that people.
If we look at Barack Obama, America's first black President, Barack Obama's presidency strengthened neocolonialism as well as imperialism. Obama himself imitated and acted like every other president.
Some people call this hope, and some people call this change, some people call this Martin Luther King's dream. But Obama's presidency was a reign of terror onto Black, Brown and indigenous peoples of the world, and must be understood as such.
Neo colonialism and integration in America, they both go hand in hand, and this allowed black people to join this colonial system and then oppress our own people.
We went from having all white police forces to now having integrated forces with black cops who now harass and kill their own people. If we look at the case of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, we had a black president, a black cop, a black Head of Department of Homeland Security, a black mayor, a black prosecutor, black everything, and what happened? He was murdered. Despite having all of these black people in positions of power, No justice was served.
And we cannot expect the Euro American court system to provide justice for the colonized; we have to get justice ourselves.
What was Obama's response? He called the people rebelling in the streets criminal. Throughout Obama's presidency he repeatedly refused to stand up for victims of police killings, or stand up for victims of environmental racism.
Everything is cool, just don’t drink the water in Flint
When Obama visited Flint, Michigan, he told black people that it was okay ... despite the toxic water.
When it came to economic support, he bailed out Wall Street. He bailed out the car industry but refused to bail out the people.
If we look at black homeownership under Obama, it was virtually destroyed when gentrification reached new heights. This is Neo colonialism in a nutshell, and Brock Obama took Neo colonialism and imperialism to new heights.
This was a chess move for White supremacy. During the Bush era, massive protests against the war in Iraq erupted within the USA and the state needed a new head of state to advance the control of the Empire as well as stop the protests in the streets.
We know that America itself is racist to its core. So the state, understanding this, used a black man and the facade of change, as an attempt to cover up the ruthless and evil actions of the Empire.
Obama weaponized the language of the civil rights movement
Obama himself weaponized the language of the civil rights movement, giving the facade of change when, in reality, the change that took place was a strengthening of imperialism.
Obama himself executed more drone strikes in his first year then George Bush did during the whole of his presidency. A total of 563 strikes largely by drones targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama's two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush, between 384 and 807 civilians was [sic] killed, and these are their own reports.
These statistics also don't even include the battlefields that were active, and it didn't stop there.
Obama also advanced CIA drone black sites in Africa, which then expanded under Donald Trump. He also led to the expansion of the United States Africa Command, better known as AFRICOM. This served as an imperialist force on the motherland and is responsible for orchestrating coups and interfering with the autonomy and self determination of African nations.
During Obama's presidency he dropped 20,000 bombs that we know of, this is terrorism and must be understood as genocidal.
Obama himself also refused to close Guantanamo Bay and allowed for the torture of innocent Muslims to continue.
As Kwame Nkrumah said neocolonialism is the last stage of imperialism and President Obama perfectly illustrated that through his actions as commander in chief.
In conclusion, as Jamil al Amin said, "you cannot succeed in overthrowing Pharaoh by using Pharaohs programme".
We have to realize that in order to stop neocolonialism, that we ourselves must be our own liberators; we cannot use this colonial system to liberate ourselves. We have to destroy the colonial system in its entirety.
Free the people free land, this is Power to the people.
Abbas Muntaqim, Political Activist
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