The following speech was delivered by former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney last week in Libya. As our issue deadline approaches, McKinney is now in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for an international conference on the criminalization of war and warfare, an affair certain to pass unnoticed by our corporate media. But then, our bipartisan elite and our military establishment, the largest and most expensive in the world, is permanent war with a large fraction of humanity. In her tireless work to promote justice and peace over injustice and warfare, it is increasingly clear that McKinney is a more accurate representative of black America than our current president can claim to be.
Declaration of Dignity – The Tripoli Statement
A speech delivered by Cynthia McKinney at Tripoli, Libya on October 22, 2009.
We are the American delegation, now housed comfortably in Libya, looking past the beauty of the Mediterranean to a world in turmoil. A world in need of true democracy.
At this historic moment it is appropriate to discuss anew forms of self-determination. It is fitting that this discussion is taking place in the land of democracy's inception -- Africa.
Colonel Khadafy should be highly commended for honoring our ancestors - the framers of true democracy - by reaching out from Africa to the entire world. We would like to thank him for this opportunity to discuss his thoughts as presented in the Green Book.
We are here to listen and observe, then to support and carry forth the ideas of democracy and equality, universal principles embodied in the Green Book, the goal of our effort being to link and empower Black, indigenous and oppressed peoples world-wide for the betterment of our earth and all of its inhabitants.
We are acutely aware that the planet awaits a total ethical and structural change in governance. It is therefore necessary it be truly governence of, by and for the people. To THESE principles we have pledged our honor and fidelity - this is what we know and have put our lives on the line for in our everyday work.
Far too often we are alone on the battlefield in our respective struggles, so we are pleased to enter into a solidarity that shatters the limits of our separation. We must now all own that we are henceforth a community without walls. Like Che Guevarra, we hold that an injury to one is an injury to all, everywhere.
The universal principles of the Green Book, although widely associated with the conditions and challenges facing developing nations, are equally applicable to the needs of the people of the United States at this period of profound crisis for finance capital. The finance capitalist class, through its control of U.S. economic and political institutions, has in the past year effectuated the largest - and speediest - transfer of wealth in the history of humankind.
President Obama's call for national "transformation" serves as cover for policies that threaten to strip the people of their collective claim to the national wealth and of any social, economic or political rights that finance capital is bound to respect.
We hold that the Green Book principles of popular sovereignty are eminently suited to the task of halting and rolling back the impoverishment of the U.S. state and nullifications of the people's rights by finance capital's servants in government. We categorically reject all claims by capital to our national resources and credit, and declare that corporate power is antithetical to the people's power. We, instead, put our full faith and credit in the people.
We endorse the Green Book principles and offer to contribute to the success of their implementation. South Africa grapples with the inherent problem of a western orientated neoliberal capitalist democracy having been imposed upon a people. We believe the advent of people s committees and its devolution of power to the masses would go a long way towards solving the dilemmas of the government of South Africa and the governments of the Southern Africa Development Community.
In economics, we hold that the wage system is bondage that should be replaced by shared responsibilities and rewards - true partnership and equal distribution. Every individual should contribute at least a share of its earnings to the common purse, which should be used principally for raising the masses. Economic prosperity should not reward greed but, rather, uplift communities.
As put forth in the Green Book a thriving society is one where the family flourishes.
We see and confirm that the "multi-party" systems instituted and spread by western governments have indeed become a means to plunder and usurp the people's autonomy and authority. These political structures, falsely defined as "democracies" are simultaneously being emulated by and forced upon other societies, tribes, nations and individuals. Those people, tribes and countries that seek to copy the two-party U.S. system are misguided.
The people of the world are increasingly subjected to the elite's propaganda, which is penetrating all walks of life. Six Western corporations own an estimated 80% of the world's for-profit infotainment product. Any implementation of global direct democracy demands a dismantling of those corporations.
We are not a minority. There are many like us, and we have had enough. In the spirit of Martin Luther King we declare that we are tired of the lies. We are sick and tired of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are tired of the killing of innocent Africans, Asians, Native Americans and Palestinians. And we are sick and tired of the industries that have arisen to prey on the suffering and homeless.
We pray for the betterment and hope of all humanity. We know that a better world is possible. we are here to build it in solidarity with each and every one of you, and with our brothers and sisters around the world.
Kwesi Pratt Jr. is General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana.
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