by Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report.
This offers an African-American view on the "One Nation" performance at the Washington Mall last Saturday. (It is a transcript of a commentary that can be listened to by accessing the 3:54m audio recording at the end of the transcript.)
I have only one criticism of this post which is that it offers more "heat" than "light"--too much moral outrage and not enough penetrating analysis of this event.
As the author suggests, I believe the event was probably staged by Democratic party operatives. It would be very interesting to have the details on that--possibly, they will be forthcoming sometime in the future.
In any case, most of the people who spoke at the event have been co-opted by the liberal wing of the US ruling capitalist class. Political liberals serve to defuse discontent and channel it into fairly harmless directions. These people long ago "sold their souls to the establishment store" in order to secure comfortable careers within the Empire.
This is a perfect illustration of the ruling class's use of co-optation to control dissent. This technique is made possible by the concentration of ruling class control over hierarchical structures in all important institutions, and hence their control over jobs and careers.
Other tools of control include indoctrination in educational classes, insertion of ruling class propaganda in the mass media, setting up right-wing organizations to channel protest against false targets (Muslims, migrant workers, "liberals", big government, etc.).
