The pretense is ending. Things are returning to the way they were.

There was a time when the U.S. was open and honest about its commitment to race, class and gender supremacy.

There was a time when your right to vote was based on your ownership of property. No one even pretended that a poor person’s opinion or condition mattered.

The framers of the Constitution made clear their belief that Black people were only three-fifths of a person.

There was a time when religious and political leaders openly ex­pres­sed their beliefs that women are the property of men and have no real rights.

Those days are gone now. In this day of “code words,” “spin,” and just plain lying about one’s real values you have to be sharp. To know what a person, group or system really believes you have to “read between the lines,” you have to figure out what their statements really add up to. You also have to watch what people do, what they support and what results are generated. Otherwise you get baffled by rhetoric.

For example, regardless of what politicians say, you know that Freedom of Assembly is over because every major demonstration in the past 10 years has either been harassed or brutally attacked by police. Police departments don’t see a demonstration as a sacred exercise of your constitutional rights. They see it as a potential problem. That’s why they photograph and keep files on people who participate in protests. In fact most branches of law enforcement don’t view the Bill of Rights as a set of revered guiding principles, but as an obstruction to their work…or play.

Your right to Freedom of Assembly now has so many restrictions and conditions on it that you can barely do a backyard barbecue without seeking a permit. In New Orleans they are trying to make the Mardi Gras Indians get permits before doing their spontaneous foot parades. Since when do you need a permit for a group of people to walk down the street?

Then there is that most sacred of rights, the right to be left alone. Your right to walk down the street without being harassed has been gone for some time. For Black people this right never existed. Across the nation, Black men are finding themselves being stopped, frisked, questioned, cursed, and made to show identification just for walking down their own danged street. Many times they are arrested on false charges because an officer does not like their attitude or is having a bad day. If they decide to hit you, they will charge you with hitting them. Cops keep doing this because the Department, the D.A., the judges and the rest of the system will back whatever they do. Every elected official knows this and most lawyers are afraid to touch a police abuse case, no matter how outrageous.

Your rights to life, the vote, privacy, due process, education, religious freedom, etc., have been picked at and eroded to the extent that none of them actually count to any appreciable degree anymore.

What the U.S. has become is called a police state, not because the cops are really the villains in control but because they are the ones used to enforce control of people, communities and cities by powerful groups and individuals that you rarely, if ever see. Call me naïve, but I honestly believe that most cops join the force because they want to do some good. I think the system changes most of them. Just a theory.

It’s so hypocritical for the United States to go around talking about bringing “democracy” to other nations when people here losing more their basic freedoms everyday.

Yes, it’s over. The pretense of democracy is dying a slow death. In the near future, it won’t just be militants like me who reject what this nation stands for. Ordinary people are going to get fed up and do something about it.

The good news is now that the veil is being removed, we can get more people involved in discussing and working toward creating the type of nation and world we really want to create.

A wise person would get prepared to face a massive transition. Rebellions are breaking out all over the world, but as the people of the U.S. join those rebelling in Europe and elsewhere it is important to remember that what you are fighting for is more important than what you are fighting against. An absolute commitment to principles, a clear, common vision, and a mandate for accountability can prevent you from becoming the very thing you despise.

…and That’s the Hard Truth.

This article was originally published in the October 17, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper