by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez
So where is the mass movement that was supposedly gestating in the womb of the Obama campaign phenomenon, the one that was wedded to, but to the left of, the actual candidate? How has the phantom “movement” made itself felt and known? Turns out, the whole thing was made up so that “progressives” would feel justified in supporting a corporate politician that resembles the “WW I-era Ivy league intellectual and imperial gangster Woodrow Wilson on many points, the issue of U.S. global hegemony first and foremost.”
Eshu’s blues:The Obamamas and the Obapapas
by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez
“The ruling class never understands a god damn thing unless they’re running for their lives.”
As time wears on under the political tutelage of the Obamamas and Obapapas in the “democratic” party, I’m thinking their slogan “Yes we can” ought to be changed to, “We could if we wanted to but we just don’t want to right now.”
The Obama administration and its shining lights among the Obamoms and Obapops are turning out to be the most expensive re-make of that cold war drama “The Manchurian Candidate” ever. They haven’t moved on to the “Don’t make us come out there and get you” phase, because the allure of their Golden Child hasn’t worn thin enough yet, and the reality of the problems the bank bailout or the continued war will actually pose doesn’t hurt enough yet. But things change. And mark my words, when the new age capitalist order is actually challenged by any revolutionary current rooted in the working class mass - and it will be, because we’re not going to have a choice - we’re all going to find out why sharks have those extra rows of teeth.
As we know, the old guard among the U.S. ruling class had worn out their welcome with their imbecilic blueblood sideshow from Texas. Fortunately for the old fool school, they have the new fool school of “democratic” party ideologues to run out and fog the way. And the interesting lot we know as “progressives” are stepping right up to the plate. Why, just look at how much concern is being registered on both the left and right over the moment in the sun that old “moderate” butcher Hossein Mousavi was robbed of in the recent Iranian elections.
One would think that energies similar to those now being expended over the Iranian masses (who have of late demonstrated that they know full well how to take care of themselves) would have gone into defending the rights of voters in this here country, of course, but that’ll teach you to think. I don’t recall any massive street demonstrations or direct confrontations with the U.S. government and its military forces, or even any mass teach-ins or mobilizations in our own country over a stolen election a few short years ago. But there are all kinds of opinions floating out there as to how the U.S. Government - that is, the imperial power structure of the U.S. state and U.S. Capital - can best be pressed into service at the behest of Mr. Mousavi. I don’t doubt there’s a genuine revolutionary opposition to Mahmoud Ahmahdinejad in Iran but like many other people, I don’t believe the other clerical ruling class stratum led by Mousavi represents any real anti-imperial movement in Iran. But all too many of our so-called progressive “left” thinkers in the United States are sucking it up.
“We’re all going to find out why sharks have those extra rows of teeth.”
Interestingly enough, the Obamamas and Obapapas of the “democratic” party couldn’t fight for an election stolen from them eight years ago - or specifically, they couldn’t defend the rights of black voters in Florida - and they can’t uphold or lead the mass movement for hope and change they supposedly built around the Obama campaign just last year, even though they swore up and down that they had built a mass grassroots movement which they maintained would have all the momentum and political base they said we needed to pressure Obama . Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you have to keep a scorecard to track of all the back pedaling the “progressive” democrats have taken on the war in the Middle East, the prosecution of certain war criminals, the rights of the Palestinians, the massive transfer of public funds to banking speculators, the continued numbers of black and working class people being either shot down, tasered to death or sent to prison behind trumped up drug laws, the environment, immigration, gay marriage, ad infinitum. But these same “progressives” seem to think they have an intelligent, fighting democratic program for the Iranian people, or the people of Darfur, or Somalia! It’s all very funny if you don’t mind bad jokes.
Don’t blink as they shift gears. Just a year ago, the alleged best and brightest, practical tacticians within the “democratic” party, who supposedly always know the appropriate time to demand progressive concessions from their corporate liberal “allies,” were among those true believers in the professional classes who were crowing over the everlasting qualities of capitalist economy. And what happened after that?
By fall, as you’ll remember, the “practical” liberals were a little more humble, coming to us all with their platinum beggar bowls, crying out for “alms for the elite” when the speculator economy of their rich friends went down the rat hole. Of course, they were indignant when the unlamented GWB asked for the same bank bailout program that the Oba Man has asked for, but now that their side of the ruling class is carrying the “stimulus” package, it’s all peachy keen.
“The Obamamas and Obapapas of the 'democratic' party couldn’t fight for an election stolen from them eight years ago.”
And weren’t they cute? Within weeks of the bailout, we were treated to corporate liberal commentary on the new socialism (within capitalism). Some rightwing “public intellectuals” took them seriously; the clown Michael Savage, sillyass Ann Coulter and blow-dried airhead Sean Hannity carried on about creeping Bolshevism for a spell. (We should be so blessed.) Now, I’ve long known people on the right were too dishonest to ever recognize state subsidies for the wealthy for what they are, given their ready acquiescence to robbery of the public sector via the bloated military budget. But, I have to admit that up until this last year, I actually still believed there were those elements on the “left” of the “democratic” party who would actually put their asses on the line before they’d allow the wholesale giveaway and privatization of the public sector to financial speculators to be called “socialism.” Ah, the genius of the “public intellectuals” of the “left,” so new, so fresh in their ideas, and so clueless about their caving to the same ideas that made a sucker of Karl Kautsky and the Second International a century ago.
To wit, capitalist reformers: the more things change, the more they etc.
The soft faction of the ruling class in the United States, having put their trillion dollar hustle via the Manchurian candidate Obama and his culty-mulcheral political colleagues, are now treating us to “public intellectual” discourse like Mr. Fareed Zakaria’s “Capitalist Manifesto” that appeared in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine.. Would that be the same Fareed Zakaria who waxed so euphorically about the invasion of Iraq, just a few short years back? Why, yes, indeed. And he knows just as much about political economy now as he knew about Iraq back then. Whoops.
After all these years of “a rising tide lifts all boats,” it’s been pretty intriguing watching the same people try to sell us on the idea that an expanded credit line lifts all boats. Try balancing your personal checkbook by writing checks to cover all the debts you’ve acquired sometime and see how you make out with your creditors. Try grinding the energies of your family and your household relentlessly in order to make payment with paper economy and see how long they love you. But that’s what the ruling asses who run this country and corporate world think they’re going to do on a mass level. And if we don’t wise up, they’re going to continue to take it out of our black hides and those of everyone else, both literally and figuratively speaking.
“Ah, the genius of the “public intellectuals” of the “left,” so new, so fresh in their ideas, and so clueless.”
As has been noted here at BAR many times, the political fortunes of black working class struggle and working class struggle as a whole are retarded by a continued mass reliance on different personality parades which are themselves a carryover from the politics of the white upper middle class mainstream. Face it, ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama isn’t anything but NYC’s David Dinkins writ large. (“They’ll take it from me”, Dinkins reassured NYC’s owners.) Obama’s politics are so reactionary they line up with those of the WW I-era Ivy league intellectual and imperial gangster Woodrow Wilson on many points, the issue of U.S. global hegemony first and foremost.
As Adolph Reed Jr. has been trying to tell us for awhile:
“Public intellectual” is by and large an excuse, the marker of a sterile, hybrid variant of “bearing witness” that, when all is said and done, is a justification for an aversion to intellectual or political heavy lifting---a pretentious name for highfalutin babble about the movie you just saw or the rhyme you just heard on the radio. In its intimations of always being from and on the way to the other place, the label is an admission and exaltation of disconnectedness [My italics—mhp], a notion of the critical intellectual as Galahad or High Plains Drifter that is the opposite of rootedness in a discourse community. That is why this cohort’s discussion of themselves and others seems so much like an attempt to create all-star lineups---the greatest this, the most brilliant that, the preeminent other. They’re more like the Super Friends than the Frankfurt School or the Howard University scientists of the 1930s.”
“Obama’s politics are so reactionary they line up with those of the WW I-era Ivy league intellectual and imperial gangster Woodrow Wilson on many points.”
As the old school used to say, one massive worker-led strike on the waterfront - or anywhere else - is worth more than a thousand programs from “public intellectuals” who don’t pay attention to the actual curves and flows of the struggles of the working class. Ruling classes are not swayed by coherent argument or moral discourse by themselves, or by the beauty of celebrity minds. CLR James taught us in The Black Jacobins that the ruling class never understands a god damn thing unless they’re running for their lives. Now, there’s some counsel of intellect we can trust implicitly.
There comes a time when we have to do our own heavy lifting, on the picket line, in the community centers, in our classrooms and cultural organizations and efforts, and then we have to create from our own experience and the counsel of a history rooted in the memory of the working class majority in socialist struggle, a political program that will take down Ol’ Massa’s house. And so far as many of us are concerned, there’s no time like the present to begin the work at hand.
BAR columnist michael hureaux perez is a writer, musician and teacher who lives in southwest Seattle, Washington. He is a longtime contributor to small and alternative presses around the country and performs his work frequently. Email to: [email protected].