Freedom Rider: Obama Knows Best

Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist

30 Sep 2009

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

The youthful Barack Obama was a strange variety of “community organizer” - he didn't like protests. Obama's feelings haven't changed in the interim. The president believes protesters like those that showed up for the G20 summit, in Pittsburgh, are obsessed with some “generic” version of capitalism that throws people out of work and creates wars. But that's all in their heads. The First Black President said so.

Freedom Rider: Obama Knows Best

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“Who are you going to believe, Obama or your lying eyes?”

It is hard to understand why thousands of protesters ever bothered going to the G20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh. They foolishly marched about, yelling and carrying signs and demanding action on climate change, health care reform, employment for all, a bailout for the people, and an end to endless war and empire building.

The silly protesters just didn’t understand how much Obama and his G20 colleagues have done for them. The president very kindly explained it all to these well intentioned but foolish people in an interviewwith the Toledo Blade. "One of the things that we'll highlight at the G-20 – and maybe the protesters are missing this – is that I and other world leaders are very interested in making sure that the excesses of global finance are reined in."

How could they possibly have missed the great largesse of Barack Obama and representatives of the other powerful nations? There must be some new and secret regulations we don’t know about. They must be very secret, because it doesn’t look like anything has been reined in for the global finance system. But what do we know? Obama said something like that is going on, so it has to be true.

“Global capitalism seems to create “bubbles” that devastate the lives of millions of people.”

The Pittsburgh protesters needed a good talking to from the former community organizer. Who better to school them in their misapprehensions than a man who first made a political name for himself by helping the common folk."I was always a big believer in – when I was doing organizing before I went to law school – that focusing on concrete, local, immediate issues that have an impact on people's lives is what really makes a difference and that having protests about abstractions [such] as global capitalism or something, generally, is not really going to make much of a difference."

So you see, global capitalism is kind of a fuzzy thing after all. The capitalism system may appear to be very concrete. It seems to create “bubbles” that devastate the lives of millions of people. It seems to demand that politicians turn over trillions of dollars in public resources. It appears to determine who will win elective office. It all must be a cruel optical illusion. After all, who are you going to believe, Obama or your lying eyes?

After the summit ended, Obama kindly explained why the malcontents ought to stay home and keep quiet. "I fundamentally disagree with their view that the free market is the source of all ills. Many of the protests are just directed generically at capitalism.” So capitalism is fuzzy, and warm too. It is kind of abstract, so the president says, it isn’t important to most of us, so we all need to wise up and stop criticizing this unfairly maligned system. Despite evidence indicating that capitalists put people out of work, take their homes and prevent them from getting health care, these capitalists aren’t really so bad. They can’t be. Obama said so.

“If protesting ‘won’t make much of a difference’ it must be because the president already knows he won’t be listening.”

Obama always says such nice things. Despite telling citizens that they shouldn’t bother protesting because he never did, and after all he was a community organizer, he also said they have a right to waste their time. “One of the great things about the United States is you can speak your mind.”

For a moment there it seemed that speaking one’s mind was problematic to say the least. The president doesn’t think that protesting global capitalism is necessary, because it is so fuzzy and so warm and isn’t the cause of any problems, but what the hell. Knock yourself out if you want. Go ahead and waste time marching if you having nothing else to do with your life.

The Pittsburgh protests should be the last to take place during the Obama presidency. If protesting “won’t make much of a difference” it must be because the president already knows he won’t be listening. Why bother protesting when powerful people let it be known that they aren’t at all impressed in the first place. The point of marching is to make political demands, but if the target of the demand couldn’t care less, well, figure it out for yourself.

It is wonderful that Barack Obama is president. Now we know what we should and should not bother doing. We shouldn’t blame capitalism because it doesn’t really have anything to do with us, and it is really nice, too. Thank you very much Mr. President. You set us straight once and for all.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories