GLEN FORD
"When Black folks start imagining an Obama that does not exist, we are in deep trouble."
Ever since Barack Obama became a candidate for president, many of his unquestioning supporters have labeled his critics on the Left as conscious or unconscious allies of, first, Hillary Clinton and, later, John McCain. As a result, Obama was left free to gravitate as far to the Right as he felt convenient - and he took every advantage of that freedom.
What we wound up with is a president-elect whose Cabinet to-date is mostly a Clinton Cabinet - and worse.
Obama's military portfolio is in the hands of a Reagan/Bush-One/Bush-Two war criminal, Robert Gates, whose crimes go back to Iran Contra and the mining of Nicaragua's harbors.
Obama's economic mechanisms will be in the hands of the very same robber baron bankers that set the stage for catastrophic meltdown through their actions under both Bill Clinton and George Bush.
Nobody forced Obama to put together an administration that even the New York Times describes as "center-right." (I think it's much more Right than Center.)
Nobody forced Obama to break into a sprint to join Bush in bailing out the bankers.
Nobody forced Obama to browbeat the Congressional Black Caucus to reverse itself and support the bailout the second time around.
Nobody forced Obama to elevate Susan Rice - a fanatical advocate of so-called "humanitarian" military intervention - to UN Ambassador, a woman who wholeheartedly supports George Bush's war against Somalia, which created what the UN has called Africa's "worst humanitarian crisis."
We don't have to wait any longer to know what kind of president Barack Obama will be. His presidential appointments are presidential deeds - and by those deeds we know him!
Barack Obama has chosen of his own free will to put his face at the head of an administration whose most powerful portfolios - War and the Economy - are manned by the worst thieves and warmongers available.
Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton looks like a relative moderate in this Obama configuration. And that is bad news for Black people, and the entire planet.
I maintain that this outcome - this "center-right" government in-the-making - became all but inevitable early in the process, when many Black progressives failed to challenge Obama even once on any important political point, before or during the primaries, when it would have made a difference.
This blind-faith, unquestioning Obamism abdicated all leadership responsibility, allowing Obama to play to the Right to his heart's content.
Obama faced no organized Black opposition to his call for an expanded military - one hundred thousand additional soldiers and Marines - as if that would not inevitably lead to more and bigger wars and less resources for human needs.
When the effects of the subprime meltdown began to be felt in earnest, Obama refused to endorse any kind of moratorium on foreclosures or freeze on interest rates. His position was to the Right of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. But he paid no penalty, because there was no organized Black criticism.
Meanwhile, those of us who warned of Obama's constant rightward drift were damn near called traitors to the race.
The Obamites demanded that everyone withhold judgment until after the election. Of course, by then it would be too late. It has been too late for a very long time.
At any rate, Judgment Day has finally arrived. And we see Obama taking great leaps and bounds to the Right. Farther Right than I ever anticipated.
But, you know what? I'm not mad at Obama. He's just another cynical center-right politician, doing whatever he can get away with.
The people I'm mad at are the ones who let him get away with it - the people who still see their primary job as protecting him!
He's the president-elect of the United States. He's in bed with billionaire bankers and war criminals, and folks want to protect him. He doesn't need our protection. WE need protection from HIM!
But this seems to be very difficult for some many of our folks to understand because, this entire experience has been...damaging.
It's one thing to get carried away on the strength of hundred of years of pent up aspirations.
It's to be expected that wishful thinking might temporarily get the better of us.
But when Black folks start imagining an Obama that does not exist - an Obama who has made some kind of Covenant with us, the evidence of which is nowhere to be found - then we are talking about a people who are in trouble.
I've got to admit that I sometimes get totally lost in the ill-logic that makes Obama good for Black people AND good for thieving bankers AND good for war criminals - all at the same time!
But, Dr. Smith has passed on to me the latest writings of Amiri Baraka, whose thought processes are believed by some to be a kind of Rosetta Stone on all things Obama.
Baraka explains how Obama's choice of arch-Zionist and former hedge-funder Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff - the gate keeper to the White House - was a "very smart choice" and, by the way, good for Black people.
The logic goes like this: Rahm Emanuel will keep the other Zionists with bad intentions at bay, off of Obama's back.
Amiri Baraka puts Obama's political choices in a whole new light. Rahm Emanuel is not a dangerous Zionist. Oh no. He is the anti-Zionist, who wards off the really bad Zionists. Like garlic.
Now we can understand why Obama needs George Bush's war criminal, Robert Gates, as his Secretary of Defense. Gates is there to guard Obama's far-Right flank against even worse war criminals who might be out there, laying in wait.
The same thing goes for the Robert Rubin clones at Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisors. There are actually even worse Wall Street thieves lurking around, trying to create trouble for Obama and - by extension - Black folks. Obama's bankers will keep the really bad bankers off balance - or so the logic goes. And by this logic, Obama can and should surround himself with all manner of villains, to guard his far-Right flanks against an even worse class of villains.
The worst thing about Amiri Baraka's logic is that I sense some of you actually agree with it.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
DR. DONALD SMITH
"For Mr. Obama to continue to attempt to convince black people not to think about race is a deadly mistake."
Brothers and Sisters, I want you to know that the first thing I did when I came into this church today, was to give my semi-annual check to Black Agenda Report, to Glen Ford. If you're not reading Black Agenda Report you're missing the most important political analysis about our people.
In memory of Professor Melvin Tolson: Resolved, that the election of President-Elect Obama is not good for Black people.
President-Elect Obama is a man of many talents. He is brilliant, with critical thinking skills, an amazing orator, able to inspire and bring hope to millions in the United States and abroad. And he plays ball. He was vastly superior to his opposition, and I voted for him. However, I am not convinced that his election is good for Black people. My contention is based on three major issues.
First, his personnel appointments. Second, the danger of a post-racial philosophy. And third, cultural incompatibility.
Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, has been a strong opponent of African liberation. He is closely allied to Zionist movements. Right wing Israelis with the help of the U.S. government were major suppliers of the munitions which the Afrikaner government used to murder and oppress Black south Africans.
Emanuel also played a major role in unseating congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Now, you have to keep that in mind. The presidential chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel is the eyes and ears of the president, and he can influence policy decisions.
The next critical appointment is Lawrence Summers, a person with great disdain for African people. Summers, the disgraced president of Harvard, is the new director of the economic advisory committee which, by the way, does not require confirmation by the Senate. At Harvard, Summers announced that women were not as capable as men to be scientists; that African studies is not a legitimate academic discipline; and that the work of Cornel West was not sufficiently scholarly.
Yet his most egregious act took place when he was the chief economist for the World Bank. Summers signed off on a memo that urged the United States to send dirty industries, that is, toxic industries, to countries where, according to Summers, people don't value clean air, where salaries are low, and life is not as valuable. And which countries do you suppose these are? - Black and brown countries.
There are other appointments that are questionable, even objectionable, such as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who sat as First Lady as Rwanda was being ravaged. Who as Senator from New York has introduced no measures to cease the slaughter in Darfur and in the Congo We are not likely to see the new secretary of state reverse the establishment of AFRICOM bases in Africa.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been referred to as a kinder and gentler "shock and awe." It will be imperialism and capitalistic interests as usual as people in the First World suffer and die.
The appointments that a leader makes, communicate profoundly, where his head, if not his heart, is.
The second major issue is that of the post-racial philosophy as espoused by President-Elect Obama and so-called liberal Democrats and independents. Our African culture is the cement that has been responsible for and has held our political and economic interests together. These were the words and wisdom of Malcolm X and of Harold Cruse in his book, The Crisis of the Black Intellectual.
Any socio-political philosophy that weakens the cultural cement that has held us together threatens our very existence as a people.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it possible for Black people to elect local and national politicians of African ancestry.
It is Black solidarity that turned many states from red to blue and that enabled Senator Obama to become President-Elect Obama.
For Mr. Obama to continue to attempt to convince black people not to think about race is a deadly mistake. It is black solidarity and the black vote that has given us the strength to affect our lives positively. As Mahalia Jackson sang, it is How We Got Over.
Cultural incompatibility. Mr. Obama, the prophet of the Joshua generation, has read our history, and learned what the white institutions have taught him. But he does not know our history. He does not feel our pain. It is not in his genes.
Worse, in order to assure oppressors in America and throughout the world that he can be trusted to protect their preferential, unearned privileges, the president-elect generally ignores or deprecates the great liberators of African people.
On the night of his election. Mr. Obama disrespected Dr. Marlin Luther King Jr. by referring to him simply as "the Atlanta preacher." Speaking at the funeral of the Queen of the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks, President-Elect Obama showed no feeling. How could he not have been moved?
When he first became a senator, addressing the Washington Press Club, Mr. Obama declared that his hero was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Surely a professor of law at the University of Chicago would have been aware that Roosevelt cared nothing for black people, turned his back on the lynchings pervasive in the South, and made no provisions for black land in his land policy.
Mr. Obama delivered a harsh attack against Black men, without addressing any of the social factors which leave our brothers jobless, mis-educated, incarcerated and in poor health. There is little evidence of cultural compatibility.
These are among the key reasons why I contend the election of President-elect Barack Obama is not good for Black people.
Dr. Donald Smith can be contacted at Dohugh@aol.com
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