Glen Ford at the Left Forum
No matter how much evil
Barack Obama actually accomplishes during his presidency, people that
call themselves leftists insist on dubbing him the Lesser Evil. Not only
is Obama not given proper credit for out-evil-ing George Bush,
domestically and internationally, but the First Black President is
awarded positive grades for his intentions
versus the presumed intentions of Republicans. As the author says, this
“is psycho-babble, not analysis. No real Left would engage in it.”
Why Barack Obama is the More Effective Evil
Glen Ford at the Left Forum
BAR executive editor
Glen Ford made the following presentation at the Left Forum, Pace
University, New York City, March 17. On the panel were Gloria Mattera,
Margaret Kimberley (BAR), Suren Moodliar, John Nichols, and Victor
Wallis. The discussion was titled, The 2012 Elections: Lesser Evil or Left Alternative?
“He has put both Wall Street and U.S. imperial power on new and more aggressive tracks – just as he hired himself out to do.”
Power to the people!
Let me say from the very
beginning that we at Black Agenda Report do not think that Barack Obama
is the Lesser Evil. He is the more Effective Evil.
He has been more
effective in Evil-Doing than Bush in terms of protecting the citadels of
corporate power, and advancing the imperial agenda. He has put both
Wall Street and U.S. imperial power on new and more aggressive tracks –
just as he hired himself out to do.
That was always Wall
Street’s expectation of Obama, and his promise to them. That’s why they
gave him far more money in 2008 than they gave John McCain. They were
buying Obama futures on the electoral political market – and they made
out like bandits.
They invested in Obama to
protect them from harm, as a hedge against the risk of systemic
disaster caused by their own predations. And, it was a good bet, a good
deal. It paid out in the tens of trillions of dollars.
If you believe that what
Wall Street does is Evil, then Obama’s service to Wall Street is Evil,
and there is nothing lesser about it.
They had vetted Obama, thoroughly, before he even set foot in the U.S. Senate in 2004.
He protected their
interests, there, helping shield corporations from class action suits,
and voting against caps on credit card Interest. He was their guy back
then – and some of us were saying so, back then.
He was the bankers’ guy
in the Democratic presidential primary race. Among the last three
standing in 2008, it was Obama who opposed any
moratorium on home foreclosures. John Edwards supported a mandatory
moratorium and Hillary Clinton said she wanted a voluntary halt to
foreclosures. But Barack Obama opposed any
moratorium. Let it run its course, said candidate Obama. And, true to
his word, he has let the foreclosures run their catastrophic course.
Only a few months later,
when the crunch came and Finance Capital was in meltdown, who rescued
Wall Street? Not George Bush. Bush tried, but he was spent, discredited,
ineffective. Not John McCain. He was in a coma, coming unglued, totally ineffective.
Bush’s bailout failed on a
Monday. By Friday, Obama had convinced enough Democrats in opposition
to roll over – and the bailout passed, setting the stage for a new
dispensation between the American State and Wall Street, in which a
permanent pipeline of tens of trillions of dollars would flow directly
into Wall Street accounts, via the Federal Reserve.
And Obama had not even been elected yet.
“True to his word, he has let the foreclosures run their catastrophic course.”
Obama put Social Security and Medicaid and all Entitlements on the table, in mid-January. The Republicans had suffered resounding defeat. Nobody was pressuring Obama from the Right.
When the Right was on its
ass, Obama stood up and spoke in their stead. There was no Evil Devil
forcing him to put Entitlements on the chopping block. It was HIM. He
was the Evil One – and it was not a Lesser Evil. It was a very
Effective Evil, because the current Age of Austerity began on that day,
in January, 2009.
And Obama had not even been sworn in as president, yet.
Who is the Effective
Evil? I haven’t even gotten into his actual term as president, much less
his expansion of the theaters of war, his unique assaults on
International Law, and his massacre of Due Process of Law in the United
States. But I want to pause right here, because piling up facts on
Obama’s Most Effective Evils doesn’t seem to do any good if the
prevailing conversation isn’t really about facts – but about intentions.
The prevailing assumption on the Left is that Obama has good intentions. He intends to the Right Thing – or, at least, he intends to do better
than the Republicans intend to do. It’s all supposed to be about
intentions. Let’s be clear: There is absolutely no factual basis to
believe he intends to do anything other than the same thing he has
already done, whether Democrats control Congress or not, which is to serve Wall Street’s most fundamental interests.
But, the whole idea of
debating Obama’s intentions is ridiculous. It’s psycho-babble, not
analysis. No real Left would engage in it.
I have no doubt that New
Gingrich and Republicans in general have worse intentions for the future
of my people – of Black people – than Michelle Obama’s husband does.
But, that doesn’t matter. Black people are not going to roll over for
whatever nightmarish Apocalypse the sick mind of Newt Gingrich would
like to bring about. But, they have already rolled over
for Obama’s economic Apocalypse in Black America. There was been very
little resistance. Which is just another way of saying that Obama has
successfully blunted any retribution by organized African America
against the corporate powers that have devastated and destabilized Black
America in ways that have little precedence in modern times.
“When the Right was on its ass, Obama stood up and spoke in their stead.”
Obama has protected these
Wall Streeters from what should be the most righteous wrath of Black
folks. To take a riff from Shakespeare’s Othello, “Obama has done Wall
Street a great service, and they know it.” He has proven to be
fantastically effective at serving the Supremely Evil. Don’t you dare call him the Lesser.
He is the More Effective
Evil because Black Folks – historically, the most progressive cohort in
the United States – and Liberals, and even lots of folks that call
themselves Marxists, let him get away murder! Yet, people still insist on calling him a Lesser Evil, while he drives a stake through Due Process of Law.
I have not spoken much
about the second half of Obama’s first term in office. That is the
period when the Left generally becomes disgusted with what they call his
excessive “compromises” and “cave-ins” to Republicans. But that is a
profoundly wrong reading of reality. Obama was simply continuing down
his own Road to Austerity – the one he, himself, had initiated before
even taking office. The only person caving in and compromising to the
Republicans, was the Obama that many of YOU made up in your heads.
The real
Obama was the initiator of this Austerity nightmare – a nightmare
scripted on Wall Street, which provided the core of Obama’s policy team
from the very beginning. That’s why Obama’s so-called Financial Reform
was so diligent in making sure that Derivatives were virtually
untouched.
The real
Obama retained Bush’s Secretary of War, because he was determined to
re-package the imperial enterprise and expand the scope and theaters of
war.
He would dress up the war machine head-to-foot in a Chador of Humanitarianism, and march deep and deeper into Africa.
He would make merciless
and totally unprovoked war against Libya – and then tell Congress there
had been no war at all, and it was none of their business, anyway.
And he got away with it.
Now, that is the Most Effective Evil war mongering imaginable. Don’t you dare call him a Lesser Evil. Obama is Awesomely Evil.
“The real Obama was the initiator of this Austerity nightmare.”
Obama has advanced the
corporatization of the public schools beyond Bush’s wildest dreams,
methodically constructing a national, parallel system of charter schools
that, in practice, undermine and subvert the traditional public
schools. In some places, they have replaced, or soon will replace, the
public schools. The hedge funds and billionaires are ecstatic! The
teachers unions then endorse their undertaker, foolishly believing he is the Lesser Evil.
So, what does the Left do in this election? The Left should do what it is supposed to do here in the Belly of the Beast at all times: disarm the Beast. This is their singular duty – not to advise
the Beast, but to disarm it. At this time on the world historical
clock, that means ripping the farcical “humanitarian” veil from the face
of U.S. wars – and that face is Obama’s face.
No genuine anti-war activist can endorse the war-maker, Obama. If you want to resist actual imperial wars, you must fight Obama. Period. Anything else is to endorse or acquiesce in his wars.
You can attend the United
National Anti-War Coalition conference in Stamford, Connecticut, next
weekend, where you can meet with an array of organizations to begin a
calendar of activities that will stretch past Election Day. You can join
with UNAC in working to stop Obama from doing a repeat of Libya in
Syria and Iran. If you can’t bring yourself to do that, then I have no
advice for you, because the alternative is acquiescence to Obama’s
cynical duplicities.
If the Green Party or any
other party firmly opposes Obama’s humanitarian, Orwellian farce, then
support them. If they don’t, then don’t lift a finger for them.
If you are going to fight for anything, you’ve got to fight for the right
to fight. That means fighting for the rule of law. So, if you don’t
plan to go underground or into exile anytime soon, you must fight the
president who claims the right to imprison or kill any person, of any nationality, any
place on Earth, for reasons known only to him. The man who excelled
George Bush by shepherding preventive detention through Congress –
Barack Obama, the More Effective Evil.
Fight him this election year. Fight him every year that he’s here.
Power to the People!
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