Why, when we had such a massive outpouring for Barack
Obama in 2008, have we been unable to eliminate the G. W. Bush practices and
policies that were, in large measure, responsible for that outpouring. Why, in
short, has the left, except for some sporadic Occupy protests been so passive?
Both Rachel Maddow and Glenn Greenwald place a good
deal of the blame on the authoritarian government created by over ten years of
the War on Terror. Both point out that war, by its nature, transfers an
enormous increase in power to the President as Commander in Chief. To G. W. Bush
this meant an uncontested preemptive war on Afghanistan and Iraq. Under Barack
Obama it has meant the loss of civil liberties under the Patriot Act and the
2012 Defense Authorization Act, which effectively extinguished the right to due
process for any American the President chose to imprison on his order alone and
for an unspecified period of time. This is not to mention the continuance of
torture and rendition for torture in flat contravention of the Geneva Convention
to which the United States is a signatory. In this regard, the Constitution
specifies that treaties have the force of law in this country.
While I agree with Maddow and Greenwald that a
prolonged period of war has produced a very authoritarian government, I suspect
there is more to the passivity of the left in these circumstances than a
substantial increase in authoritarianism.
Suppose one wanted to destroy the effectiveness of the
left, thereby leaving the country in the hands of corporate America and their
legislative henchmen to convert government functions into for-profit free
enterprise substitutes. One way to do that would be to trap the left between
two of its core values, thereby neutralizing any significant resistance. The Republicans
may have done just that by trapping Progressives between their core values of
anti-racism and government social programs, notably Social Security and
Medicare. The first African American President, fulfilling the dreams of long-oppressed
blacks and the aspirations of the political left, sets about destroying Social
Security and Medicare, destroying our civil liberties, refusing to prosecute
those financiers who caused the Great Recession because it would be bad for the
economy, assassination including an American citizen, and torturing people in
flat contravention of the Geneva Convention to which this country is a
signatory. All of these and more would have generated massive and continuous protests,
including calls for impeachment had any other President tried it. However, the
left, as a whole has remained placid lest they contribute to the attacks on Obama
in addition to those launched by Republicans. Where the left should have forced
Obama to fight or lose its support, it has done next to nothing. Only in the
last few weeks has a band of Progressive legislators publicly called out Obama
on civil liberties issues.
Barack Obama exploded onto the national political
scene. A little-known Illinois State Senator was given the keynote address at
the 2004 Democratic National Convention. His oratorical abilities made him an instant
political comer. A few years later he ran against the powerful and well-funded
Hillary Clinton campaign. Her vast name
recognition and familiarity to the public as a President’s wife and a well-regarded
New York senator made her formidable. Yet Obama managed to find the resources
to effectively compete and eventually defeat Clinton. I suggest that sort of
thing does not happen in the hard-bitten higher reaches of American national
politics without the involvement of major political players extracting the services
of a president in return for their support. In short, the sharp turn to the Right
after his election reflects an inordinate attachment to money. Not only that of
major donors like J. P. Morgan, but his early political rise was founded on his
ability as a political fund raiser. It was disconcerting to see Obama’s
campaign, like that of billionaire Mitt
Romney, focus on the plight of the middle class, not on that of the poor, who
would suffer most from his attacks on Social Security and Medicare. My
suspicion is that he does not want to be identified with the poor. Why the
disdain for the poor? They were a primary focus for the FDR administration. In
my judgment Barack Obama sees himself, after his presidency, among the corporate
elite, much as Bill Clinton has done.
I find all of this very disappointing in terms of what
could have been.
As with our first Black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshal, I had hopes that Obama would demonstrate the same depth of
understanding of the full implications of what remains this country’s greatest
dilemma, racism. It poisons us and, because of our power and influence, it
poisons a world that so badly needs to overcome its corrupting and lethal
divisions. With all he had going for him, he had a better chance than any
recent predecessor to change the political demeanor of this country and perhaps
the world, given his paternal tie to the victimized African continent. He
provided a combination of intelligence, natural leadership ability and
biological background to do much to bring this world together. Think, for a
moment, what a well-disposed Black leader of the “last remaining superpower”
could have meant for world peace--an improved understanding between the
ex-colonizers and the aggrieved colonized. Reading Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth gives something of
the dimension Obama could have brought to the world stage. What we got was the
continued killing and economic greed that has for so long poisoned the human
dimension of this planet. With every drone killing of an innocent adult or
child, hatred for this country mounts. Obama could have given the United States
the opportunity to relate to, rather than dominate, the rest of the world. Abused
aspirations are hard to disregard.
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