Obama Is a Truly Democratic Expansionist
Posted by Mike E on June 19, 2008
This piece first appeared on antiwar.com June 13.
by John Pilger
In 1941, the editor Edward Dowling wrote: “The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.” What has changed? The terror of the rich is greater than ever, and the poor have passed on their delusion to those who believe that when George W Bush finally steps down next January, his numerous threats to the rest of humanity will diminish.
The nomination of Barack Obama, which, according to one breathless commentator, “marks a truly exciting and historic moment in US history”, is a product of the new delusion. Actually, it just seems new. Truly exciting and historic moments have been fabricated around US presidential campaigns for as long as I can recall, generating what can only be described as bullsh*t on a grand scale. Race, gender, appearance, body language, rictal spouses and offspring, even bursts of tragic grandeur, are all subsumed by marketing and “image-making”, now magnified by “virtual” technology. Thanks to an undemocratic electoral college system (or, in Bush’s case, tampered voting machines) only those who both control and obey the system can win.
Understanding Obama as a likely president of the United States is not possible without understanding the demands of an essentially unchanged system of power: in effect a great media game. For example, since I compared Obama with Robert Kennedy in these pages, he has made two important statements, the implications of which have not been allowed to intrude on the celebrations. The first was at the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Zionist lobby, which, as Ian Williams has pointed out, “will get you accused of anti-Semitism if you quote its own website about its power”. Obama had already offered his genuflection, but on 4 June went further. He promised to support an “undivided Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital. Not a single government on earth supports the Israeli annexation of all of Jerusalem, including the Bush regime, which recognises the UN resolution designating Jerusalem an international city.
His second statement, largely ignored, was made in Miami on 23 May. Speaking to the expatriate Cuban community – which over the years has faithfully produced terrorists, assassins and drug runners for US administrations – Obama promised to continue a 47-year crippling embargo on Cuba that has been declared illegal by the UN year after year.
Again, Obama went further than Bush. He said the United States had “lost Latin America”. He described the democratically elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as a “vacuum” to be filled. He raised the nonsense of Iranian influence in Latin America, and he endorsed Colombia’s “right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across its borders”. Translated, this means the “right” of a regime, whose president and leading politicians are linked to death squads, to invade its neighbours on behalf of Washington. He also endorsed the so-called Merida Initiative, which Amnesty International and others have condemned as the US bringing the “Colombian solution” to Mexico. He did not stop there. “We must press further south as well,” he said. Not even Bush has said that.
It is time the wishful-thinkers grew up politically and debated the world of great power as it is, not as they hope it will be. Like all serious presidential candidates, past and present, Obama is a hawk and an expansionist. He comes from an unbroken Democratic tradition, as the war-making of presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton demonstrates. Obama’s difference may be that he feels an even greater need to show how tough he is. However much the colour of his skin draws out both racists and supporters, it is otherwise irrelevant to the great power game. The “truly exciting and historic moment in US history” will only occur when the game itself is challenged.
Linda D. said
OK…I get it re Obama. But here’s a question–if Obama represents further delusion for the poor and masses in general, and if in general part of the delusion is that once W (and let’s not forget Cheney aka Darth) is out and the crimes against humanity will diminish, then what do people see as John McCain’s role in all this? Supposedly he was trying to distance himself from the Evil Axis of W, Cheney and Rove, but in fact has not and keeps backing the same policies.
greg said
Alright, lets just not do anything anymore. alright?
Tom said
Obama is a failure… but the people who think Obama will change the US and this is an insanely important election, are even bigger failures and tools. This is the same old, same old. Sorry college kids who think Obama will save the world lmfao.
N3wDay said
Greg, can you elaborate further? Leaving an esoteric post such as that isn’t really helpful in allowing us to understand your views.
If by “let’s just not do anything anymore”, you mean the only thing we can do is vote, and if we don’t vote for Obama, we aren’t doing anything, I think you are sadly mistaken. But before I go further into this, it would be helpful for you to expound your views lest I rant for no reason (haha).
***
Tom, I was told an interesting story recently. At a July 4th celebration I was downtown handing out literature with a team of people trying to raise awareness and opposition about and to the possibility of war with Iran. Some of us were working the crowds and others had a table set up right be beside the dems who were raising support for Obama and registering people to vote. One of my friends was selling Revolution that day and got into a conversation with a guy who was one of the people heading up the Obama table. Turns out he was completely alienated and really didn’t have any real faith in Obama, but just didn’t know what else to do and was really glad to talk to someone who was doing other stuff.
Obama supporters aren’t “failures”. Their views are actually quite dynamic (and go waaay beyond just college campus’). Many people are supportive of “hope” because they don’t know where else to turn.
I have to disagree with you on the importance of this election as well. I think it’s very important, but not because any specific candidate represents anything new. This election is important because of people are getting fed up with the system and Obama is the “last hope” of the bourgeoise.
In fact, you don’t really sound like you’ve actually gone out and talked to many people about what their views actually are.
Yes, of course their are people who really by into all the hype and bullshit. That’s what the system does, it markets false consciousness. But that’s ever more reason for us to be out there in the thick of it talking up our points of view. And not from some petty cynical perspective, unless you just want to drive people further into the arms of mainstream politics. It gets lonely in the ivory tower, and those democrats are our main support base.
Without the support of those “failures” their will be no revolution. And there certainly won’t be any “change”.
“Our congress should call upon the whole Party to be vigilant and to see that no comrade at any post is divorced from the masses. It should teach every comrade to love the people and listen attentively to the voice of the masses; to identify himself with the masses wherever he goes and, instead of standing above them, to immerse himself among them; and, according to their present level, to awaken them or raise their political consciousness and help them gradually to organize themselves voluntarily and to set going all essential struggles permitted by the internal and external circumstances of the given time and place.”
“On Coalition Government” excerpted from the little red book.
– Mao Zedong
Kalovski Itim said
I agree that the ruling class here in the US is hedging their hope in Obama as a way to put back the semblance of consultation. However this solidifies the trajetory of patching the gaps and failures of imperialism in as much as taking a balance of weilding coercion in combination with persuasion. Now the masses are lured back to cast their thrust in the workings of the bourgeois electoral system. The question now for revolutionaries how do we exercise leadership inspite of the this political bourgeois offensive? Have we put an incesive ideological, political and organizational position in handling this election? I think there is a reductionism in the air brought about by subjectivist thinking. For revolutionaries we need to devise the dual tactic of united front building. We should never loose sight that what makes this bourgeous electoral political exercise is because the people are participating in it. Yes of course you have the ruling class controlled mass media that props and hypes a worldoutlook that legitimizes the ruling sytem. However what is important is to understand the main and secondary contradiction at work here. What are our political calls? What I see it would be easy for comrades to analyze things but it is different to put our standpoint and viewpoint into practice. I agree with the comrade when he said we should always be within the masses. Insinuationg the electoral process as useless defeats dialectical thinking. We should busy ourselves organizing and devising ways to broaden of mass organizations, be in the legal front and in the underground. There is always a tension of addressing the political task of broadening, heightening and deepening the revolutionary movement. While many comrades pride of heigtening people’s understanding of the problem they need to understand that a revolution can be only successful if it will be undertaken by the masses themselves. While some may have mass following the character and nature of organization is a superficial one only exercising political leadership through coalitions and alliances. A revolutionary movement have to go beyong that. It has to deepen its roots among the masses of people. That is why while this elections is an indeological onslaught against the people, we need to exert our efforts in addressing the three levels. Of course of the three their is is one which is the key link. What do you think is the link, the key to all of these?