A MEDIALENS DISPATCH—

WRITING IN THE New York Times, Jonathan Haidt, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, commented:

‘Although Americans are in full agreement that the demise of Osama bin Laden is a good thing, many are disturbed by the revelry.’ (Haidt, ‘Why We Celebrate a Killing,’ New York Times, May 7, 2011)

Dancing on his grave: No apologies for most Americans. Introspection—where art thou?

Haidt thereby dismissed the many Americans who reject extrajudicial killing and capital punishment. American lawyer, Benjamin Ferencz, a prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, pointed out:

‘Assassination is specifically prohibited under American law. It hadn’t been that way all the time. The CIA had always had at the top of its list the possibility of assassination as a technique until the Congress said, “No way, we don’t do business that way.”‘

There is much discussion about the legality or illegality of the West’s many wars. Ferencz explained the real relationship between war and law:

‘End war-making and go back to what the law is. And that is that you cannot use armed force to settle disputes, you can use only lawful and peaceful means to do that.’

Law is intended to be an alternative to war, not a way of justifying war.

But wouldn’t resort to the rule of law in the form of a trial have allowed bin Laden to spread propaganda, to present himself as a martyr for a noble cause? Did killing him not protect American lives? Ferencz pointed out the naivety of imagining that violence is the most potent resort:

‘You apprehend him, if you can without danger to yourself. Put him on trial. Let him make his case. Let him say to the world why they killed 3,000 people in New York City and many thousands elsewhere. And see how the public and the judges react to it. There will be, of course, some extreme elements on both sides which will say, ‘No, kill him at once. He’s a dirty dog and he deserves to be shot.’ And there will be others who will say that ‘No matter what you do, he is our holy man and he is carrying out noble goals.’ But these will be the extreme cases. The vast majority of the people will say, when the evidence is in, that this is a form of madness!

‘You cannot kill an ideology with a gun. You can only come with a better ideology and let them explain it and see what the facts are. We did that at Nuremberg. I had mass killers there; I was chief prosecutor in a trial where our lead defendant admitted killing 90,000 Jews because they were Jews, including their children, and their grandchildren, and anybody else. Well, when they explained their motivation – that this was a pre-emptive attempt to avoid attack by Russia and to secure German security [and] for the rest of the world forever – that argument was rejected, and rejected correctly by honest judges who explained why that position cannot be tolerated if you want to have a civilised world. If everybody can go out and decide he’s threatened by his neighbour, in his opinion, and therefore kill him and everybody around him, what kind of a world would we have?’

Haidt took a very different view. ‘As a social psychologist,’ he opined, he was aware that careless thinking on moral issues could have negative consequences, namely: ‘you’ll miss all that was good, healthy and even altruistic about last week’s celebrations’.

We wrote on May 7:

Dear Jonathan Haidt

I was interested to read your New York Times piece on “collective effervescence”. Can you think of any examples when it has been “good, healthy and even altruistic” for people to cheer the killing of Americans? I have to admit I can’t think of any examples.

Best wishes

David Edwards

As the email suggests, we can politically reverse any given argument, apply it to official enemies, and ask ourselves if the author would ever be willing to make such a comment. In this case, the reversal would involve Haidt warning people against missing ‘all that was good, healthy and even altruistic’ about celebrating the killing of US military leaders, US soldiers, or New Yorkers on September 11, 2001. Can we imagine Haidt or anyone else in the media ever saying such a thing? If the answer is ‘No,’ it can be for one of two reasons:

1) The United States is morally superior to its official enemies, such that it is acceptable for the American public to celebrate the demise of their inferior foes, but immoral for those enemies to celebrate the death of Americans.

2) The US is not morally superior. Rather, US commentators conform to the ‘necessary illusion’ that different standards should be applied to US and enemy actions. In other words, US opinion is biased by the ability of power to shape the debate – technical term: propaganda.

Of course, commentators and readers can be blind to this propaganda component. Thus Haidt actually declares:

‘Many social psychologists distinguish patriotism — a love of one’s own country — from nationalism, which is the view that one’s own country is superior to other countries and should therefore be dominant.’

But he added:

‘This is why I believe that last week’s celebrations were good and healthy. America achieved its goal — bravely and decisively — after 10 painful years. People who love their country sought out one another to share collective effervescence. They stepped out of their petty and partisan selves and became, briefly, just Americans rejoicing together.’

Would Haidt argue that Iraqi celebrations were ‘good and healthy’ if Iraqi commandos somehow managed to execute George W. Bush? As Noam Chomsky commented recently:

‘Uncontroversially, [Bush’s] crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.’

We received a reply from Haidt to our email on May 18:

Dear Mr. Edwards:

when America is led by a man whose direct goal is to kill as many innocent civilians as possible, e.g., a man with the moral status of Bin Laden or Hitler, then the world will be quite justified in celebrating.

Thankfully, that has never happened.

Jh

And yet in his article, Haidt focused, not on the justice of the cause Americans were celebrating, but on the simple fact that they were celebrating as a group:

‘We have all the old selfish programming of other primates, but we also have a more recent overlay that makes us able to become, briefly, hive creatures like bees.’

He wrote:

‘This hive-ish moment won’t last long. But in the communal joy of last week, many of us felt, for an instant, that Americans might still be capable of working together to meet threats and challenges far greater than Osama bin Laden.’

It is unclear why Haidt would not also laud the ‘hive-ish’ behaviour of non-Americans.

Warrior President – Watch The Chin!

The BBC’s North America correspondent, Matt Frei, wrote:

‘Even in the eyes of his critics, Barack Obama has made the transition from wimp to warrior president.’

At first sight, this may seem like a neutral comment on the impact of bin Laden’s death on Obama’s political fortunes. But if we conduct our reversing thought experiment, we can ask if Frei would ever respond to Iranian, Venezuelan or North Korean state assassination inside a sovereign country by writing, for example: ‘Even in the eyes of his critics, Ahmadinejad has made the transition from wimp to warrior president.’

Is that conceivable? Surely not, because the comment in fact expresses journalistic approval, which is not permitted in relation to enemies of the West. Imagine if the comment was in response to an Iranian attack on Israel, or on the United States. The propaganda content of Frei’s comment becomes obvious.

Frei added:

‘Unlike the invasions of Iraq or even Afghanistan this was an act that needed no explanation or – for most Americans at least – justification.’

A BBC journalist, Mario Cacciottolo, took issue with our criticism of Frei on Twitter, observing of this last comment:

‘That’s a comment piece – therefore opinions are rightly expressed. It’s only unbalanced if in a straight news report’

We replied:

‘If Frei ever described as “an act that needed no explanation” any act of violence against the US or UK, he’d be out of a job, obviously.’

Cacciottolo replied:

‘You’ve not worked as a journalist have you? Don’t think you’ll change your vision of us all wearing eyepatches and stroking cats.’

A level and tone of response with which we have grown familiar over the past ten years.

Frei also produced a cringe-making video piece on Obama in which he invited viewers to study the president’s face in order to ‘Watch the chin!’, which was strong and proud, we were to understand: Again, Frei emphasised that Obama felt like ‘a warrior president’.

In similar vein, Simon Sebag Montefiore wrote in The Times of Obama:

‘In that moment, the golden-tongued liberal… metamorphosed into the victorious warlord…’ (Simon Sebag Montefiore, ‘A fitting death for a multimedia Mujahid,’ The Times, May 7, 2011)

The Guardian also lauded the violence in a leading article entitled, ‘Belief returns’:

‘Yesterday he had a chance to make the same grab for the higher ground and remain on it. No longer as a dangerous, possibly even un-American liberal intent on pushing through unpopular reforms in stormy times but as a leader who can harness the mood of the nation.’

No mention that it might be ‘dangerous’, ‘un-American’ and illiberal to order political assassination inside a sovereign state.

A leader in The Times observed:

‘When evil goes unpunished, justice, peace and reconciliation remain blighted in its shadow. For almost ten long years the families of thousands of men, women and children who died in pain and terror have known no justice or end to their mental agony while Osama bin Laden eluded capture.’ (Leading article, ‘Closure,’ The Times, May 3, 2011)

Replace ‘bin Laden’ with ‘Bush’ and The Times could have been describing Iraq. The editors cautioned:

‘To some, cheering news of a death might seem inappropriate. But it is important to remember how raw still are emotions in a country violated by al-Qaeda.’

Again, the focus is fixed on what ‘they’ have done to ‘us’. The far greater violations ‘we’ have inflicted on ‘them’ do not exist. However appalling bin Laden’s methods, the grievances he described – the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland, US military bases and related support for tyrannies in Muslim countries, and the genocidal impact of Western sanctions and war on Iraq – are real.

The media rush to glorify Obama the ‘warrior president’ is symptomatic of a Western society that has come to view war as entirely normal. Huge numbers of films, video games and media indulge the lust for violence and war. It is by now almost impossible to imagine that the West would not always be attacking, or targeting for attack, some defenceless nation or other. As Ferencz commented:

‘We’ve all been raised in a tradition of glorification of war. That is the way to peace, and that is the way to power and that is the way to riches. And everybody who engages in war is a great hero.’

These are toxic illusions that erode the very foundations of civilised society.

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Ok, he may not be a cuddly guy, but that isn’t a good reason to suspend the impartiality of the law.

David North and David Walsh |  19 May 2011

The official family face of Strauss-Kahn.

The arrest of French financier and politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York City on sexual assault charges and his continued imprisonment is a disturbing event with far-reaching implications.

Strauss-Kahn is the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), perhaps the most powerful global capitalist financial institution, and a prominent figure in the French Socialist Party, one of that country’s leading big business parties. He was expected to announce soon his candidacy for the presidency in 2012, and polls in France had him leading his rivals, President Nicolas Sarkozy and extreme right-winger Martine Le Pen of the National Front.

In his class position, privilege and social outlook, Strauss-Kahn stands for everything the World Socialist Web Site (and the Greanville Post) oppose. But he is also a human being who is entitled to democratic rights, which include legal due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Judging from the treatment of Strauss-Kahn since his arrest and the coverage of this event in the American media, this presumption does not exist.

Neither we nor anyone else—outside the accused and the accuser (and, perhaps, other interested and unnamed parties)—know exactly what went on in Strauss-Kahn’s suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan on Sunday. Whatever information the public possesses has emerged courtesy of the New York City Police Department, the alleged victim’s lawyer, and the mass media. None of these can be considered reliable sources.

As of yet, no one has heard Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s side of the story. Rather, he has been subjected to a calculated process of humiliation and dehumanization—such as the disgusting “perp walk”—whose obvious purpose is to convict the accused in the public’s mind even before an indictment has been handed down.

Rape is an execrable crime and anyone who is found guilty of this offense must be held accountable. However, it is a fact, shameful and undeniable, that allegations of sexual misconduct have been used relentlessly, and not only in the United States, to destroy targeted individuals. The case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange comes most immediately to mind.

The fact that allegations of rape and other lesser forms of sexual misconduct have been used for political ends does not mean that Strauss-Kahn is a victim of a conspiracy. However, it would require a staggering level of credulousness to dismiss out of hand, prior to the most careful investigation, the possibility that Strauss-Kahn—a man whose decisions have far-reaching political and financial consequences—has fallen into a well-laid trap.

The ancient question Cui Prodest?—Who profits?—must arise in the investigation of an allegation whose immediate consequence, regardless of the final outcome of the case, will in all likelihood be the removal of the head of the International Monetary Fund and the destruction of the political career of a possible future president of France. Who would stand to gain from Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s transfer to an American prison? Certainly, this is the sort of question that the great French novelist Alexander Dumas, the author of The Count of Monte Cristo, would have asked.

But such curiosity is not to be found among the editors of the New York Times. Rather, in yet another example of its penchant for gutter journalism, the newspaper yesterday published no less than three columns—by Maureen Dowd, Stephen Clarke and Jim Dwyer—which revel in Strauss-Kahn’s humiliation, treat the allegation of rape as if there was no question of its truth, and provocatively incite their readers against the accused. Each of the columns appeals to their readers’ ignorance of due process and to the basest instincts. The filthy level of these essays is indicated by the title chosen by Mr. Clarke for his piece: “Droit du Dirty Old Men.”

Dowd, the NYT's resident vixen. Commenting on America's reality or the flag-waving hologram?

The worst of the three is supplied by Maureen Dowd. During the course of her long tenure as a columnist at the Times she has provided innumerable examples of prurient obsessions (readers may refer to her writings on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal), which are made all the more distasteful by her uncontrolled subjective nastiness.

Most recently, before turning her attention to the case of Strauss-Kahn, Dowd was celebrating the extra-legal assassination of Osama bin Laden (“a win that made us feel like Americans again”). In her May 17 column, “Powerful and Primitive,” Dowd begins: “Oh, she wanted it. She wanted it bad. That’s what every hard-working, God-fearing, young widow who breaks her back doing menial labor at a Times Square hotel to support her teenage daughter, justify her immigration status and take advantage of the opportunities in America wants—a crazed, rutting, wrinkly old satyr charging naked out of a bathroom, lunging at her and dragging her around the room, caveman-style.”

What evidence is this lurid paragraph based on? What information does Dowd possess? Has she even interviewed the accuser? Does Dowd even know what the alleged victim has told the police? For the Times columnist, the presumption of innocence is non-existent. Rather, she is outraged by the very suggestion that Strauss-Kahn is not guilty and, even worse, that he may have been set up. As in all cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct that Dowd has written on, the guilt of the accused is the operative assumption.

Dowd goes on: “Strauss-Kahn’s French defenders are throwing around nutty conspiracy theories, sounding like the Pakistanis about Osama. Some have suggested that he was the victim of a honey-pot arranged by the Sarkozy forces.”

Impossible? Why is it mad to believe that Strauss-Kahn has powerful enemies, who have the means to set him up, or, at the very least, exploit the opportunity presented by the affair to finish him politically? To exclude that possibility is not only politically absurd, it effectively closes off a critical area of investigation. Can one imagine that investigators would not ask Strauss-Kahn if there were people who might be interested in, and capable of, setting him up? Or that investigators should not look into the associations of his accuser?

To understand how powerful forces are using the current scandal, one need only refer to a front-page story in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal headlined “Pressure Is Building on Jailed IMF Chief.” The piece states that the Obama administration has “strongly signaled it was time for the International Monetary Fund to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as its chief, indicating that he can no longer be effective in his job.” Clearly, the arrest of Strauss-Kahn is seen by the US government as a political opportunity.

In his first public comments on the case, the Journal reports, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “called for more formal board recognition that the IMF’s No. 2 official, American John Lipsky, who has filled in since Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, will continue in the role for an interim period.”

It is understood that Strauss-Kahn’s replacement will have important policy implications, and a bitter struggle is already underway between European governments and the United States over the selection of a successor. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Europeans want to hold on to the top post at the IMF. “But the US,” the Journal writes, “as the largest single shareholder in the organization, will play a key role in determining the outcome.”

Maureen Dowd may not be particularly informed about the many critical interests at stake in the replacement of Strauss-Kahn, but the higher-ups at the New York Times are not naïve. It is an established fact that the newspaper’s executive editor, Bill Keller, coordinates the Times’ coverage of issues of critical importance with the US government. In this case, the inflammatory columns of Dowd and others contribute to the pressure that is being exerted to force Strauss-Kahn’s resignation.

French official public opinion has understandably been distressed both by the manner of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest and the decision by US law enforcement to parade him in handcuffs before the paparazzi. But the shock only indicates how little such Europeans understand of what has been developing in America in recent decades.

Right-wing journalist and philosopher Bernard Henry Lévy complains legitimately about the scandalous treatment of Strauss-Kahn, who, he says, has been “thrown to the dogs,” adding that nothing “permits the entire world to revel in the spectacle… of this handcuffed figure, his features blurred by 30 hours of detention and questioning.”

Figures like Lévy, however, have blinded themselves to social conditions in the US, so enamored have they been by “free market” propaganda. Lévy hasn’t cared to notice that more than 2.2 million people—the overwhelming majority treated as cruelly as Strauss-Kahn, or worse—are currently incarcerated in the human rights nightmare known as the United States.

The sad truth is that the vicious and vindictive character of the American “justice” system comes to light only when someone famous falls into its clutches.

The posturing of Dowd and others of her ilk as defenders of the poor and downtrodden is entirely hypocritical. The columnist claims that Americans “could pride themselves” that in the Strauss-Kahn case “justice will be done without regard to wealth, class or privilege.” She adds, “It’s an inspiring story about America, where even a maid can have dignity and be listened to when she accuses one of the most powerful men in the world of being a predator.”

What rubbish! In everyday life, chambermaids and the rest of the “help” are invisible to the upper middle class to which Dowd belongs.

Individuals such as Lévy have raised concerns, but the French establishment has responded with cowardice, or, as in the case of Nicolas Sarkozy, who sees a rival potentially eliminated, on the basis of short-term political calculations.

There is, no doubt, a real element of fear and intimidation in France and throughout Europe when it comes to the behavior of the US, which operates around the world like a criminal syndicate. Washington demanded (and gained) the release of CIA murderer Raymond Davis from a Pakistani prison in March. Can anyone imagine a leading American political figure being treated in Paris as Strauss-Kahn has been in New York with impunity?

The Strauss-Kahn affair raises critical questions. The World Socialist Web Site insists on the presumption of innocence and other fundamental democratic rights. There is no credible reason why he should not be released on bail. Those on the political left who foolishly believe that Strauss-Kahn’s fate is a matter of indifference—or should even be welcomed as just punishment for his personal wealth and political sins—understand nothing of the importance of democratic rights. It is worth pointing out, moreover, that socialist convictions are not based on small-minded vengefulness.

One certainly hopes that a competent defense, not cowed by the immense pressure into accepting a plea deal, will work to uncover the facts. For the authorities, especially if they are motivated by political goals, it is already a matter of “mission accomplished”—the destruction of Strauss-Kahn’s political standing.

When one concentrates on the facts of the case as reported, there exists ample reason—certainly at this point—to entertain very serious questions, well beyond the level of “reasonable doubt,” about the entire affair.

David North and David Walsh are senior political writers with the World Socialist Web Site.

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It begins early in B-schools across the country, as business students are constantly urged to dream up “profit centers” (how to squeeze the last nickel out of their customers) to advance their careers, making it clear to the future top executives that the company’s bottom line comes way ahead of the public interest (ads to the contrary).

The whole culture of business in the US is permeated with an antisocial ethic that later produces one scandal after another, and what makes the news is a tip of the iceberg.  Living in the current regime of largely unregulated capitalism is like living with a psychopath under the same roof: you turn your back at your own risk. —PGWatch video below (NBC Today Show, 5.19.11)
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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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by Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford

On Thursday, the worlds most cynical rhetorician will attempt to frame regime change and political assassination as defense of civilians and promotion of democracy. Only Americans will be fooled. President Obama has discarded all but the snakeskin of international law. “The Euro-American imperialists and Arab royal mafiosa hope their joint venture will quarantine or crush the Arab Reawakening outside its (barely and tentatively) ‘liberated’ territory in Egypt and Tunisia.”

“The shock of seeing the empire’s death pass in front of its eyes caused the Obama administration to kick the U.S. military’s Full Spectrum Dominance machinery into high gear.”

President Obama’s speech to “reset” the U.S. stance in the Middle East will take place at the State Department, but the Pentagon is the true epicenter of American policy toward the Arab Reawakening. Briefly paralyzed early in the year by the specter of resurgent Arab nationalism in the planet’s most vital energy reservoirs, Washington quickly launched a massive military assault on Libya in collaboration with European mini-imperialists to show the Arab world who’s really the boss. In the Persian Gulf region, the Saudi Arabian monarchy gathered up their fellow emirs, sultans and sheiks to safeguard the common patrimony of royal families against democratic or nationalist subversion.

Moammar Gaddafi was drafted as imperialism’s designated demon in North Africa, while Shi’ite Iran served as the scapegoat for royal reaction in the Gulf. The monarch-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council, acting through a confused Arab League, gave moral cover to the Euro-American bum-rush of an equally confused United Nations Security Council. “No-fly” Resolution 1973 landed on the heads of Libyan soldiers amidst the methodical destruction of the country’s infrastructure. Thousands of miles to the east, the Saudis and lesser royals brutally smashed the democratic aspirations of Bahrain’s Shia majority, and schemed to save Yemen from a peaceful people’s uprising.

“R2P is now wholly discredited in the eyes of the conscious world.”

In the short-term, the Euro-American imperialists and Arab royal mafiosa hope their joint venture will quarantine or crush the Arab Reawakening outside its (barely and tentatively) “liberated” territory in Egypt and Tunisia. But the shock of seeing the empire’s death pass in front of its eyes in the form of a democratic – and, by definition, anti-U.S. imperialism – Arab nationalist oil dominion caused the Obama administration to kick the U.S. military’s Full Spectrum Dominance machinery into high gear. The world needed to know that this president will not allow American spheres of hegemony to shrink on his watch, and that he has the means and the inclination to kill at will. In the space of a few days, hits were made on Osama bin Laden, Moammar Gaddafi and Yemeni-American Anwar al-Awlaki. Should anyone have been fooled by President Obama’s soothing “A New Beginning [8]” speech in Cairo back in June, 2009, they were quickly reminded that Assassinations-R-US.

At the State Department on Thursday, Obama will likely attempt to elevate “humanitarian” military intervention, or “Responsibility to Protect” (R2p), to something akin to an Obama Doctrine – weaving it into his rhetorical “reset” of relations with Arabs, Muslims and the Greater Middle East. Only the American audience (and imperial-minded Europeans) will take him seriously. No sooner was the UN Security Council resolution to “protect” Libyan civilians issued, than it was mangled into a mandate for regime change and political assassination at NATO’s discretion. International law became its opposite. R2P is now wholly discredited in the eyes of the conscious world –which, unfortunately, excludes most Americans.

The International Criminal Court, to which the United States is not a signatory, but which it deploys to indict selected Africans – and only Africans – for human rights offenses, has been eclipsed by Obama’s imperial offensive. Why go through the motions of indicting designated enemies, when Full Spectrum Dominance enables the U.S. to execute them at leisure. The Rubicon has been crossed. Obama’s “reset” speech will only prove that the First Black President is a more outrageously cynical international outlaw than his predecessor.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [9].

[10]

• assassinate Gaddafi Attack on Libya Full Spectrum Dominance humanitarian military intervention R2P Resolution 1973

Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/obama%E2%80%99s-imperial-offensive

Links:
[1] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/assassinate-gaddafi
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/attack-libya
[3] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/full-spectrum-dominance-0
[4] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/humanitarian-military-intervention
[5] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/r2p
[6] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/resolution-1973
[7] http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/obama_warmonger1.jpg
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1305724300-SLWGSRqj0WGIlSQW8VKQJw
[9] mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Does President Obama really want us to “make him do it,” to organize and agitate and create the conditions that will let him end the wars, cut the military budget, create jobs and address the hyper-incarceration of black and brown youth? Or is the “make me do it” president an urban legend who lives only inside our heads? A recent presidential encounter with Harry Belafonte tells more than some of us may want to know.

Watch Amy Goodman chat with the legendary Harry Belafonte on Obama and the current political situation:

There is a popular myth which explains President Barack Obama’s reluctance to stand up to Pentagon militarists, Wall Street banksters and corporate greedheads. This myth excuses the president for ignoring massive black unemployment and not providing his promised path to citizenship for the undocumented, for not using presidential authority to halt the foreclosure epidemic, or curbing the hyper-incarceration of black and brown youth. The myth of course, is that President Barack Obama really does want to do all these things and more, but if they haven’t happened it’s because we the people have abandoned our responsibility to somehow “make him do it.”

The myth stems from the apocryphal story of a meeting between African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph and President Franklin Roosevelt back in the 1940s. Randolph laid out black America’s list of demands for economic and social justice. In response, Roosevelt said he wanted to do all of it, but that Randolph and the movement of that time would still have to “make him” do these things.

Applied to the Obama presidency however, “make me do it” is a popular myth. It’s popular because the president and his lackeys repeat it endlessly. It’s a myth because it’s not true. Longtime activist Harry Belafonte, who played a key role in the Freedom Movement of the fifties and sixties, exploded the myth in a Democracy Now interview [8] broadcast on May 16.

Belafonte was asked by host Amy Goodman whether he’d used his occasional access to directly share his many critical and valuable public policy insights with the White House. Belafonte replied that his only access to the president has been for a few seconds at a time, not long enough for any substantive discussion. But, he said, at one such event President Obama approached him to inquire when Belafonte and Cornel West were going “to cut me some slack.”

“What makes you think we haven’t?” Belafonte replied to the president? At this point the brief encounter was over.

Let’s pause to think about that. When President Obama cusses out Cornel West [9] and personally demands that historic stalwarts of the movement for peace and justice “cut him some slack” on black unemployment, on foreclosures and the prison state, on torture and the military budget, on unjust wars and corporate welfare, on fulfilling the just demands of those who elected him, our first black president is revealing his real self. Far from saying “make me do it,” President Obama is saying how dare you pressure me to do what you elected me to do.

Harry Belafonte has done a great public service in helping us distinguish the imaginary Barack Obama of “make me do it” from the real Barack Obama, who demands our support, but expects us to “cut him some slack.” Rather than agitating and organizing in our communities to “make him do it” all the real President Obama wants of movement activists is for us to sit down and shut up, until it’s time to help chase everybody out to vote for him in 2012.

By then, there will be fewer chasers, and somewhat less chasing than in 2008. But this will be something that President Obama made us do, not the other way around. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com [10].

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and is based in Marietta GA, where he is on the state committee of the Georgia Green Party.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20110518_bd_make_me_do_it.mp3

Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/harry-belafonte-explodes-presidential-make-me-do-it-myth

Links:
[1] http://blackagendareport.com/category/other/ba-radio-commentary
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/african-america/black-misleadership-class
[3] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/cornel-west
[4] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/democrats
[5] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/harry-belafonte
[6] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/obamarama
[7] http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/cut_me_some_slack.jpg
[8] http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/16/sing_your_song_harry_belafonte_on
[9] http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_obama_deception_why_cornel_west_went_ballistic_20110516/
[10] http://www.blackagendareport.com/
[11] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackagendareport.com%2Fcontent%2Fharry-belafonte-explodes-presidential-make-me-do-it-myth&linkname=Harry%20Belafonte%20Explodes%20the%20Presidential%20%22Make%20Me%20Do%20It%22%20Myth

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