Bstcyrano.org/ Thomas Paine’s Corner
3/19/08
“Of Obama, Democrats, and the Power Elite”
Barack Obama is the living embodiment of his vague, ethereal, and tantalizing messages of “hope” and “change.” To the millions upon millions of US Americans desperate to purge the naked imperialism and blatant criminality of the Bush administration from the White House, Obama IS hope and change. Yet like many establishment liberals before him, Obama is no cure for the malignant creep toward fascism plaguing our nation. If elected, at best he will merely serve to postpone the inevitable a bit.
To understand why Obama and the ilk he took with him to DC would be little or no better than the human excrement currently occupying the tangible, visible positions of power in the US, let’s examine various facets of Obama(1) and of our rotten-to-the-core sociopolitical and socioeconomic systems.
Issue one is that Obama or no Obama, we are still stuck with a bourgeois democracy. Which means that despite all the rhetoric and mythologies about equality, freedom, meritocracy, opportunity, and a host of other lies that placate the masses and maintain the social order, the United States is a nation of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
Even if we suspend our critique of Obama for a moment and pretend he is a man of saintly virtue, trusting an Obama or a JFK or whomever to do the right thing by the nation, the environment, the people, etc. rests on the assumption that the American president is indeed an all-powerful figure capable of enacting or precipitating policies of tremendous consequence for the country. This illusion holds when the person in the executive office is moving within the traditional confines, values and methods of the capitalist system, which even such a “radical” as FDR observed. It would not hold for long, or at all, should the miracle happen and a true radical was actually elected.
In the case of a within-the-system-boundaries reformer of FDR’s magnitude, the media would not align and uniformly attack him and there would not be a capital strike (as savage capitalism has waged against true left reformers like Allende); we’d just see a sectoral division within the ruling class, and factions would develop—but the policy dialogue would remain within the historically acceptable parameters of capitalists elites. This is in fact what happened during the FDR years. Their principal interest would be to maintain and preserve as many of their privileges and as much of their way of life as possible. That was fine for FDR’s time.
However, let’s look at the larger picture we traverse today.
In the current circumstances we face we see a rapidly degenerating empire, in which the logical evisceration of FORMAL aspects of democracy proceeds accordingly. The prospect is for endless wars, more super-exploitation of the planet, and so on. If any “remedial” policies are implemented against judicial abuse, planetary death, or human/non-human animal exploitation in various contexts, these cannot take hold and neutralize the overarching slide toward worse because “toward worse” is embedded in the dynamics of the system—and how could it be otherwise in a socioeconomic structure premised on greed and selfishness? There are systemic contradictions at play that almost force the hand of capitalists to do what they do–for example they are now trying to roll back the social democratic gains of the European working class during the postwar period. Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi, and Sarkozy are no accidents. They represent the concerted effort of the European bourgeoisie, egged on by the American elites(2), to push back on the working class and take it all back under the pretext of “remaining competitive” and a plethora of other fraudulent reasons.
In the current circumstances we face we see a rapidly degenerating empire, in which the logical evisceration of formal aspects of democracy proceeds accordingly. The prospect is for endless wars, more super-exploitation of the planet, ore immiseration, and so on.
Capitalism faces insoluble issues. As the world’s population continues to grow, it cannot hope to cure unemployment—ever– because the dynamic of modern capitalist industry is toward ever larger portions of machine labor replacing human labor. Neither science nor technology can be stopped. And advancing technology naturally makes work production routines continuously more efficient, thereby reducing the need for human workers. This phenomenon can be seen nearly everywhere now (it was always there lurking right under the surface, but remained hidden from most via cultivated ignorance, lies, and the complicity of the media) including in “cheap labor” zones such as India and China, which at last count had more than 150 million unemployed. In many places in Europe one paycheck has to be spread among 2 or even 3 “employed” workers. That means that 2 jobs have vanished and the fiction of smaller unemployment is kept alive by musical chairs, a trick which is becoming increasingly transparent to many.
The American people, in keeping with their reputation as the most misinformed people on the planet, have been the slowest to recognize that as citizens of a clearly fibrillating bourgeois democracy they are perpetually teetering on the brink of fascism. Meanwhile, while the world edges ever closer to the edge, the media–including those revered phonies on the PBS Lehrer Newshour—rarely talk about these things and the politicians even less (both out of sheer ignorance and a sense that such topics are taboo), which enables the cancer to grow unchecked. What we do receive are fictions like those of Robert Reich and his ilk, who go about preaching the pseudocure of “better education” and job retraining for technological unemployment. Reich–a terrifically intelligent fellow—may really believe his own message, but either way, it doesn’t matter because the solution is no solution. This is not to say that under any and all circumstances it’s not better to be educated. However the structural aspects of a capitalist economy at this point make that posture moot: all the titles in the world will not get you a job when the economy says it needs only 5 PhDs and 10 skilled technicians while there are 25,000 PhDs and 15 million technicians clamoring for jobs. (Check out Jeremy Rifkin’s THE END OF WORK, to get a taste of what this is all about).
Those who bank on stopping the slide to fascism through a liberal president are deluding themselves, because the American president is powerful ONLY when he’s playing with the consent of most of the ruling class and the institutions it controls. Such personal power deflates rapidly when playing against the values and consensus of the US power elite, at which point a “rogue president” would likely suffer a wave of opposition that would literally bring them down–via impeachment or through a coup orchestrated during a state of tumult created by capital strikes, agents provocateurs, and the media. Not to mention even a military takeover.
Further, we must recall that the slide to fascism is both a witting and unwitting choice by the bourgeoisie in power. The very essence of capitalism is anarchy: anarchy in production, anarchy in distribution and so on. Military precision may rule the day within each business entity, but from the larger societal perspective there is little coordination, and much waste of resources and human power, inherent in the selfish dynamic of the companies in play. Hence the horrific duplication and waste we see. For example, in the health care sector up to 1/3 of costs are squandered on paper-shuffling and marketing alone. None of this is likely to change until one deals with the fatal flaws of capitalism, which an Obama is about as likely to do as a lion is to go vegetarian.
Remember that FDR’s reforms (FDR representing the classic example of the “savior” liberal president), radical as they seem now (and denounced at the time by many fellow capitalists as sheer communism and rank “class betrayal”) were never such; they were simply realistic measures to save the store that remained at all times totally respectful of the rights of private big business property. Thus FDR never really went deep into the question of workplace democracy, production choices, income distribution, or many other issues that would have meant a true clash of class interests. And WWII of course obscured all that. Sure, FDR entered the war against the Axis, and MOMENTARILY a segment of official propaganda shifted to demonize the Germans and Japanese insteads of the “Reds”, but those were not so much antifascist/anti-imperialist sentiments as nationalist power calculations.
The above means that if the ruling cliques deem it necessary to take the “nice mask” of democracy off (a big gamble since they may never restore the “legitimacy” they retain through this ruse), it will happen, no matter who’s nominally in charge at the White House. In the case of the Bush/Cheney duo, they were born to stage the perfect friendly fascist coup and have almost pulled it off in slow motion over the last eight years. But if confronted with a less cooperative president, the power elite would find a way to neutralize him. We’re dealing with a huge cast of actors here, many with colossal stakes, and who have enormous resources at their disposal to create all sorts of mischief, which they have done at taxpayer expense all over the world for years. These criminals will not give up their accustomed ways without a fight. In fact, they will do as Bush/Cheney have done and go on the offensive in a nearly transparent way.
What the world needs—desperately (and we are using this word sans hyperbole here) are dramatic changes in policies and top personnel and new models of advanced democratic enfranchisement. That means real democratic restructuring, proportional representation, certifiable elections, workplace democracy, a disenfranchisement of the power and income rights of the reigning plutocracy, and an effective global program of ecological respect and sanity. Do you see that being initiated under ANY establishment politico, including “Mr. Change” himself? Do you see any of these radical (yet utterly necessary) changes being implemented without a HUGE fight from capital and its affiliated elites around the globe?
Even if, and that is a big if, Obama wanted to institute beneficent change, he would be facing impossible odds. Need proof? Consider one of the ugliest and most absurd contradictions of American capitalism. Despite frontpage acknowledgment by the crypto-fascist WSJ in 1973 that 68% of US Americans supported a universal, single-payer healthcare system, the fact that even fellow capitalist nations have such a system, and the reality that our existing health care system is ruining many capitalists in the US (especially those in the small and middle sectors but even making corporate giants like GM uncompetitive), the health of the masses remains tertiary to the profits of health-care industry giants and to the availability of the gold standard in health care to a relative few. Think Obama and his family don’t have the best medical care known to man?
The American people must de-link themselves from our farcical presidential election circus, turn their eyes to a different kind of electoral politics, leave electoral politics entirely, or develop and field new forms of oppositional struggle. This may and will probably entail the formation of mass mobilization instruments such as a real popular party. In all these tasks, the Democrats like Obama just stand in the way, beguiling the people with illusions and sucking up precious oxygen. That long journey has to be made, and the sooner the better. Trying to avoid the arrival of fascism by appealing to the “good cop” of the bourgeoisie is an illusion; fascism can only be stopped when the masses are organized—and fully aware.
Some think we gain time for such organization under the Democrats. Problem is, the Democrats and their half measures that appear to thwart the capitalist juggernaut are what keeps the masses enthralled with the system and in effect dissuade them from joining the struggle against it. The public will not do what needs to be done until professional and charismatic charlatans like Obama are revealed for what they are. Band-aid solutions by the Democrats will not stop the slide toward the disaster and chaos guaranteed by the dynamics of the system.
Simply look at what has happened with the subprime crisis, an abortion that wriggled and writhed its way directly from the foul womb of a freewheeling, mature, ultra-cynical crony capitalism. It was a deep-rooted phenomenon that happened as inevitably as the transformation of undifferentiated cells into cancers. Politicians could not see it or stop it because that’s not their job under the traditional task distribution of the system.
Obama or anyone else in the establishment can’t cure the myriad ills of capitalism. These ills can never be cured from within or through playing by the accepted rules of the world’s plutocracy. That’s why all American politicians are into tinkering and superficialities. Their programs and “solutions” to the most glaring and obvious aspects of a severely broken system are complex, almost ludicrous Rube Goldberg contraptions (the health system comes to mind yet again). Obama and his fellow liberals are incredible illusionists: they give the people the distinct impression they are acting to cure the very disease that provides the life-blood to the opulent class whose interests they strive so hard to preserve. This would be obvious to most US Americans and the WaPo, the WSJ, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, the NY Times and even the CIA headquarters would have been stoned and razed to the ground already if so many of us were not braindead and kept in that vegetative state by the corporate media, an entity that more aware Latin Americans justly call, the “falsimedia.”
So if Obama–let alone Hillary–won’t and can’t guarantee the defeat of friendly-fascism in America, what’s the point? Sure, Obama very intelligently trades on HOPE. And many people, us included, are always loath to give up on hope. Hope is a powerful drug. Cyrano is in itself a work of HOPE. So this is tricky territory.
But hope must always be tempered with reason, especially in politics and war. And no reasonable human being could conclude that putting Obama at the helm of the USS Titanic will avert disaster for anyone but him and his cronies in the first class berths.
Suddenly Ralph Nader doesn’t sound like such a ridiculous option, unless you’re a plutocrat or a corporado.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Patrice Greanville is Cyrano’s Journal Online’s founder and editor in chief. Jason Miller is CJO’s Associate Editor and Editorial Director of Thomas Paine’s Corner, Cyrano’s largest blog.
Further Reading:
(1) Check out radical historian and activist Paul Street’s thorough deconstruction of Obama at: http://www.bestcyrano.org/p.streetonObama2.2.07.htm
(2) For a penetrating analysis of the power structure of our bourgeois democracy, take a look at this excerpt from C Wright Mills’s “Power Elite:” http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Book_Excerpts/HigherCircles_PE.html
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APPENDIX: On the next page we present a great example of modern, p.r. managed, snake oil. Read and see how convincing this kind of oratory can be in the hands of an expert and gifted demagog.
Barack Obama’s Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
July 27, 2004 at 12:00 AM EST
[Sorry, the video for this story has expired, but you can still read the transcript below. ]
TRANSCRIPT
BARACK OBAMA: On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant.
But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place; America which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before. While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor he signed up for duty, joined Patton’s army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west in search of opportunity.
And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents. My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or “blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential. They are both passed away now. Yet, I know that, on this night, they look down on me with pride.
I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible. Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody’s son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — or at least, most of the time.
This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. And fellow Americans — Democrats, Republicans, Independents — I say to you tonight: we have more work to do. More to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that’s moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college.
Don’t get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.
In this election, we offer that choice. Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. That man is John Kerry. John Kerry understands the ideals of community, faith, and sacrifice, because they’ve defined his life. From his heroic service in Vietnam to his years as prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he has devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we’ve seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available. His values and his record affirm what is best in us.
John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded. So instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he’ll offer them to companies creating jobs here at home. John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves. John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren’t held hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil fields. John Kerry believes in the constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties nor use faith as a wedge to divide us. And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world, war must be an option, but it should never be the first option.
A while back, I met a young man named Shamus at the VFW Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid, 6’2” or 6’3”, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he’d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. As I listened to him explain why he’d enlisted, his absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all any of us might hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us? I thought of more than 900 service men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who will not be returning to their hometowns. I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one’s full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or with nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists. When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.
Now let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated. John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure. John Kerry believes in America. And he knows it’s not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga.
A belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper — that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one.
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill worker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!
In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. America!
Tonight, if you feel the same energy I do, the same urgency I do, the same passion I do, the same hopefulness I do — if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president, and John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president, and this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come. Thank you and God bless you.
